People v. John ( 2019 )

Filed 6/12/19
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION TWO
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent, E070022
v. (Super.Ct.No. 16CR022994)
SHELLY ELAINE JOHN, OPINION
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Dwight W. Moore,
Judge. Reversed with directions.
Denise M. Rudasill, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and
Appellant.
Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney
General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Robin Urbanski and Alastair J.
Agcaoili, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Defendant Shelly Elaine John was permitted to plead guilty to the felony offenses
alleged against her; but, the trial court accepted a stipulation that she was insane at the
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time she committed the offenses and should serve her sentence in a state hospital where
her sanity could be restored. Less than five months after the trial court committed
defendant to Patton State Hospital, she moved to withdraw her plea pursuant to Penal
Code section 1018. The trial court denied the motion as untimely, presumably because it
believed judgment had already been entered. In her brief, defendant argued, and the
People conceded, defendant’s motion was timely because judgment had not yet been
entered, and the case should be remanded for the trial court to consider the motion on its
merits.
Although we agree with the parties that judgment was never entered and,
consequently, defendant’s motion to withdraw her guilty plea was timely filed, we
conclude the root of the problem in this case is the unauthorized and illegal plea bargain
the trial court should not have accepted in the first place. Therefore, rather than merely
reverse and remand for a hearing on the merits of defendant’s motion to withdraw her
plea, the proper remedy is to vacate the plea agreement in its entirety and return the
parties to the status quo ante. During oral argument before this court, the parties agreed
such a disposition is appropriate under the unique facts of this case. On remand, the
defendant will be permitted to enter a new plea and, if the parties again negotiate a plea
agreement, the trial court must determine whether it is lawful and should be accepted.
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I.
PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND1
The People charged defendant by felony complaint with committing various
offenses and alleged defendant had previously been convicted of a serious or violent
felony offense. At her in-custody arraignment, defendant pleaded not guilty to all counts
and the prior conviction allegation.
At a prepreliminary hearing, defendant’s attorney declared a doubt about
defendant’s competency to stand trial. The trial court suspended the proceedings and
ordered defendant evaluated pursuant to Penal Code sections 1368 and 1369 (all
additional undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code). After receiving a
report from a physician who opined defendant was competent to stand trial, the trial court
declared defendant to be competent and reinstated the proceedings.
Defendant was subsequently held to answer, and the People filed an information.
Defendant pleaded “deny” to all charges and allegations in the information. At a pretrial
hearing, defendant was permitted to change her pleas to not guilty and not guilty by
reason of insanity (NGI). The trial court ordered a psychiatric/psychological evaluation
pursuant to section 1026. After several continuances, the matter was set for a hearing to
take a new plea from defendant.
1 The underlying facts of the offenses alleged in this case are irrelevant to the
issue on appeal.
3
Pursuant to a plea agreement, defendant agreed to plead guilty to all counts and
admit to having suffered a prior serious or violent felony conviction in exchange for a
term of 14 years. However, the prosecutor and defendant stipulated to a finding that
defendant was insane when she committed the offenses, and she would “serve her
sentence” in Patton State Hospital or another facility maintained by the California
Department of State Hospitals (department). Defendant therefore changed her pleas of
not guilty and entered pleas of guilty, which the court accepted along with the parties’
additional stipulation that defendant was insane at the time she committed the offenses.
The court “adjudicated [her] not guilty by reason of insanity.”2
After receiving the probation officer’s recommendation, the trial court sentenced
defendant to 14 years in state prison but, pursuant to the stipulation, referred her to the
department for placement assessment. And, after receiving the assessment report, the
trial court committed defendant to the custody of the department until her competency
was restored, but for no more than 14 years.
2 Technically speaking, the plea agreement did call for defendant to enter a plea
of NGI, and she did not enter one on the record. However, as explained, post, a person
who pleads guilty is conclusively presumed to have been sane when she committed her
crimes (§ 1016), and the trial court could not have found defendant to have been insane
and committed her to Patton State Hospital in the absence of a plea of NGI. Therefore,
we will treat the parties’ stipulation as a plea of NGI.
4
Five months into her commitment to Patton State Hospital, defendant, through
counsel, informed the trial court that she wished to withdraw her plea and requested that
she be transported to court for that purpose.3 At the initial hearing on defendant’s motion
to withdraw her plea, the trial judge indicated he was unsure whether defendant could do
so because “there’s a deadline to do that, to bring that motion. I think that deadline has
already passed, but I’m not positive.” The court accepted defendant’s oral motion but
continued the hearing “to do some research to determine if [the] motion is timely or not.”
At the continued hearing, the judge indicated the procedural posture of defendant’s
motion was “clearly in the middle of terra incognita” because he was unable to find any
authority for the proposition that a person who pleads NGI and is committed to a state
hospital may, “after the passage of several months, make a motion to withdraw the plea.”
Although the judge found no statute that authorized defendant’s motion and no statute
that barred it, he indicated granting defendant a “broad-ranging right to withdraw [her]
plea at any time under any circumstances” would encourage a person who had been
committed to Patton State Hospital for 10 years to “decide somewhere down the road [he
or she] wants to withdraw their plea.” Therefore, the court denied the motion.
Defendant timely appealed and, upon request, received a certificate of probable
cause.
3The record does not indicate what plea defendant wished to withdraw: her
guilty pleas, her stipulated plea of NGI or both.
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II.
DISCUSSION
Section 1018 provides, in relevant part, a defendant may, for good cause shown,
be permitted to withdraw a guilty plea. A defendant may apply to withdraw her guilty
plea “any time before judgment” or within six months of an order granting probation if
entry of judgment is suspended. (§ 1018.) “In a criminal case, judgment is rendered
when the trial court orally pronounces sentence.” (People v. Karaman (1992) 4 Cal. 4th
335, 344, fn. 9.) As explained, post, commitment of an insane defendant to a state mental
hospital is not a sentence or the entry of judgment. However, such a commitment order is
considered a final judgment for the limited purpose of appeal (§ 1237, subd. (a)), and
denial of defendant’s motion to withdraw her plea is deemed to be an appealable
postjudgment order. (Id., subd. (b).)
The only responsive pleadings available to a criminal defendant are a demurrer or
a plea. (§ 1002.) Inter alia, a defendant may plead guilty, not guilty, and NGI. (§ 1016.)
Section 1016 provides: “A defendant who does not plead guilty may enter one or more of
the other pleas.” (Italics added.) And, a defendant who does not plead NGI (which
necessarily includes a defendant who only pleads guilty) “shall be conclusively presumed
to have been sane at the time of the commission of the offense charged . . . .” (§ 1016.)
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By necessary implication, a defendant who pleads guilty may not enter another
plea and is conclusively presumed to have been sane at the time she committed the
offense, unless she timely moves to withdraw her guilty plea and enter a new plea before
trial or before the entry of judgment. (§§ 1016, 1018.) This makes sense because a plea
of guilty is incompatable with a plea of NGI. “‘A guilty plea admits every element of the
offense charged and is a conclusive admission of guilt.’” (People v. Maultsby (2012) 53
Cal. 4th 296, 302) And, unless the guilty plea is withdrawn, it admits “the sanity of the
defendant at the time he [or she] committed [the offense], for a person legally insane
cannot be guilty of the commission of a crime while such legal insanity exists.” (People
v. Morgan (1935) 9 Cal. App. 2d 612, 615 [assuming, but not deciding, a defendant may
enter guilty and NGI pleas].) Once a defendant pleads guilty, the trial court should
promptly sentence her as appropriate. (§§ 1191, 1202.)
“A defendant who pleads not guilty by reason of insanity, without also pleading
not guilty, thereby admits the commission of the offense charged.” (§ 1016; see People
v. Morgan, supra, 9 Cal.App.2d at p. 615 [plea of NGI without additional plea of not
guilty is “a plea of confession and avoidance”].) Because a not guilty plea places at issue
all material allegations in the accusatory pleading (§ 1019), a defendant may combine a
plea of not guilty and NGI. When a defendant combines those pleas, she is first tried as if
she had only pleaded not guilty and, in that trial, she shall be conclusively presumed to
have been sane at the time she committed the offense. (§ 1026, subd. (a).) A verdict of
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not guilty ends the matter. But, if the jury finds her guilty, the trial court shall promptly
conduct a second trial to determine whether she was sane when she committed the
offense. (Ibid.) If the jury concludes she was sane, the trial court shall sentence her as
appropriate. (§§ 1191, 1202.) If, however, the jury concludes she was insane, the trial
court shall commit her to the department for treatment and restoration of her sanity.
(§ 1026, subd. (a); see generally People v. Dobson (2008) 161 Cal. App. 4th 1422, 1430-
1432.) Because a defendant who only pleads NGI admits to having committed the
offense (§ 1016), the guilt trial is dispensed with, and the trial court proceeds directly to a
trial to determine whether she was sane when she committed the offense. (§ 1026,
subd. (a).)
In this case, defendant, pursuant to an agreement with the prosecutor, entered
guilty pleas to all charges in exchange for a recommended sentence of 14 years in a state
hospital based on a stipulation that she was insane when she committed the offenses. The
trial court accepted defendant’s guilty pleas, but then found her not guilty by reason of
insanity pursuant to the stipulation and purported to sentence her to 14 years in a state
hospital. And when defendant subsequently moved to withdraw one or more of her pleas
(see ante, fns. 2-3), the trial court denied the motion as untimely because, presumably,
the court believed it had already entered judgment.
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Except for the limited purpose of appeal, the unorthodox and unauthorized plea
agreement accepted by the trial court in this case did not result in a judgment, final or
otherwise. As the People concede, commitment to a state hospital is not a “sentence,” so
defendant was never actually sentenced. (See People v. Dobson, supra, 161 Cal.App.4th
at p. 1432 [“The commitment of the defendant to a state hospital [after a Penal Code
section 1026 insanity determination] ‘is in lieu of criminal punishment and is for the
purpose of treatment, not punishment.’”].) Therefore, as the People also concede,
judgment has not yet been entered (People v. Karaman, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 344, fn. 9),
and defendant’s motion was timely under section 1018.
But, we conclude, and the parties now agree, we should not simply reverse the
order denying defendant’s motion to withdraw her plea and remand for a hearing on the
merits. As demonstrated, ante, a plea of guilty cannot be combined with a plea of NGI to
the same charges. An illegal plea bargain is null and void. (See People v. Massie (1998)
19 Cal. 4th 550, 564 [“‘[A]n unlawful guilty plea is null’”].) “Where a trial court is asked
to approve an illegal plea bargain—illegal because it violates a policy condition
established by the Legislature or the people through the initiative process—the proper
course of action for the court is clear. It should decline to act in excess of its authority
and should refuse to approve an arrangement under which it is called upon to do so.” (In
re V.B. (2006) 141 Cal. App. 4th 899, 908; accord, People v. Soriano (1992) 4 Cal. App. 4th
781, 785 [“‘Faced with . . . an unlawful plea bargain, a trial court should withhold
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approval of the bargain.’”].) Therefore, we reverse the order denying defendant’s motion
and vacate the trial court’s approval of the plea agreement and the order committing
defendant to Patton State Hospital. On remand, defendant shall enter a new plea.
III.
DISPOSITION
The order denying defendant’s motion to withdraw her plea or pleas is reversed.
The approval of defendant’s plea bargain with the People and the stipulated order
committing defendant to Patton State Hospital is vacated. The matter is remanded for the
defendant to enter a new plea.
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
McKINSTER
Acting P. J.
We concur:
MILLER
J.
RAPHAEL
J.
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