California Court of Appeals, First District, Second Division
[255
Cal.Rptr.3d 45] Trial Court: Alameda County Superior Court,
Trial Judge: Hon. Jon R. Rolefson. (Alameda County Super. Ct.
No. 17CR008001)
Page 92
COUNSEL
Micah
Reyner, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for
Defendant and Appellant.
Xavier
Becerra, Attorney General, Jeffrey M. Laurence, Assistant
Attorney General, René A. Chacón, Nanette
Winaker, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and
Respondent.
OPINION
STEWART,
J.
Page 93
[255
Cal.Rptr.3d 46] Defendant William Antonio Yanez, sentenced to
nearly six years in prison, challenges the trial court’s
refusal to grant him conduct credits for the time he spent in
an electronic monitoring program on home detention prior to
his sentencing. No statute provides for such credits.
However, he contends that because recent amendments to Penal
Code section 4019 have made conduct credits available to
individuals who are placed on electronic home detention
after imposition of sentence (see id .,
subd. (a)(7)), denying him eligibility for conduct credits
for the time he spent on in-home detention[1]
before he was sentenced violates equal protection.
We agree.
We hold
that this disparity in eligibility for conduct credits
between pretrial and post-judgment electronic monitoring home
detainees violates equal protection, and therefore that the
pre-sentencing time Yanez spent on home detention is eligible
for conduct credits notwithstanding the Legislature’s failure
to provide for them in section 4019.[2]
BACKGROUND
I.
Statutory Background: Home
Detention
Briefly
for context, two statutes governing home detention are
relevant here. Penal Code section 1203.018 authorizes
counties to offer a program under which pretrial detainees
being held in a county jail or correctional facility may
participate in a home detention program under specified
conditions. (People v. Raygoza (2016) 2 Cal.App.5th
593, 599, 206 Cal.Rptr.3d 347; � 1203.018, subd. (b).) The
statute applies to "inmates being held in lieu of
bail." (� 1203.018, subd. (a).) It has been construed to
apply when a pretrial detainee is required to submit to home
confinement in a local electronic monitoring program as a
condition of a reduction in bail. (See Raygoza, at pp.
599-601, 206 Cal.Rptr.3d 347.)
Page 94
Penal
Code section 1203.016, by contrast, governs home detention
post-sentencing. It authorizes counties to create electronic
home detention programs in which certain inmates may be
placed "during their sentence," under specified
conditions, "in lieu of confinement in a county jail or
other county correctional facility or program." Those
conditions are substantially similar to the conditions
applicable to pretrial detainees released on home detention
under section 1203.018, including that the participant
"remain within the interior premises of his or her
residence during the hours designated by the correctional
administrator"; "admit any person or agent
designated by the correctional administrator into his or her
residence at any time" for purposes of verifying
compliance with the conditions of detention; and allow the
correctional administrator, without further court order, to
immediately retake the participant into custody to serve the
balance of his or her sentence if the electronic monitoring
devices are unable for any reason to properly perform their
function or if the person fails to remain within the place of
...