People v. Moua CA2/2 ( 2023 )

Filed 7/28/23 P. v. Moua CA2/2
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions
not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion
has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION TWO
THE PEOPLE, B320839
Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No. TA156144)
v.
CHEE NENG MOUA,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los
Angeles County. Teresa P. Magno, Judge. Affirmed.
Jared G. Coleman, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief
Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Senior
Assistant Attorney General, Steven D. Matthews and Rama R.
Maline, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
_________________________________
Appellant Chee Neng Moua pleaded no contest to one count
of receiving a stolen vehicle in violation of Penal Code1 section
496d. He also admitted two prior felony convictions in Los
Angeles County Superior Court Nos. GA106618 (hereinafter GA-
618) and GA099797. In exchange for his plea, appellant received
a two-year state prison sentence. The trial court awarded 83
days of custody credit for the period from February 23, 2022,
when an arrest warrant was issued in the case, to the date of
sentencing, May 17, 2022. Appellant also received 82 days
conduct credit for a total of 165 days credit.
Appellant’s sole claim in this appeal is that he is entitled to
custody credits for the time he served in presentence custody
from June 24, 2021, until May 17, 2022. However, as the trial
court found, appellant’s custody from June 24, 2021, to
February 23, 2022, was on other matters, and his presentence
custody in the instant case did not begin until February 23, 2022.
We therefore reject appellant’s argument and affirm the
judgment.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Around midnight on June 24, 2021, police observed
appellant standing behind a blue BMW appearing to retrieve
items from the trunk. When the officers contacted him, appellant
first claimed the car belonged to him, but then said it belonged to
his friend “James.” After the officers determined the vehicle had
been reported stolen, appellant was arrested.
In an information filed April 19, 2022, appellant was
charged with the felony of receiving a stolen vehicle in violation
of section 496d. Appellant was arraigned and entered a plea of
1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.
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not guilty. On May 13, 2022, the prosecution offered a settlement
of the instant case, Los Angeles County Superior Court No.
TA156144 (hereinafter TA-144) consisting of two years in state
prison, to be served concurrently with the sentences already
imposed in two other cases pending against appellant—Los
Angeles County Superior Court Nos. GA110147 (hereinafter GA-
147) and BA493721 (hereinafter BA-721). After confirming with
defense counsel that appellant had already been sentenced in
case numbers GA-147 and BA-721, the trial court accepted
appellant’s no-contest plea in case number TA-144.
At sentencing, defense counsel argued that appellant was
entitled to custody credits from June 24, 2021, to the date of
sentencing because he had not been released from custody since
his arrest in this case on June 24, 2021. The trial court
disagreed. The court observed that although appellant was
booked in this case on June 24, 2021, he was released the same
day. The instant case was not even filed until December 7, 2021,
and appellant was not in custody in the case until an arrest
warrant was issued on February 23, 2022. On these facts the
trial court concluded that appellant did not begin to accrue
presentence custody credits in this case before February 23, 2022.
As for appellant’s custody status, the trial court found the
facts did not support appellant’s assertion that but for the instant
case appellant would have been free from custody after June 24,
2021. The court explained that after his release in case number
TA-144, appellant remained in custody because of a parole hold
and pending matters in other cases. Specifically, the issuance of
a bench warrant against appellant on June 16, 2021, in case
number BA-721 resulted in a parole hold on appellant in case
number GA-618. Thus, appellant remained in custody after June
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24, 2021, not because of his arrest or anything having to do with
case number TA-144, but solely as a result of the bench warrant
and parole hold in these other matters.
DISCUSSION
Appellant Is Not Entitled to Presentence
Custody Credit for the Period He Spent in
Custody on Other Cases
Section 2900.5, subdivision (a) provides in relevant part:
“In all felony and misdemeanor convictions, either by plea or by
verdict, when the defendant has been in custody, . . . all days of
custody of the defendant . . . shall be credited upon his or her
term of imprisonment.” Subdivision (b) of section 2900.5,
however, contains the following limitation: “For the purposes of
this section, credit shall be given only where the custody to be
credited is attributable to proceedings related to the same
conduct for which the defendant has been convicted.”
In People v. Bruner (1995) 9 Cal.4th 1178 (Bruner), our
Supreme Court interpreted this limitation to require a defendant
claiming presentence custody credit to demonstrate that “the
conduct which led to his conviction was the sole reason for his loss
of liberty during the presentence period.” (Id. at p. 1191, italics
added.) The court recognized that it is not always a
straightforward matter to determine a defendant’s entitlement to
presentence credits under section 2900.5 where multiple
proceedings are in play and the custody for which credit is sought
had multiple unrelated causes. (Id. at pp. 1180, 1195.) But, as
the court explained, “section 2900.5 is intended to provide
equitable treatment for one held in pretrial custody on mere
charges of crime, not to give credit for time already being served
and credited on another term or sentence for unrelated
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violations.” (Id. at p. 1192.) Bruner thus affirmed the rule of
strict causation established in In re Rojas (1979) 23 Cal.3d 152and In re Joyner (1989) 48 Cal.3d 487, and held that “where a
period of presentence custody stems from multiple, unrelated
incidents of misconduct, such custody may not be credited against
a subsequent formal term of incarceration if the prisoner has not
shown that the conduct which underlies the term to be credited
was also a ‘but for’ cause of the earlier restraint.” (Bruner, at
pp. 1193–1194.)
In People v. Shabazz (2003) 107 Cal.App.4th 1255, 1258
(Shabazz), Division Five of this district applied Bruner to
circumstances very similar to those of the instant case to deny
custody credits for a defendant’s presentence confinement on
another case. In Shabazz, the defendant was on parole when he
committed a forgery. Before he committed the forgery, however,
the defendant violated the terms of his parole and a parole arrest
warrant was issued. A month after he committed the forgery, the
defendant was arrested on the parole arrest warrant and taken
into custody on a parole hold. Later he was also arrested for the
forgery. Defendant was subsequently released on his own
recognizance in the forgery matter, but remained in custody on
the parole hold. Eventually, the trial court rescinded its release
order, and by the time of sentencing in the forgery case, the
defendant was still in custody pending disposition of the parole
violation. (Id. at p. 1257.) Applying the Bruner “but for” test to
determine whether the defendant had earned presentence
custody credits in the forgery case, the Shabazz court concluded
that all of defendant’s presentence confinement was attributable
to the parole hold, and defendant was not entitled to any
presentence custody credits in the forgery case.
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So it is here. It was appellant’s burden to show that the
conduct that led to his conviction in this case (TA-144) was the
sole reason for his presentence confinement from June 24, 2021,
to February 23, 2022. (Bruner, supra, 9 Cal.4th at pp. 1191,
1193–1194; Shabazz, 107 Cal.App.4th at p. 1258; People v. Purvis
(1992) 11 Cal.App.4th 1193, 1196–1197; In re Bustos (1992) 4
Cal.App.4th 851, 855.) As the trial court correctly found,
appellant failed to carry his burden.
According to the trial court’s review of the court file, a
bench warrant was issued against appellant on June 16, 2021, in
case number BA-721, before appellant committed the charged
offense of receiving a stolen vehicle in violation of section 496d on
June 24, 2021, in this case (case number TA-144). That bench
warrant resulted in a parole hold on appellant in another
case⎯number GA-618. Although appellant was arrested on
June 24, 2021, in connection with the receipt of a stolen vehicle,
he was released the same day, and not charged with the section
496d violation in case number TA-144 until December 7, 2021.
Nevertheless, despite his release in this case, appellant remained
in custody due to the bench warrant in case number BA-721 and
the parole hold in case number GA-618.
Because appellant remained in custody on the parole hold
based on the June 16, 2021 bench warrant after his release on
the offense in this case, he cannot show that the section 496d
charge in this case was the sole reason for his presentence
custody from June 24, 2021, to February 23, 2022. In other
words, appellant cannot establish that but for the conduct
underlying his sentence in this case, he would have been free
from custody from June 24, 2021, to February 23, 2022. Indeed,
to the contrary, even if he had not violated section 496d, he still
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would have been picked up on the June 16, 2021 bench warrant
and held pursuant to the resulting parole hold in case number
GA-618. Accordingly, appellant did not begin to accrue
presentence custody credit in this case until the arrest warrant
was issued on February 23, 2022, and he is not entitled to
presentence custody credit for the period he spent in custody on
other cases.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.
LUI, P. J.
We concur:
CHAVEZ, J.
HOFFSTADT, J.
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