skip to Main Content
Name: People v. Riggs
Case #: C029575
Court: CA Court of Appeal
District 3 DCA
Opinion Date: 12/06/2000
Subsequent History: Opinion on Rehearing of 2/2/01 at: 86 Cal. App. 4th 1126
Summary

Here, appellant was convicted of receiving stolen property and he admitted having suffered a “strike” prior for a 1995 robbery conviction. Because appellant had been previously sentenced in El Dorado County, the Placer County Superior Court, pursuant to Penal Code section 1170.1, resentenced appellant on the El Dorado County offense when it imposed sentence for the Placer County offense. The Placer court imposed the middle term of two years, doubled, for the Placer offense and the strike. The Placer Court then imposed 1/3 of the middle term, or eight months consecutive for the El Dorado conviction, and doubled it based on the strike admitted in the Placer prosecution, for a total of five years four months. The Court of Appeal upheld this calculation of the sentence, finding that the sentence for the El Dorado offense was properly recalculated and reimposed pursuant to Penal Code section 1170.1, and properly doubled thereafter. Justice Blease dissented in part, finding that the term imposed for the El Dorado conviction was not subject to doubling under the “strike” law because the language of the statute clearly states that the doubling is to apply only to the “current felony conviction.”