Reported / Citable
Background
Victor Lopez Sanchez was convicted in 2016 of multiple felony and misdemeanor counts involving violent offenses against his wife and a neighbor. He was sentenced to a state prison term of 38 years 4 months on the felonies, plus a consecutive county jail term of 2 years 6 months on the misdemeanors. After his direct appeal, the Court of Appeal reversed one count and remanded.
On remand in 2019, the trial court struck the reversed count and the related enhancement, recalculating the felony state prison term to 33 years. The minute order, however, listed a “total term of 35 years 6 months,” mistakenly adding the county jail misdemeanor time into the state prison total. The amended abstract of judgment carried this error forward.
In 2024, a Department of Corrections analyst notified the court that the abstract appeared to incorrectly include misdemeanor jail time in the state prison total. The court held a hearing. Defense counsel asked for a full resentencing, including a Romero motion to strike a prior strike and reconsideration of the upper term on one count. Judge Pulliam concluded the error was clerical, denied the request for full resentencing, and amended the abstract. In doing so, however, the court also modified the underlying 2019 misdemeanor sentences. Sanchez appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One, affirmed in part and vacated in part. The court held that when a trial court is correcting a true clerical error in the abstract of judgment, it is not required to conduct a full resentencing or to entertain Romero motions or other discretionary sentencing arguments. A clerical error is one that involves an inadvertent mistake in recording the judgment, not a discretionary sentencing decision. Such errors may be corrected at any time without invoking the full sentencing process.
The court therefore affirmed the trial court’s denial of full resentencing and the denial of the Romero motion. Sanchez was not entitled to relitigate his sentence simply because a clerical mistake came to light years after the original judgment.
However, the court also held that the trial court exceeded its authority by modifying the underlying 2019 misdemeanor sentences as part of correcting the clerical error. The court’s authority was limited to amending the abstract to accurately reflect the original 2019 sentence, not to alter that sentence. The court vacated the portion of the order that modified the misdemeanor terms and remanded with instructions to amend the abstract to correctly reflect what the 2019 sentencing court actually imposed.
Key Takeaways
- Clerical errors in abstracts of judgment may be corrected at any time and do not trigger a full resentencing or the right to make Romero motions or other discretionary sentencing arguments.
- A clerical error is one in which the abstract or minute order does not accurately reflect what the sentencing court actually imposed. Discretionary sentencing decisions are not clerical and cannot be reopened on this basis.
- When correcting a clerical error, a trial court’s authority is limited to making the abstract conform to the original sentence. It cannot use the correction process to modify or alter underlying sentences.
- Misdemeanor county jail time should never be combined with felony state prison time in the state prison total on an abstract of judgment.
- Department of Corrections case records analysts play an important role in flagging abstract errors, and trial courts should be careful to keep their corrections within proper bounds.
Why It Matters
This decision provides a clear framework for courts and counsel handling abstract of judgment errors. With many older judgments still subject to administrative review by the Department of Corrections, similar correction proceedings are common. The opinion establishes that defendants cannot use such proceedings as opportunities to seek full resentencing relief, while also confirming that trial courts must stay strictly within the limits of clerical correction.
For criminal defense lawyers, the case is a reminder that genuine resentencing relief requires proper statutory or constitutional vehicles such as section 1172.6 petitions, habeas relief, or remand following appellate reversal. Trying to expand a clerical correction hearing into a full sentencing review is unlikely to succeed. For trial courts, the opinion warns against the temptation to clean up other perceived issues during a clerical correction proceeding; doing so risks reversal and a remand.