California Penal Code Section 667(a) - Example Case

In People v. Guerrero (1993) 19 Cal. App. 4th 401, evidence of a guilty plea was introduced at a current trial on an allegation that the defendant suffered a prior serious felony conviction for purposes of Penal Code section 667, subdivision (a); the predicate offense to which the defendant pled guilty was one which must have been committed, as a matter of law, in only two alternative ways; only one would have caused the prior conviction to qualify as a prior serious felony conviction; and, as a result, the defendant argued there was insufficient evidence to support the finding that he had previously been convicted of a serious felony. (People v. Guerrero, supra, 19 Cal. App. 4th at pp. 402-404.) The prior conviction in Guerrero was based on a plea of guilty to a violation of a federal bank robbery statute. The statute, 18 United States Code section 2113(a), by its terms, proscribed, in two paragraphs, alternative kinds of criminal conduct, respectively, distinguishing the paragraphs by the disjunctive "or." The language of one kind of criminal conduct in the federal statute, which language related to forcible taking of property from a bank, was effectively the same language as that defining the serious felony of "bank robbery" for purposes of Penal Code section 1192.7, subdivision (c)(19), and would have qualified the prior conviction for use as a prior serious felony conviction. The other criminal conduct alternatively condemned by the statute related to entry into a bank with a criminal purpose (People v. Guerrero, supra, 19 Cal. App. 4th at pp. 402-404), and would not have permitted the prior conviction to qualify The court in Guerrero stated that it had "determined that there was substantial evidence " to support the enhancement (People v. Guerrero, supra, 19 Cal. App. 4th at p. 403) and supported that conclusion by noting, ". . . we agree with the Attorney General that, since defendant pled guilty . . . to the federal bank robbery charge, he has admitted that . . . . he committed the offense in the way that caused the prior conviction to qualify as a prior serious felony conviction under California law. A guilty plea admits every element of the crime charged. (People v. Thomas (1986) 41 Cal. 3d 837, 844, fn. 6 . . . defendant's admission of a prior conviction was binding even if all of the elements of a serious felony were not actually present; People v. Stanworth (1974) 11 Cal. 3d 588, 604-605 . . . on appeal defendant cannot argue the sufficiency of the evidence as to a count to which he pled guilty.)" (People v. Guerrero, supra, 19 Cal. App. 4th at pp. 407-408.)