Monday, November 10, 2025
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C.A. Says Law Vacating Restitution Fines After 10 Years Does Not Trigger Full Resentencing
Opinion Says 2025 Statute Placing Time Limit on Collection Does Not Provide Defendant With Right to Reconsideration of Sentence When Clock Runs Out
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
Div. Two of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held Friday that a recently enacted law providing that criminal restitution fines “shall be vacated” after 10 years does not trigger a right to a full resentencing hearing to consider every aspect of the defendant’s sentence.
At issue is Penal Code §1465.9(d), which took effect on Jan. 1 and provides:
“Upon the expiration of 10 years after the date of imposition of a restitution fine…, the balance, including any collection fees, shall be unenforceable and uncollectible and any portion of a judgment imposing those fines shall be vacated.”
In an opinion authored by Justice Michael J. Raphael, and joined in by Acting Presiding Justice Carol D. Codrington and Justice Frank J. Menetrez, the court acknowledged that a “full resentencing rule” demands a complete reevaluation when a portion of the judgment is stricken on review or revised upon a statutorily-required recall of a defendant’s sentence but opined that the expiration of the collection timeline was not such an event.
Raphael wrote:
“Here, we conclude that section 1465.9(d) does not trigger the full resentencing rule in declaring the restitution fine portion of the judgment vacated. It vacates that portion of the judgment as if the trial court had orally pronounced as much. For any court proceeding today, it simply requires correction of the abstract of judgment to conform it to the judgment, to show that the portion of the judgment [relating to] the now unenforceable restitution fine is vacated.”
Attempted Murder Convictions
Requesting a full resentencing was Robin Mattison, who was convicted in 2008 of five attempted murder charges, among other crimes, relating to a domestic violence incident in which he was accused of disconnecting a gas line and lighting a match as police officers barged into the home.
He was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus additional time in prison and ordered to pay a restitution fine of $8,000. After §1465.9(d) went into effect in January, Mattison filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in Riverside Superior Court, arguing that he was entitled to a full resentencing hearing.
Retired Orange Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan, sitting by assignment, denied the request. Mattison then filed a petition for habeas relief in the Court of Appeal in March.
Friday’s opinion denies the petition. Raphael said:
“The statute indicates that the Legislature did not intend for the sentence to be recalled or for a resentencing to occur because it refers to neither of those things. Section 1465.9(d) simply declares the fine unenforceable after 10 years and the portion of the judgment imposing it vacated….Not only does it not refer to recall or resentencing, but the statute conspicuously does not order the entire sentence vacated, only the ‘portion’ of the judgment that imposes the fine.”
Correction to Sentence
Saying that “not every correction to a sentence means a recall of the sentence,” he noted that “[w]hen a trial court corrects an abstract of judgment to conform to the judgment, the sentence is not recalled and no resentencing occurs.”
The jurist likened the effect of the expiration of the statutory timeline in §1465.9(d) to a situation in which the abstract of judgment does not accurately reflect the fines imposed, and opined:
“The statute alters a fine but does not address a defendant’s custody time. It thereby involves a portion of the sentence that is normally not interdependent with the imprisonment components. The reason for the full resentencing rule is that in an [aggregate term of imprisonment] the components are often interdependent. Where a fine, rather than a prison term, is eliminated, that reason dissipates.”
He added:
“Moreover, there was no judicial error in the judgment here, nor does the restitution fine statute implicate any discretionary decision that suggests a court might wish to revisit the sentence. The imposition of the restitution fine is mandatory (absent ‘compelling and extraordinary reasons’…), and its elimination at 10 years also so. The portion of the judgment imposing Mattison’s fine was vacated by statute on January 1, 2025. It cannot be collected upon. All that is left, at most, is to correct the abstract of judgment to reflect that vacatur.”
Not Proper Vehicle
Concluding that a habeas petition is not the proper vehicle to seek vacatur of the fine, Raphael remarked:
“Once the new law was effective, Mattison’s restitution fine was vacated as surely as if the trial court judge had ordered it. While other changes in sentencing law might require a judicial determination before a judgment is changed…, this one does not.”
Noting that “nearly every convicted defendant in the state is subject to a restitution fine,” he reasoned that most convicts may opt “to leave the matter alone” if they have already paid the fine in full but declared that “section 1465.9(d) implicitly allows a defendant to file a postjudgment motion in trial court to correct the abstract of judgment to conform to the judgment.”
He said:
“Before us…is a petition for a writ of habeas corpus that was filed after a similar petition in trial court. A habeas petition is unavailable when a defendant has an adequate legal remedy….A motion to correct the abstract of judgment is such a remedy.”
The case is People v. Mattison, E085614.
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