P v. Mendoza (2nd Dist, Div.6) Granting a PC 1170.18 Petition Confers The Right To Resentence on any Component of an Aggregate Term

(A parenthetical to the title would read: appellate court recognizes the right of insecure and cynical trial judges to indulge in schadenfreude to assuage their disappointment at having their power curtailed.)

Prior to 2014, Mr. Mendoza was sentenced on two felony cases.  In the first case, the principal sentence, he was effectively sentenced to 7 years, 8 months.  The first case had three counts.  On count one, the sentence was 32 months plus a five year enhancement.  The sentences on counts two and three were 4 years, 8 months each count, to run concurrent.

In case number two, the subordinate sentence, the court imposed 16 months on the sole count, to run consecutive to case number one.  The total effective sentence was nine years.  

Four years on, the trial court granted Mendoza's petition under PC 1170.18 to reduce his conviction in case number two to a misdemeanor, with a maximum sentence of 12 months.  The effect was to reduce Mendoza's sentence from 9 years to 8 years, 8 months.  However, this reduction offended the trial judge.  So she resentenced Mendoza on case number one, increasing the sentence from 7 years 8 months to 9 years (meaning the total new sentence was 10 years).  Mendoza appeals.

The Second District affirms the ability of the trial court to resentence Mendoza on the primary sentence, despite it being unaffected by the PC 1170.18 petition (though it does reduce the effective sentence back to nine years).  The reasoning provides no succor to the intellectually hungry reader.  The sole justification is a citation to a banal aphorism contained within a decision of the same district on a different issue.  The true legal issue is by what mechanism a trial court regains jurisdiction over a case unaffected by a 1170.18 petition.  The reader will have to wait for a more capable panel (or court) to answer this question.

The real motivation behind all this nonsense is the insecurity that government job-holders feel when power, which they've acquired via fiat rather than individual merit, is curtailed (by fiat).  The trial judge here is one Patricia Murphy.  I have never appeared in Ventura's superior court, nor do I know anything about the Honorable Judge Murphy, but if I had to guess, I'd say she is a former prosecutor who ascended to the bench via a political appointment (likely by a Republican governor).