People v. Kunath

In People v. Kunath (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 906, the trial court declined the defendant's request to award presentence custody credits "in each case for the time he was simultaneously in presentence custody." (Id. at p. 909.) The Court of Appeal reversed. The court first discussed our Supreme Court's decision in Bruner, supra, 9 Cal.4th 1178, in which the defendant, during an arrest for parole violations, was found to be in possession of cocaine. His parole was revoked and a 12-month sentence was imposed, with credit for time spent in custody following his arrest. Thereafter, while the defendant was serving his parole revocation term, he was charged with cocaine possession, convicted, and sentenced to serve a concurrent 16-month term for this crime. (Id. at p. 1181.) The trial court found the defendant was not entitled to any additional presentence credit. Our Supreme Court agreed, explaining: "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. Accordingly, when one seeks credit upon a criminal sentence for presentence time already served and credited on a parole or probation revocation term, he or she cannot prevail simply by demonstrating that the misconduct which led to his or her conviction and sentence was 'a' basis for the revocation matter as well." (Id. at pp. 1193-1194.) Thus, because the defendant in Bruner "received credit for all presentence custody in his parole revocation proceeding" and "failed to demonstrate that but for the cocaine possession leading to his current sentence, he would have been free, or at least bailable, during that presentence period," he was "not entitled to duplicative credit against the current sentence." (Id. at pp. 1180-1181.)