People v. Wimberly CA3, C101179

Larry Wimberly was convicted in Oklahoma in 1990 for second degree rape after pleading no contest.
In 2000, Wimberly pled no contest to failing to register as an out-of-state sex offender in California (case 1) and was sentenced to prison.
In 2003, after being convicted by a California jury for rape and kidnapping, his prior Oklahoma rape was found sufficiently similar to California’s rape statute to qualify for sentencing enhancements for habitual sexual offenders (case 2).
Wimberly later challenged the use of his Oklahoma conviction in both cases, arguing it should not have triggered the sex offender registration or sentencing enhancements.
The trial court denied his motion to vacate the conviction and request for resentencing. Both denials were appealed.

Issue	Wimberly's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Whether evidence supporting motion to vacate was "newly discovered" under § 1473.7	The absence of an Oklahoma registration order was not previously known; therefore, he was innocent of failing to register.	Wimberly knew or could have known the evidence in 2001; not "newly discovered."	Wimberly’s claim is forfeited; evidence was not truly new or undiscoverable.
Whether the 2003 habitual sexual offender sentence was unauthorized	Oklahoma conviction did not qualify for habitual sexual offender sentencing; sentence should be corrected.	The sentence complied with law at the time; subsequent legal changes do not retroactively apply.	Sentence was not unauthorized; law was properly applied in 2003.
Appealability of trial court’s denial of § 1172.1 request	The trial court’s merits analysis rendered the order appealable.	Defendant-initiated petitions are not appealable under statute.	Order was appealable because the court addressed the merits.
Correction of abstract of judgment in case 2	Parties agree the abstract should reflect the correct current sentence.	Agrees.	Clerk ordered to correct the abstract to show 100 years to life plus 5 years.

People v. Riel, 22 Cal.4th 1153 (Cal. 2000) (allowed courts to examine the full record of a foreign conviction to assess equivalence to California law)
People v. Anderson, 9 Cal.5th 946 (Cal. 2020) (distinguished between "unauthorized" and "erroneous" sentences; only the former can be corrected at any time)
People v. McGee, 38 Cal.4th 682 (Cal. 2006) (allowed factfinding from records of out-of-state prior convictions for sentencing)
Dix v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.3d 442 (Cal. 1991) (discussed courts' jurisdiction to resentence after execution of a sentence has begun)