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People v. Hunter

California Court of Appeals, Fifth District
Jun 17, 2009
No. F056328 (Cal. Ct. App. Jun. 17, 2009)

Opinion

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Fresno County No. F07906015, W. Kent Hamlin, Judge.

Robert L.S. Angres, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Michael A. Canzoneri and Barton Bowers, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.


OPINION

THE COURT

Before Cornell, Acting P.J., Hill, J. and Kane, J.

Defendant appeals from a judgment entered after defendant pled no contest to one count of transportation of a controlled substance not for personal use (Health & Saf. Code, § 11379, subd. (a)) and one count of evading a police officer (Veh. Code, § 2800.2, subd. (a)). He contends that the portion of the judgment requiring him to register as a narcotics offender is an unauthorized sentence for either of the offenses to which he pled no contest. The People concede the error. We modify the judgment accordingly and affirm.

All further statutory references are to the Health and Safety Code, unless otherwise indicated.

DISCUSSION

An unauthorized sentence may be corrected whenever the error comes to the attention of the reviewing court, regardless whether defendant objected at the time it was imposed. (People v. Andrade (2002) 100 Cal.App.4th 351, 354.) “[A] sentence is generally ‘unauthorized’ where it could not lawfully be imposed under any circumstance in the particular case.” (People v. Scott (1994) 9 Cal.4th 331, 354.)

The trial court ordered that defendant register as a narcotics offender under section 11590, which requires a defendant convicted of specified narcotics offenses to register with law enforcement in the place where he or she resides. Section 11590 does not require registration in connection with conviction of a violation of Vehicle Code section 2800.2. It also expressly excludes from the registration requirement a defendant convicted of a violation of section 11379, if the conviction was for transporting a controlled substance. (§ 11379, subd. (a).) Consequently, section 11590 did not authorize the trial court to impose the registration requirement on defendant for the offenses for which he was sentenced. That portion of the judgment is unauthorized and must be stricken.

As relevant, section 11590 provides: “(a) Except as provided in subdivisions (c) and (d), any person who is convicted in the State of California of any offense defined in Section... 11379,... shall within 30 days of his or her coming into any county or city, or city and county in which he or she resides or is temporarily domiciled for that length of time, register with the chief of police of the city in which he or she resides or the sheriff of the county if he or she resides in an unincorporated area. [¶]... For persons convicted of an offense defined in Section 11379 or 11379.5, this subdivision shall not apply if the conviction was for transporting, offering to transport, or attempting to transport a controlled substance.”

DISPOSITION

The judgment is modified to strike the requirement that defendant register as a narcotics offender pursuant to section 11590. As so modified, the judgment is affirmed.


Summaries of

People v. Hunter

California Court of Appeals, Fifth District
Jun 17, 2009
No. F056328 (Cal. Ct. App. Jun. 17, 2009)
Case details for

People v. Hunter

Case Details

Full title:THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. CLEO HUNTER, Defendant and…

Court:California Court of Appeals, Fifth District

Date published: Jun 17, 2009

Citations

No. F056328 (Cal. Ct. App. Jun. 17, 2009)