California Appeals Court Holds Defendant Cannot Be Penalized for Failing to Appear at Sentencing When He Was Being Held in Another County’s Jail on Preexisting Charges
by Matt Clarke
On March 17, 2026, the Court of Appeal of California held that a “defendant confined in jail in county one, cannot willfully fail to appear, as ordered, in county two. Such a defendant does not ‘fail’ to appear. He should not suffer a penalty for not appearing.”
Pursuant to a plea agreement and People v. Cruz, 752 P2d 439 (Cal. 1988), Freland Brian Jones pleaded no contest to corporal injury to a spouse/cohabitant, a felony violation of Cal. Pen. Code 273.5(f)(1). The trial court agreed to sentence him to probation if he met certain conditions, one of which was appearing at his sentencing hearing about seven weeks later.
Cruz did not appear at the hearing. Defense counsel informed the court that Jones was incarcerated in another county’s jail and did not willfully fail to appear. The court said it would issue and hold a warrant.
Four months later, the court held a hearing on the alleged violation. The prosecutor presented no witnesses but claimed Jones violated his Cruz waiver by pleading guilty to a crime in the other county with a commission date after the plea hearing in the instant case. She offered four exhibits to prove her allegations, a California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS) report, and three uncertified documents from the other county’s superior court.
Defense counsel argued that no Cruz waiver violation had taken place as Jones’s conviction “was from [an] incident that preexisted or predated the [alleged] Cruz waiver violation.” Defense counsel also objected to the prosecutor’s exhibits because the CLETS report did not show the alleged conviction and the superior court records were not certified.
The court found a violation of the Cruz waiver, deviated from the plea bargain, and sentenced Jones to four years in prison. Jones appealed. James M. Crawford was appointed to represent him.
The Court of Appeal noted that, per Cruz, when a trial court disapproves a plea bargain because a defendant failed to appear, the defendant has the right to withdraw the guilty plea unless the failure-to-appear was willful. In this case, Jones was told that, if he failed to appear, he could be subject to a four-year prison term. He agreed to those terms. Thus, the sole issue was whether the failure-to-appear was willful which the prosecution was required to prove using admissible evidence, per People v. Quarterman, 2012 Cal. App. LEXIS 38.
The prosecutor admitted that the CLETS document did not show a conviction date. The three court documents, a plea form, an information sheet, and a minute order were not certified. However, “the contents of uncertified records alone are … not sufficient ‘to satisfy the prosecutor’s burden of establishing the documents were authentic conviction records,’” per People v. Gonzalez, 2019 Cal. App. LEXIS 1221.
The court held that the trial court should have sustained defense counsel’s objection to the exhibits and erred in admitting them. See: People v. Skiles, 253 P.3d 546 (Cal. 2011). Further, “the use of prior conviction records to establish any fact other than the fact of a conviction violates the Sixth Amendment” and “the commission date of a crime is a fact that ‘can be primarily established only by witnesses.’” See: People v. Garcia, 2011 LEXIS Cal. App. LEXIS 188.
The judgment was reversed and remanded with the note that, per People v. Seel, 2004 Cal. LEXIS 11311, with “a proper evidentiary showing, the court may again impose the four-year prison term.” See: People v. Jones, 2026 Cal. App. LEXIS 160.
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Related legal case
People v. Jones
| Year | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 2026 Cal. App. LEXIS 160 |
| Level | Court of Appeals |