People v. Celis CA5, F086697

Nathan Henry Celis was convicted of assault on a child under eight causing coma by brain injury, and felony child endangerment, with a life sentence on count 1 and a stayed 10-year term on count 2.
On his first appeal (Celis I), the appellate court affirmed the conviction but remanded for resentencing due to amendments to Penal Code section 654 (Assembly Bill 518).
At resentencing, Celis waived his personal appearance, citing disruption to his prison programs, and his counsel prepared a written waiver signed by Celis.
The trial court resentenced Celis but did not order a supplemental probation report or recalculate presentence time credits; it also failed to issue an amended abstract of judgment.
Celis appealed, arguing his waiver was not valid, his absence violated statutory and constitutional rights, the lack of a supplemental probation report was error, and these errors prejudiced him.
The People conceded some errors but argued, as did Celis, that these combined warranted another resentencing hearing.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Validity of Waiver of Presence	Waiver did not meet statutory requirements, was invalid	Written waiver not knowing/intelligent/voluntary	Waiver was knowing, intelligent, voluntary; no violation
Statutory Authorization to Waive	Section 977(b) doesn't authorize absence at sentencing	Section 977(b) requires physical or remote presence	Any statutory error was harmless—not prejudicial
Failure to Order Supp. Probation Report	Not ordering was error & prejudicial	Lack deprived Celis of chance to show maturity/remorse	Error, but harmless—no probability of more favorable result
Failure to Recalculate Time Credits	Proper recalculation not performed at resentencing	No argument	Trial court must recalculate credits, issue amended abstract

People v. Watson, 46 Cal.2d 818 (Cal. 1956) (sets standard for harmless error in California state law)
People v. Robertson, 48 Cal.3d 18 (Cal. 1989) (discusses waiver of presence at sentencing)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (U.S. 1984) (presumption of counsel competence)