People v. Kindall, 6 Cal. App. 5th 1199

Defendant Tommie Lee Kindall was convicted by a jury of felony battery causing serious bodily injury and two misdemeanors (assault and domestic violence).
After the verdict but before the court trial on prior prison-term enhancements (§ 667.5(b)), three prior felony drug convictions were reduced to misdemeanors under Proposition 47 (§ 1170.18).
At the court trial on priors, the trial court found seven prior prison terms true, including three based on the now-reduced drug convictions, and sentenced Kindall to the upper term of 4 years plus seven one-year prior-term enhancements (totaling 11 years, with nine in county jail and two years supervised release).
Kindall appealed, alleging ineffective assistance for failure to object to prosecutor’s closing arguments, challenging the three prior-term enhancements based on convictions reduced under Prop. 47, and noting a typographical error in the abstract of judgment (restitution fine).
The Court of Appeal affirmed in part, held the three prior-term enhancements based on convictions reduced to misdemeanors must be stricken, rejected the ineffective-assistance claim, and directed correction of the abstract (restoration of the $3,300 restitution fine figure).

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
1. Whether defense counsel was ineffective for failing to object to prosecutor's closing remarks	Prosecutor's comments were proper argument tied to the evidence and instructions; objections would be futile	Failure to object forfeited prosecutorial-misconduct claim; counsel was ineffective	Rejected: record does not show counsel acted below standards or that objections would have succeeded; no ineffective assistance on direct appeal
2. Whether three prior prison-term enhancements (§ 667.5(b)) based on felonies reduced to misdemeanors under Prop. 47 must be stricken	People: current felony preceded reductions, so priors still usable; Prop. 47 reductions should not be applied retroactively to defeat enhancements	Kindall: at time priors were adjudicated, the convictions were misdemeanors “for all purposes,” so they cannot support prior-felony findings	Granted for these three priors: once reduced before adjudication of priors, they were not "previous felony convictions" and cannot support § 667.5(b) enhancements
3. Whether the abstract of judgment correctly states the restitution fine amount	Agreed court record controls; abstract contains typographical error	Court should correct abstract to reflect $3,300 fine	Court directed correction of abstract to reflect the $3,300 restitution fine

People v. Linton, 56 Cal.4th 1146 (addresses preservation of prosecutorial-misconduct claims and the need for timely objections)
People v. Ledesma, 43 Cal.3d 171 (ineffective-assistance of counsel standard)
People v. Tenner, 6 Cal.4th 559 (prior prison-term finding requires proof defendant was previously convicted of a felony)
People v. Rivera, 233 Cal.App.4th 1085 (discussion of Prop. 47 reduction language and retroactivity considerations)
People v. Park, 56 Cal.4th 782 (section 17 reduction to misdemeanor cannot thereafter support certain prior enhancements; interprets "misdemeanor for all purposes" language)