Friday, August 7, 2026
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Law Permitting Demand for Fast-Tracking of Cases Requires Presence in Prison—S.C.
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The California Supreme Court held yesterday that an inmate’s request for an accelerated trial timeline on pending cases, based on a Penal Code section providing that a defendant who is sentenced to prison may demand that other criminal prosecutions be fast-tracked, is premature until he is actually in the custody of the state penal institution.
At issue is when a defendant may start the accelerated clock provided for in Penal Code §1381, which specifies:
“Whenever a defendant has been…sentenced to and has entered upon a term of imprisonment in a state prison…and…there is pending…any other…criminal proceeding wherein the defendant remains to be sentenced, the district attorney…shall bring the defendant to trial or for sentencing within 90 days after the person shall have delivered to said district attorney written notice of…his…desire to be brought to trial or for sentencing….In the event that the defendant is not brought to trial or for sentencing within the 90 days the court…shall…dismiss the action.”
Justice Leondra Kruger authored yesterday’s unanimous opinion declaring that an inmate’s demand, made from county jail after he was sentenced but before his transfer to state prison, was ineffective to trigger the statutory timeline even if he was entitled to custody credits against his term based on other Penal Code provisions. She remarked:
“[W]e conclude, contrary to the Court of Appeal in this case, that a defendant has not ‘entered upon a term of imprisonment in a state prison’ for purposes of Penal Code section 1381 until the defendant’s ‘actual delivery…into the custody of the Director of Corrections.’…Before the defendant has been delivered into prison custody, a Penal Code section 1381 demand is premature.”
Authorized to Appeal
Yesterday’s opinion also tackles the question of whether prosecutors in the case were statutorily authorized to appeal the trial court’s decision to dismiss a pending criminal complaint after it determined that they had failed to comply with the defendant’s §1381 demand.
Penal Code §§1235 and 1238 together permit the prosecution to appeal an “order or judgment dismissing or otherwise terminating all or any portion of” a “felony case.” The question presented to the high court was whether the dismissal of complaint on which a preliminary hearing has not yet been held, as opposed to an indictment or information filed after such an examination, qualifies.
Kruger acknowledged that “the question is more complicated than it may at first appear, owing to the nuances of California charging procedure,” but concluded:
“In interpreting statutes, we begin by examining the words used, giving them their ordinary, commonsense meaning….In ordinary legal usage, felony offenses charged by complaint are commonly referred to as ‘felony charges,’ and the resulting action as a ‘felony case.’…Ultimately, we conclude that this straightforward answer is in fact the correct answer.”
She declared:
“[T]he appellate jurisdiction statute permitted the Court of Appeal to adjudicate the People’s appeal of a magistrate’s order dismissing a felony complaint….We disapprove [the 2005 decision by the Third District Court of Appeal in] People v. Nickerson…to the extent the reasoning of the opinion is inconsistent with this conclusion.”
Demand Made
After Jason Hyatt was sentenced to six years in prison by a Riverside Superior Court on Aug. 12, 2022, he served a §1381 demand on the Orange County District Attorney’s Office that same day relating to a felony complaint filed in November 2019. At the time, he was housed in a Riverside County jail awaiting transfer to a state penal institution.
No preliminary examination had yet commenced in the Orange Superior Court case, due in part to repeated continuances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the defendant’s failure to appear at a court hearing. The District Attorney’s Office responded by a letter challenging the request as “invalid” due to the defendant’s presence in county jail.
Ten months later, Hyatt sent a second demand for fast-tracking, this time from Wasco State Prison. Prosecutors arranged for the inmate to be transported to Orange Superior Court for a preliminary hearing and, when he appeared in court, the defendant moved to dismiss the complaint under §1381, citing the August demand.
Orange Superior Court Judge Justin Glenn-Leistikow granted the request on Sept. 5, 2023. Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed the dismissal last year, acknowledging that other courts have held that §1381 is not triggered until a party is in prison custody but declining to follow suit.
Kruger opined that the meaning of the phrase “entered upon a term of imprisonment in a state prison” is at the “heart of the dispute.” She wrote:
“The District Attorney contends that section 1381 requires entry into a place (state prison), while Hyatt thinks it requires entry into a condition (serving a term of imprisonment). The addition of ‘upon’ does not resolve the difficulty. The same dictionary entry gives two examples of this prepositional phrase, one physical, the other conceptual….”
Saying that the phrase “term of imprisonment in state prison” does not clarify the matter, she pointed out:
“[T]hose words might serve an adjectival function, to distinguish a state prison sentence from other possible conditions of confinement, like a term in county jail. Use of the indefinite article (‘in a state prison’ rather than ‘in state prison’) is perhaps suggestive of location, but not unambiguously so.”
She cited the rule of interpretation requiring courts to avoid a reading of a statute that renders any part of it superfluous and commented:
“As the District Attorney notes, if a person who has been sentenced to state prison but not yet been delivered to prison custody has ‘entered upon a term of imprisonment,’ then it is not clear what work that phrase is doing; it would appear to suffice that the defendant has been ‘sentenced to…a term of imprisonment in a state prison.’…But, without more, it does not necessarily follow that the Legislature intended to impose a requirement of physical presence in prison.”
Other Section
Finding guidance in Penal Code §2900, based on the well-established rule that different statutes on the same topic are to be considered together, she pointed out that the provision provides:
“The term of imprisonment fixed by the judgment in a criminal action commences to run only upon the actual delivery of the defendant into the custody of the Director of Corrections at the place designated by the Director of Corrections as a place for the reception of persons convicted of felonies.”
Hyatt, in turn, pointed to Penal Code §2900.5, which specifies that “all days of custody of the defendant,” including time in county jail, “shall be credited upon his or her term of imprisonment,” as support for his position that his request from county jail was sufficient. Unpersuaded, Kruger responded:
“The fact that Penal Code section 2900.5 might provide a credit against that term does not mean, as the Court of Appeal supposed, that ‘the time Hyatt spent in [county] custody was part of his state prison sentence’ for purposes of section 1381.”
The jurist acknowledged that “a prison custody requirement may raise its own practical concerns,” such as reduced “access to counsel,” but concluded:
“Ultimately, whether these concerns should prompt a different approach to section 1381 demands is a matter only the Legislature can decide.”
She declared:
“Because the operative section 1381 demand in this case was sent before the defendant had been delivered to prison custody, the demand did not start the 90-day clock. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal, and remand the case to that court with directions to remand the matter to the magistrate with orders to reinstate the felony complaint.”
The case is People v. Hyatt, 2026 S.O.S. 2402.
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