Full Resentencing Not Due Every Time Habeas Relief Granted

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

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California Supreme Court:

Full Resentencing Not Due Every Time Habeas Relief Granted

Resolving Split, Opinion Rejects Assertion That Right to Consideration of Impact of Ameliorative Sections, Including Those Adopted After Judgment Became Final, Is Automatic Whenever Judge Alters Sentence

By Kimber Cooley, associate editor

A divided California Supreme Court held yesterday that an order altering a defendant’s sentence in habeas proceedings does not automatically trigger a right to a full resentencing hearing such that a defendant is entitled to have a judge consider all applicable laws that have the potential to reduce his penalty, including those that were adopted after his sentence became final.

The majority decision, authored by Justice Joshua P. Groban and joined in by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, Justices Carol A. Corrigan, Leondra R. Kruger, as well as Justice Martha K. Gooding of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, sitting by assignment, highlights the evolving landscape of the applicability of a slew of amendments adopted in the last decade to chip away at automatic sentencing enhancements.

At issue was whether a judge’s granting of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and reducing a convict’s sentence under an amendment to the firearm enhancement statutory scheme, found at Penal Code §§12022 and 12022.5, that was adopted just before the defendant’s judgment became final, automatically vests the defendant with the right to a full resentencing hearing at which all new ameliorative sections could apply, even those made effective later.

Groban wrote:

“We reject petitioner’s and the dissent’s sweeping proposition that, in all cases, any habeas corpus remedy affecting part of a petitioner’s sentence requires the habeas corpus court to conduct a full resentencing….It may well be that the equities of a particular case require the habeas corpus court to vacate a petitioner’s entire sentence and conduct a full resentencing, applying all relevant ameliorative laws, but that will not always be the case. Rather, a court’s determination of the most appropriate equitable remedy in a habeas corpus matter is a case- and fact-specific inquiry.”

He added that “[w]e disapprove” of last year’s decision by Div. Eight of this district’s Court of Appeal in People v. Duenas in so far as it stands for the “broad proposition that a habeas corpus petitioner is always entitled to full resentencing whenever a habeas corpus court grants relief as to a portion of a petitioner’s sentence.”

Estrada Case

Justice Kelli Evans penned a dissent, joined in by Justice Goodwin H. Liu, citing the 1965 decision in People v. Estrada, in which the state high court held that a defendant is entitled to the benefit of legislation that has the potential to reduce his sentence so long as the judgment in his case is not yet final. She argued:

“[T]he grant of habeas corpus relief reopens the finality of the sentence….The fact that [the convict’s] habeas corpus relief relates only to the firearm enhancements and not to other parts of his sentence does not change the calculus.”

Seeking a full resentencing hearing was Miguel Esquivias, who was sentenced to 37 years and 8 months plus 75 years to life in prison after he was convicted of murder and robbery with related firearm and gang allegations in 2015. In 2017, Div. Two of this district’s Court of Appeal affirmed and the California Supreme Court denied review.

However, before his sentence became final in early 2018, an amendment to §§12022 and 12022.5 went into effect on Jan. 1, allowing judicial discretion for the first time as to whether to impose additional time for the use of a firearm. Four years later, he filed a petition seeking retroactive application of the changes based on Estrada.

In 2023, then-Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel Feldstern (now retired) granted the request and reduced the sentence by more than 38 years after exercising his discretion to strike the firearm enhancements. The jurist rejected the defendant’s bid for a full reconsideration based on other laws affecting gang allegations enacted after the judgment became final.

Div. Two affirmed in 2024, saying:

“We hold that a trial court is not obligated to revisit a defendant’s entire sentence on habeas review merely because it grants review to revisit a portion of that sentence.”

Act in Equity

Rejecting an “all-or-nothing” approach, Groban opined:

“The habeas corpus court’s act in equity to strike petitioner’s firearm enhancements did not mandate that petitioner’s lawful sentence be completely revisited. The court did not have to then entertain petitioner’s argument that he was entitled to a reduction of his sentence by another 40-plus years pursuant to other laws.”

Pointing to the existence of potential unintended consequences should the court adopt the view promoted by the defendant, he remarked:

“[T]he People underscore the Court of Appeal’s observation that constraining a habeas corpus court to an all-or-nothing choice under the circumstances of petitioner’s case ‘may end up hurting defendants.’…This is so…because a court may be hesitant to resentence on one component of the sentence if this means that the court is then legally compelled to resentence the petitioner with respect to other facets of the sentence….[I]t is worth acknowledging the possibility that petitioner’s…approach may, in some instances, actually work to a petitioner’s detriment.” Saying that the plain language of the statute supports the court’s analysis, he pointed out the “the absence of any statutory language calling for full resentencing” and declared that “we will not read the statute to require one.”

The jurist noted that “our opinion is confined to the unusual circumstances of petitioner’s case” and reasoned:

“Here…the issue presented arose under a unique set of circumstances: [the legislation] became effective in the narrow window of time between when our court denied petitioner’s petition for review on direct appeal and the time to seek certiorari in the United States Supreme Court expired. As a result, petitioner’s claim evaded detection on direct appeal before finality, when resentencing could have occurred expeditiously.”

He continued:

“Our dissenting colleagues would have us employ a one size-fits-all approach that is at odds with the traditional flexibility afforded to habeas corpus courts to meet the demands of a particular case. The dissent criticizes the majority for not citing a ‘single case’…that is directly on point....Estrada has been binding precedent for 60 years, and habeas corpus relief has been available for much longer. If the issue before us is as ‘straightforward’…as the dissent suggests, thereby necessitating a simple application of the full resentencing rule, then the dissent should be able to cite myriad habeas corpus cases where full resentencing has occurred on similar facts. But it cannot.”

Evans said:

“Importantly, and what I believe may be the cause of some of the doctrinal confusion contained in the majority opinion, the habeas court and the sentencing court were presided over by the same judge. The superior court, acting in its capacity as habeas corpus court, granted relief. It found that defendant was eligible for retroactive relief…and set a hearing to potentially modify defendant’s sentence. At the subsequent hearing, the same judge, acting as a sentencing court, exercised its discretion to strike all firearm enhancements.”

She remarked:

“[T]he doctrine of full resentencing, which Esquivias invokes, is not a rule of equity, but a rule of jurisdiction. A sentencing court’s choice to apply, or not to apply, ameliorative laws has nothing to do with a habeas corpus court’s equitable authority. Indeed, the habeas corpus court, strictly speaking, had no authority to even strike Esquivias’s firearm enhancement in the first place, much less decide the downstream consequences of this sentencing decision.”

Reasoning that “[u]nder the majority’s proposed rule, habeas corpus courts will now be able to dictate the breadth of resentencing relief that accrues from a grant of habeas relief on a ‘case-by case basis,’ ” she asserted:

“This is a strange result because habeas corpus courts, especially those foreign to the sentencing jurisdiction, are comparatively unfamiliar with sentencing proceedings and may have little or no information upon which to ground the ‘equitable’ determination that the majority proposes they should now decide….Relatedly, granting nonsentencing habeas corpus courts the power to dictate to sentencing courts whether to apply ameliorative laws…may undermine the holistic sentencing that the full resentencing rule was intended to safeguard.”

The justice argued that “the majority’s narrow but ambiguous holding is likely to breed uncertainty,” and commented:

“I encourage the Legislature to clarify whether it wishes courts to conduct full resentencing, applying current law, after a grant of habeas, or indeed in resentencing generally.”

The case is People v. Esquivias, 2026 S.O.S. 2540.