Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Judith C. Clark, Judge, Super.Ct.No. SWF013360
Carmela F. Simoncini, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Rhonda Cartwright-Ladendorf, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Kristen K. Chenelia, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
OPINION
King J.
Defendant pled guilty to three counts of cohabitant abuse and admitted numerous prior prison term allegations. (Pen. Code, §§ 273.5, subd. (e), 667.5, subd. (b).) The trial court sentenced defendant to a total of eight years, including four years on count 1, with concurrent four-year sentences on counts 2 and 3. At the time of the plea, the parties stipulated that a yet to be prepared probation report would serve as the factual basis for the plea. The three counts to which defendant pled flowed from incidents on three separate dates. The probation report, which was ultimately prepared, dealt only with one of the incidents. On appeal, defendant contends that because the probation report, which served as the factual basis for the plea, dealt with only one of the incidents, the sentences as to counts 2 and 3 must be stayed pursuant to section 654. The People claim the trial court was not required to obtain a factual basis for the plea because defendant pled “to the sheet”; thus, the factual basis for the plea contained in the probation officer’s report is irrelevant to the court’s imposition of sentence. We agree with the People and, therefore, affirm the judgment below.
All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The People charged defendant with three counts of cohabitant abuse and alleged that he had suffered prior prison terms. (§§ 273.5, subd. (e), 667.5, subd. (b).) As pled in the charging documents and developed at the preliminary hearing, each count alleged incidents of spousal abuse which occurred on separate days. As agreed by the parties, and expressed by the trial court, if convicted on all counts and if all prior prison allegations were found true, defendant faced a potential prison sentence of 12 years 8 months. Defendant had rejected two proffered plea agreements proposing, respectively, four- and six-year terms of imprisonment. After receiving several unfavorable pretrial rulings, defendant pled guilty “to the sheet,” i.e., to all counts (§ 273.5, subd. (e)), and admitted each of the prior allegations as enumerated in the amended information (§ 667.5, subd. (b)). The plea agreement reiterated that defendant’s maximum exposure as charged was 12 years 8 months. At the time of the plea, the parties stipulated that the factual basis for the plea would be the probation officer’s report which had yet to be prepared. The probation officer’s report filed thereafter omitted all facts regarding the incidents supporting the charges in counts 1 and 2; it recited only those facts involved in count 3.
II. DISCUSSION
Defendant contends that the stipulated factual basis for the plea contained in the probation officer’s report does not support the imposition of concurrent terms for counts 2 and 3. He maintains that since the probation officer’s report solely contains facts surrounding the events of August 25, 2005, as alleged in count 3, the section 654 bar against multiple punishments required the court to stay imposition of sentence on counts 2 and 3. The People counter that when a defendant pleads guilty as charged without the promise of receiving something in return, the court is not required to find a factual basis for the plea; because of this, the fact that the probation report referenced only one of the incidents is irrelevant. Essentially, the People contend that defendant pled guilty to all of the charges as alleged and not as recited in the later extraneous and erroneous recitation contained in the probation officer’s report. Defendant replies that once the parties stipulated to the factual basis for the plea, they were bound by it. We agree with the People that the unnecessary stipulation and the incomplete presentation of facts contained in the probation officer’s report as a factual basis for the plea were irrelevant to the court’s imposition of sentence.
Where “a plea [is] unconditioned upon receipt of a particular sentence or other exercise of the court’s powers--the trial court ha[s] no duty to [find a factual basis for the plea].” (People v. Hoffard (1995) 10 Cal.4th 1170, 1181; see also People v. Holmes (2004) 32 Cal.4th 432, 435 [factual basis determination required only when taking conditional plea].) The requirement of finding a factual basis for a plea applies only to negotiated plea bargains, not unconditional pleas. (Hoffard, supra, at p. 1181.) The purpose of requiring a factual basis determination in negotiated pleas is to protect defendants who are motivated to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit because of “‘the disparity in punishment between conviction by plea and conviction at trial.’” (Id. at p. 1182.) This concern is not present where a defendant pleads guilty “to the sheet”; he is not being promised anything in return for his plea. (Ibid.)
Defendant cites to a number cases for the proposition that the court was required to make a factual basis determination for the plea. (People v. Wilkerson (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 1571, 1574; People v. Tigner (1982) 133 Cal.App.3d 430, 431; People v. Watts (1977) 67 Cal.App.3d 173, 177.) All of these cases, however, involved a negotiated or conditional plea as opposed to an unconditional plea. Here, the court repeatedly informed defendant that the maximum exposure he faced if convicted of all charges was 12 years 8 months. At the time of the plea, the court stated: “I need to specify for purposes of the record that this is not a negotiated plea agreement with the prosecution. This is a plea to the sheet, directly to the Court.” Defendant’s written plea agreement specifically noted it was a “plea to the sheet” and that the maximum confinement he faced was 12 years 8 months. Thus, defendant was not promised anything in return for his plea and the court was not required to obtain a factual basis for it.
Nonetheless, defendant essentially argues that once the court does find a factual basis for the plea, regardless of whether one is required, the parties are thereafter bound by that determination. Defendant cites People v. Wallace (2004) 33 Cal.4th 738, 750, noting that the California Supreme Court held that a trial court is “not authorized to go behind the plea.” Wallace does not support the notion that where no finding of a factual basis is required, the parties will in some fashion be bound to a stipulated factual basis. In Wallace, a factual basis determination was required because the plea involved a negotiated disposition. Additionally, it involved a situation where, after a plea was taken on a stipulated factual basis, a subsequent court attempted to look back at the plea in order to determine whether it would constitute a strike.
Likewise, defendant’s reliance on Gonzales v. Pacific Greyhound Lines (1950) 34 Cal.2d 749, 755 is misplaced. Gonzales dealt with the admissibility of a stipulation in subsequent civil litigation and the ability of parties to be relieved from the stipulation.
Up until the point at which the probation officer’s report was filed, everything in this case indicated that defendant had been charged with and pled guilty to three counts of cohabitant abuse which had occurred on separate days and involved divisible conduct. The complaint, the information, and the amended information all indicated that the three counts of cohabitant abuse were separate instances occurring on separate days. Count 1 alleged abuse occurring on or about August 18, 2005, through August 22, 2005. Count 2 alleged abuse occurring on or about August 24, 2005. Count 3 alleged abuse occurring on or about August 25, 2005. Likewise, the testimony adduced at the preliminary hearing also demonstrated that defendant had committed three distinct instances of cohabitant abuse on three discrete days. At sentencing, the court questioned defendant whether he understood that his plea was to three separate counts of cohabitant abuse, to which he expressed that he understood. Finally, defendant separately pled guilty to each count as taken by the court. Thus, defendant, counsel of record, and the court all understood that defendant was pleading guilty to three separate incidents of cohabitant abuse and substantial evidence supported this determination.
The parties’ stipulation that the probation officer’s report would contain the factual basis for the plea obviously presupposed that, when it was prepared, it would accurately reflect what had gone unquestioned up to that time; that defendant’s conduct involved three separate instances of cohabitant abuse. The fact that the People did not object to the probation officer’s report at disposition does not reflect acquiescence that the facts involved in count 3 were the only basis for the plea. Rather, it suggests that no one saw a need to question the indisputable fact that defendant had pled guilty to three separate offenses occurring on separate dates.
Because the court was not required to find a factual basis for the plea, the parties’ stipulation that the probation officer’s report would contain the factual basis for the plea was superfluous and irrelevant to the court’s imposition of sentence. (Harris v. Spinali Auto Sales, Inc. (1962) 202 Cal.App.2d 215, 220 [the effect of the stipulation, under the circumstances of this case, is a question of law].) The trial court’s determination to impose concurrent sentences on counts 2 and 3 was therefore proper.
III. DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: Richli, Acting P.J., Gaut, J.