Giving credit where credit is due

Sentencing laws have changed significantly in recent years, leading to frequent resentencing hearings. After a defendant is resentenced, how does the court calculate credits? The answer is not intuitive. The recently published case, People v. Dean, 2024 DJDAR 959 (filed 1/31/24) (No. A166863), provides direction.

Lamont Dean was originally sentenced following trial. He appealed and the appellate court remanded his case due to an intervening change in the sentencing law. On remand, the trial court imposed a lower sentence and recalculated custody credits by using the time Dean had served in prison to update his conduct credits. Dean argued in his second appeal the trial court should have updated only the calculation of actual time in prison, leaving it to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to determine conduct credits.

The court of appeal agreed with Dean, citing People v. Buckhalter (2001) 26 Cal.4th 20, 30-31, where the California Supreme Court examined the separate conduct credit schemes used for presentence and postsentence custody. Buckhalter held that when a case is remanded for resentencing, the trial court has a duty to update the calculation for all actual time served, whether in county jail or prison. But conduct credits are limited to the time spent in jail up to the original sentence. Any term-shortening credits after that date must be calculated by CDCR. (Id., at pp. 29-31.)

The Dean court acknowledged that trial courts have customarily recalculated both actual credit time and conduct credits for postsentence custody due to a misreading of Buckhalter. This practice used to be “harmless overreach” because the trial courts used the same calculation method as CDCR. Now, with changes in the law, CDCR may use different criteria in certain situations. To avoid any confusion and to follow the mandates of Buckhalter, the abstract of judgment following resentencing should state all actual time in custody, including time in prison, but only include the initial presentence conduct credits. CDCR is then free to determine any additional credits that are due.