In People v. Faial, the Supreme Court yesterday held that 2020 legislation limiting probation for many felonies to two years not only shortens longer probations imposed before the statutory change, but also wipes out earlier probation revocations occurring more than two years after the probations started. The only caveat is that defendants benefit from the ameliorative change only if their cases were not final when the new statute took effect.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Martin Jenkins gives relief to a defendant whose four-year probation was revoked (because of probation violations) — and a previously suspended 12-year sentence executed — just over two years after it was imposed, but more than a year before the new legislation (Assembly Bill 1950) took effect.
Stating “[w]e have long rejected the argument that defendants may not benefit from ameliorative statutes that eliminate consequences for past acts,” the court concluded, “the collateral effect of Assembly Bill 1950’s retroactive application is to ‘undo’ or ‘unravel’ the orders terminating Faial’s probation and ordering execution of the suspended sentence.”
The court reversed the partially published opinion of the First District, Division Three, Court of Appeal.
