People v. Williams

Aug 4, 2026
B340026

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Tammy Chung Ryu, Judge. Affirmed.

Richard L. Fitzer, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Steven D. Matthews and Ryan M. Smith, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

INTRODUCTION

In 2018, defendant Safari Williams pled no contest to evading the police while driving recklessly, and she admitted a prior strike allegation and two prior prison term allegations. The court sentenced Williams to eight years in prison, including two years for the prior prison term enhancements.

About a year later, Williams was sentenced to nearly 80 years to life in prison in a different case, which included a one-year term for a prior prison term enhancement. A different division of this court later struck Williams‘s prior prison term enhancement and reduced her sentence in the other case.

In 2023, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) notified the trial court in this case that Williams qualified for resentencing under Penal Code section 1172.751 because she was serving a sentence that included prior prison term enhancements. The next year, the trial court held a hearing under section 1172.75. The court found that because Williams had served the entirety of her sentence in this case, and because the Court of Appeal struck the prior prison term in her other case, Williams was not currently serving a sentence that included any invalid prior prison term enhancements. The court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to recall Williams‘s sentence and resentence her under section 1172.75.

Williams appeals, arguing that the trial court was required to conduct a full resentencing, including resentencing her in her second case in which she received a nearly 80-years-to-life sentence, because that sentence was part of her total aggregate sentence, including the one imposed in this case. We reject this argument.

Williams acknowledges that she served her entire sentence in this case by the time the court held a hearing under section 1172.75. Williams also does not dispute that the prior prison term enhancement in her other case had already been stricken by the Court of Appeal before that hearing. Thus, when the court held a hearing under section 1172.75, Williams was no longer serving a term for a judgment that included a prior prison term enhancement. As a result, Williams is not eligible for recall and resentencing under that statute. We therefore affirm the court‘s order denying resentencing.

BACKGROUND

In 2018, the People charged Williams with felony evading the police while driving recklessly under Vehicle Code section 2800.2. The People alleged that Williams committed the offense for the benefit of a criminal street gang and while she was on parole. The People further alleged that Williams suffered several prior strike convictions and served several prior prison terms.

Later that year, Williams pled no contest to a felony violation of Vehicle Code section 2800.2, and she admitted one prior strike allegation and two prior prison term allegations. The trial court sentenced Williams to a total term of eight years in prison, consisting of the high term of three years for violating Vehicle Code section 2800.2, doubled to six years under the “Three Strikes” law, plus two years for the prior prison term enhancements.

In 2019, Williams was sentenced to 76 years to life in prison in a separate case (People v. Williams (Super. Ct. L.A. County, 2019, No. TA144051)), which included a one-year term for a prior prison term enhancement. In 2020, a different division of this court struck Williams‘s one-year prior prison term enhancement in case No. TA144051. Williams was later resentenced in case No. TA144051.

In September 2023, CDCR notified the trial court that Williams qualified for resentencing under section 1172.75 because she was serving a sentence in this case that included a prior prison term enhancement. The court appointed counsel to represent Williams.

In May 2024, Williams filed a supplemental brief asking the trial court to recall her sentences in this case and case No. TA144051, and to conduct a full resentencing in both cases. Williams argued that her sentences in both cases had merged into a single aggregate sentence and that she was entitled to resentencing of that aggregate sentence.

In June 2024, the trial court held a hearing under section 1172.75. The court found that Williams had already served her entire sentence in this case and that the Court of Appeal had stricken Williams‘s only other prior prison term enhancement, which had been imposed in case No. TA144051. The court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to resentence Williams under section 1172.75 because she was no longer serving any sentence that included a prior prison term enhancement.

Williams appeals.

DISCUSSION

Williams argues that the trial court erred when it did not conduct a full resentencing under section 1172.75, including resentencing her in case No. TA144051. Williams argues that even though she finished serving her sentence in this case before the court held the section 1172.75 hearing, she is still entitled to resentencing in case No. TA144051 because that sentence automatically merged with her sentence in this case to create a single aggregate sentence. The People disagree, arguing that Williams is not eligible for resentencing under section 1172.75 because she is not “currently serving” a sentence that includes a prior prison term enhancement, as she has finished serving her sentence in this case, the only one of her sentences that includes a prior prison term enhancement. As we explain, the court correctly found Williams was ineligible for resentencing under section 1172.75.

Senate Bill No. 483 (2021–2022 Reg. Sess.) went into effect on January 1, 2022, creating what is now section 1172.75. (Former § 1171.1, added by Stats. 2021, ch. 728, § 3, renumbered by Stats. 2022, ch. 58, § 12.) The statute renders legally invalid any prior prison term enhancement imposed before January 1, 2020, unless the enhancement was imposed for a prior sexually violent conviction. (§ 1172.75, subd. (a).)

The statute also creates a resentencing procedure for defendants who are currently serving sentences that include a prior prison term enhancement. (§ 1172.75, subds. (b)–(d).) Under section 1172.75, subdivision (b), the CDCR is required to identify any person in custody “currently serving a term for a judgment that includes an enhancement described in subdivision (a)” and to provide to the sentencing court “the name of each person, along with the person‘s date of birth and relevant case number or docket number.” (Ibid.) If the trial court “determines that the current judgment includes [a now invalid prior prison term] enhancement[,] … the court shall recall the sentence and resentence the defendant.” (Id., subd. (c).) A defendant who is eligible for relief under section 1172.75 is entitled to a full resentencing. (People v. Rhodius (2025) 17 Cal.5th 1050, 1067, fn. 3.)

Whether Williams is entitled to resentencing under section 1172.75 after she finished serving the only one of her multiple sentences that includes a prior prison term enhancement is a question of statutory interpretation. When interpreting a statute, “[w]e first ’ “look to the statute‘s words and give them their usual and ordinary meaning,” ’ as ’ “[t]he statute‘s plain meaning controls the court‘s interpretation unless its words are ambiguous.” ’ [Citations.] We construe statutory text in context and ’ ” ‘harmonize “the various parts of a statutory enactment … by considering the particular clause or section in the context of the statutory framework as a whole.” ’ ” ’ [Citations.] If, after this analysis, ‘the statute is ambiguous, we may consider a variety of extrinsic aids,’ including legislative history.” (People v. Rhodius, supra, 17 Cal.5th at pp. 1057–1058.)

Section 1172.75 expressly limits resentencing eligibility to individuals who are currently serving a sentence that includes a prior prison term enhancement. Subdivision (b) requires the CDCR to identify individuals who are ”currently serving a term for a judgment” that includes a prior prison term enhancement. (Id., subd. (b), italics added.) Moreover, subdivision (c) requires the trial court to determine that “the current judgment includes” a prior prison term enhancement before it recalls the sentence and resentences the defendant. (Id., subd. (c), italics added.) This language is plain, and Williams does not claim that it is in any way ambiguous. Nothing in section 1172.75‘s language suggests that individuals who have already finished serving a sentence that includes a prior prison term enhancement are entitled to resentencing.

As Williams acknowledges, by the time the court held the section 1172.75 hearing, she had already completed her sentence in this case, which included two prior prison term enhancements. She was, therefore, no longer serving the sentence in this case at the time of that hearing. Although Williams‘s sentence in case No. TA144051 originally included a prior prison term enhancement, the Court of Appeal struck that enhancement in 2020, and Williams was later resentenced in that case. Williams, therefore, was not currently serving a sentence that included a prior prison term enhancement when the court held the section 1172.75 hearing. Consequently, Williams was not entitled to resentencing under the plain terms of the statute.

Williams argues that she was entitled to resentencing because her sentence in this case merged with her sentence in case No. TA144051 to form a single aggregate sentence. Because she is still serving her sentence in case No. TA144051, Williams contends that she remains eligible for resentencing under section 1172.75.

To support this argument, Williams relies on a series of cases, most of which address resentencing procedures under Proposition 47. (See, e.g., People v. Buycks (2018) 5 Cal.5th 857; People v. Cortez (2016) 3 Cal.App.5th 308; People v. Roach (2016) 247 Cal.App.4th 178; People v. Sellner (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 699; see also People v. Hill (1986) 185 Cal.App.3d 831 [discussing scope of a trial court‘s discretion to conduct full resentencing under § 1170, subd. (d)].) None of these cases, however, hold that when a defendant is sentenced in separate cases, those sentences necessarily merge into a single, aggregate term, including for purposes of section 1172.75.

To be sure, Williams is correct that in certain circumstances, sentences imposed in separate cases do merge to become a single, aggregate term. For instance, under section 1170.1, multiple consecutive determinate terms must be combined to form a single, “aggregate term of imprisonment,” even if the defendant was convicted “in different proceedings or courts.” (Id., subd. (a); see also In re Reeves (2005) 35 Cal.4th 765, 772.)

But that is not the case when a defendant is sentenced to multiple concurrent terms. Under section 669, if a defendant is sentenced in separate proceedings, and the trial court does not direct in a specified time period whether those separate terms are to run consecutively or concurrently, “the term of imprisonment on the second or subsequent judgment shall run concurrently.” (Id., subd. (b).) As our Supreme Court explained, “no principle of California law merges concurrent terms into a single aggregate term.” (In re Reeves, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 773; see also ibid. [“The determinate sentencing law … does not support the People‘s argument that all of an inmate‘s overlapping terms necessarily constitute a single, unified term of confinement for purposes of worktime credit“].)

Here, Williams points to nothing in the record showing that the trial court in case No. TA144051, or any other court, ordered her sentence in that case to run consecutively to her sentence in this case. It must be presumed, then, that both of those sentences ran concurrently. (§ 669, subd. (b).)

In short, by the time the court held the section 1172.75 hearing, Williams had finished serving her sentence in this case. Because the Court of Appeal had already stricken the lone prior prison term enhancement imposed in case No. TA144051, Williams was not currently serving any sentence that included a prior prison term enhancement. The trial court, therefore, did not err when it found it lacked jurisdiction to resentence Williams under section 1172.75.

DISPOSITION

The trial court‘s order denying resentencing under section 1172.75 is affirmed.

VIRAMONTES, J.

WE CONCUR:

STRATTON, P. J.

SCHERB, J.

Notes

1
All undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.