Where county jail felony sentence is made concurrent to state prison term imposed by different court, defendant must serve the entire sentence in prison, even though the state prison term expires before the county jail sentence. Appellant pled guilty in several cases to nonserious offenses. In one case from Tulare County she was sentenced prior to October 1, 2011 to state prison; had she been sentenced after October 1, the offenses would have resulted in a county jail term. Another case from Fresno County was sentenced after October 1; although it was a county jail felony, appellant was ordered to serve the term concurrently in state prison. On appeal she argued that, unlike consecutive sentences, concurrent terms do not “merge” pursuant to Penal Code section 1170, subdivision (a) and, therefore, appellant should be entitled to serve the balance of her county jail term locally, rather than in state prison. Held: Affirmed. To move appellant from state prison to county jail to serve a concurrent county jail term would be a waste of resources and place undue burdens on county probation departments. It would be contrary to the Legislature’s intent in enacting the Postrelease Community Service Supervision Act of 2011, which aims to provide services after release from prison to reintegrate a defendant back into society. This interpretation is confirmed by the amendment to section 669, which now provides for concurrent county jail terms to be served in state prison, when a prison term is imposed. This revision applies whether multiple sentences are imposed by one court or different courts.
Case Summaries