People v. Dent (1995)

In People v. Dent (1995) 38 Cal.App.4th 1726, the defendant shoplifted three bottles of liquor from a market. (Dent, supra, 38 Cal.App.4th at p. 1728.) An information charged him with second degree commercial burglary and petty theft with a theft-related prior (burglary), both wobblers, and further alleged five prior prison terms and three strike priors. (Id. at pp. 1728-1729.) The defendant plead no contest to the charged offenses and admitted all the allegations. (Id. at p. 1729.) At sentencing, the trial court expressed its "personal antipathy" for the three strikes law, stating "'the only way that I can avoid this law is to find this to be a misdemeanor, which I do," and imposed a one year county jail term. (Id. at pp. 1729, 1731.) Dent reversed and remanded for resentencing, concluding that the trial court "impermissibly reasoned backwards from the sentence it wished to avoid to the only available alternative" which "constituted a failure to exercise discretion as required by the law" and "exceeded the bounds of reason . . . ." (Id. at p. 1731.) The appellate court concluded the trial court abused its discretion by electing a misdemeanor sentence for a wobbler offense solely to avoid the effects of the three strikes law. (People v. Dent, supra, 38 Cal.App.4th at p. 1728.) As the appellate court observed, "in order to escape the consequences of the three strikes law at any price, the trial court impermissibly reasoned backwards from the sentence it wished to avoid to the only available alternative." (Id. at p. 1731.) The appellate court concluded "a sentence based on such an approach constitutes a failure to exercise discretion as required by the law," and the court "remanded the matter to the trial court . . . to resentence the defendant on an individualized basis, rather than imposing a sentence predicated solely upon a desire to avoid the consequences of the three strikes law." (Ibid.)