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Full Opinion
In re James Greebe REEVES on Habeas Corpus.
Supreme Court of California.
*5 Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, David P. Druliner and Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorneys General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Robert M. Foster, Laura Whitcomb Halgren, Steven T. Oetting, David Delgado-Rucci and Lynne G. McGinnis, Deputy Attorneys General, for Appellant Department of Corrections.
David K. Rankin, San Diego, under appointment by the Supreme Court, and Suzanne Rothlisberger, Long Beach, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Respondent James Greebe Reeves.
WERDEGAR, J.
Penal Code section 2933[1] offers state prisoners who participate in qualifying work, training and educational programs the privilege of earning "worktime credit" *6 (id., subd. (a)) against their sentences. Ordinarily, the maximum rate at which a prisoner may earn worktime credit is 50 percent, or one day's credit for each day's participation.[2] Other statutes make worktime credit unavailable, or available only at a reduced rate, to prisoners convicted of designated offenses. (E.g., §§ 2933.1 [violent offenses], 2933.2 [murder].) This case concerns section 2933.1, subdivision (a),[3] which provides that "any person who is convicted of a felony offense listed in subdivision (c) of Section 667.5 [i.e., a violent offense] shall accrue no more than 15 percent of worktime credit, as defined in Section 2933."[4]
The question before us is whether section 2933.1(a) restricts petitioner's ability to earn worktime credit against a concurrent sentence for a nonviolent offense. Petitioner has completed a five-year term for the violent offense that made the section applicable and is now serving the remainder of a concurrent 10-year term for a nonviolent offense. We hold that section 2933.1(a) limited to 15 percent the rate at which petitioner could earn worktime credit as long as he was serving the term for the violent offense, even though the concurrently punished nonviolent offense would not by itself have caused the section to apply; but once petitioner completed the term for the violent offense he became prospectively eligible to earn credit at a rate unrestricted by the section. We therefore reject both the People's harsher and petitioner's more lenient interpretations of the section.
I. BACKGROUND
On March 18, 1999, following a jury trial, the Orange County Superior Court sentenced petitioner to 10 years in state prison for the offense of possessing a controlled substance for sale, plus enhancements.[5] In a separate proceeding on April 6, 1999, pursuant to a guilty plea, a different judge of the same court sentenced petitioner to five years for the offense of assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm, plus an enhancement.[6] Because the assault caused great bodily injury, it triggered the 15 percent credit limitation of section 2933.1(a) as a "violent felony" described in section 667.5, subdivision (c). The judge at the second sentencing proceeding did not state that the two sentences would run consecutively; hence, the *7 Penal Code made them concurrent by operation of law.[7] (§ 669, 2d par.)
Petitioner was committed to state prison in 1999. At that time, the Department of Corrections (Department) calculated his release date as October 19, 2006. The Department based this decision on its understanding that section 2933.1(a) applied fully to both of petitioner's sentences so that he would accrue only 15 percent worktime credit for the entire duration of his prison commitment, even after completing the shorter, five-year sentence for the violent felony. Petitioner challenged the Department's decision in a petition for habeas corpus. The superior court, reasoning that section 2933.1(a) had no effect on petitioner's sentence for the nonviolent offense, granted the writ and ordered the Department to recalculate petitioner's release date. The Court of Appeal affirmed, and we granted review.
II. DISCUSSION
Our role in construing section 2933.1(a), as with any statute, is to ascertain the Legislature's intent so as to effectuate the purpose of the law. We accomplish this task if possible by giving the words of the statute their usual, ordinary meanings. (People v. Canty (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1266, 1276, 14 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 90 P.3d 1168.) This case turns on the meaning of the phrase "any person who is convicted of a [violent] felony offense...." (§ 2933.1(a).)[8] As will appear, the effort to apply this seemingly plain language to the case at hand reveals ambiguities the Legislature apparently did not foresee.
The People argue that petitioner "is convicted" of a violent felony offense for purposes of calculating worktime credit because he served a term for a violent offense during his current prison commitment, even though he has completed that term and would be eligible for release, were it not for the time remaining on his longer concurrent sentence for a nonviolent offense. Petitioner, echoing the lower courts' conclusions, contends that section 2933.1(a) has never restricted his ability to earn worktime credit against the longer concurrent sentence because, for purposes of that sentence, he is not convicted of a violent felony offense. Other possible interpretations of the section also exist, as we shall explain. Accordingly, the conclusion that section 2933.1(a) is ambiguous, at least as applied to the facts of this case, seems inescapable. Indeed, petitioner *8 expressly argues the statute is ambiguous, and the Attorney General conceded the point during oral argument.
Because section 2933.1(a) is ambiguous, we may look beyond its language to other evidence that helps to elucidate the Legislature's purpose, such as the statute's background and history. (People v. Canty, supra, 32 Cal.4th 1266, 1277, 14 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 90 P.3d 1168.) The purpose that motivated the section's enactment, however, is clear only in the broadest terms: The Legislature wished to protect the public by delaying the release of prisoners convicted of violent offenses. (Stats. 1994, ch. 713, § 2, p. 3448 [declaration of urgency].) The general observation that a law was intended to delay release does not, in the face of ambiguous statutory language, answer the specific, practical questions of how long and under what circumstances release is to be delayed. Neither does the legislative history reveal any specific consideration of the problem of applying credits to concurrent sentences. Under these circumstances, lacking definitive guidance in the statute's language or history, "our aim [must be] to provide ... a construction [of the statute] which is faithful to its language, which produces fair and reasonable results in a majority of cases, and which can be readily understood and applied by trial courts." (In re Joyner (1989) 48 Cal.3d 487, 495, 256 Cal. Rptr. 785, 769 P.2d 967.) This is the practical approach to identifying legislative intent that we have followed in other cases addressing unforeseen difficulties in the implementation of California's statutory credit system. (Ibid.; see also People v. Buckhalter (2001) 26 Cal.4th 20, 28-29, 108 Cal.Rptr.2d 625, 25 P.3d 1103; People v. Bruner (1995) 9 Cal.4th 1178, 1194-1195, 40 Cal.Rptr.2d 534, 892 P.2d 1277.)[9]
In searching for a reasonable construction of section 2933.1(a), we may at the outset reject a construction that, while arguably consistent with the section's language, is almost certainly not what the Legislature intended. The phrase, "any person who is convicted of a [violent] felony offense" (§ 2933.1(a)), might conceivably refer simply to a point of historical fact. Read in this way, the statute would disqualify, for all time, any person who has ever been convicted of a violent offense from earning more than 15 percent worktime credit. Neither the People nor petitioner endorses this reading of the section. We may reasonably reject it because the Legislature typically uses different language when it intends to impose a continuing disability based on criminal history. Credit restrictions, enhancements and alternative sentencing schemes based on criminal history usually employ the past perfect tense ("has been convicted" or "previously has been convicted") rather than the present tense ("is convicted"). (E.g., §§ 667, subds. (a)(1) & (b), 667.51, subd. (d), 667.6, subd. (a), 667.71, subd. (a), 2933.5, subd. (a)(1).) Similarly, section 2933.5 withholds all worktime credits from a "person who is convicted" and also "previously has been convicted two or more times" of a designated felony. (Id., subd. (a)(1), italics added.) We have relied on this observation about the Legislature's practice to resolve other statutory ambiguities, as when we determined that a statute referred to current rather than past convictions *9 in making any "person convicted of murder, rape or any other serious felony" (Welf. & Inst.Code, § 1732.5) ineligible for commitment to the Youth Authority. (People v. Woodhead (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1002, 1008-1010, 239 Cal.Rptr. 656, 741 P.2d 154.)
We may also reasonably reject the parties' interpretations of section 2933.1(a). Both create unacceptable tension with the statutory language, and neither is entirely fair and reasonable.
As mentioned, the People argue that section 2933.1(a) restricts petitioner's ability to earn worktime credit against his concurrent term for the nonviolent offense even though he has completed his term for the violent offense that caused section 2933.1(a) to apply. The People reject petitioner's and the lower courts' view that the section applies on an offense-by-offense basis. In the People's view, section 2933.1(a) applies to offenders rather than to offenses, and applies to a designated offender's entire period of confinement, provided the offender at some point during that period serves time for a violent offense. An offender's time in prison, the People argue, must for purposes of credits be regarded as "a single, unitary period of confinement," regardless of "whether that period of confinement is based upon multiple convictions or separate crimes." Reading section 2933.1(a) in this way, petitioner's total time in state prison would be eight years and six months, which represents the longer, 10-year concurrent term for a nonviolent offense minus 15 percent worktime credit.
We agree with the People's interpretation of section 2933.1(a) in some respects but not in others. We may confidently assume that an offender serving a sentence that combines consecutive terms for violent and nonviolent offenses is subject to the credit restriction imposed by section 2933.1(a) for the entire sentence. Under the Determinate Sentencing Act (§ 1170 et seq.), multiple consecutive determinate terms must be combined into a single, "aggregate term of imprisonment for all [such] convictions" (§ 1170.1, subd. (a)) that merges all terms to be served consecutively and complies with the rules for calculating aggregate terms (e.g., one-third the base term for subordinate terms and specific enhancements applicable to subordinate terms (ibid.)), whether or not the consecutive terms arose from the same or different proceedings (ibid.); (see also § 669; Cal. Rules of Court, rule 4.452). To suggest that a prisoner serving an aggregate term serves the component terms and enhancements in any particular sequence would be a meaningless abstraction. For this reason, when an aggregate term includes time for a violent offense, at any point during that term the prisoner literally "is convicted of a [violent] felony offense" (§ 2933.1(a)) and actually is serving time for that offense. Accordingly, a restriction on credits applicable to "any person who is convicted of a [violent] felony offense" (ibid.) logically applies throughout the aggregate term.
The People's effort to apply the same logic to concurrent terms is not convincing. A court that decides to run terms consecutively must create a new, "aggregate term of imprisonment" (§ 1170.1, subd. (a)) into which all the consecutive terms merge, but no principle of California law merges concurrent terms into a single aggregate term. Section 1170.1, which articulates the statutory mandate and authority for creating aggregate consecutive terms, says nothing about concurrent terms. Furthermore, a later sentencing court may not change a prior sentencing court's discretionary decision to make a particular term concurrent rather than consecutive. (Cal. Rules of Court, *10 rule 4.452(3).)[10] The Determinate Sentencing Law, in short, does not support the People's argument that all of an inmate's overlapping terms necessarily constitute a single, unified term of confinement for purposes of worktime credit.
Neither do the other statutes on which the People rely support their argument. Section 667.5, subdivision (g), defines "prior separate prison term for purposes of this section" (italics added) as including both concurrent and consecutive terms. But the section has nothing to do with credits; its purpose is to avoid enhancing a sentence for a "prior separate prison term" (§ 667.5, subd. (a)) more than once for a single prior stay in prison. Section 2933, the statute authorizing worktime credits, begins by stating the Legislature's intent that persons convicted and sentenced under the Determinate Sentencing Act "serve the entire sentence imposed by the court, except for a reduction in the time served" for performance in qualified work programs. (Id., subd. (a).) But the section does not provide that separate, concurrent sentences merge for purposes of credits. Neither does section 2900, subdivision (a), which simply provides that "[t]he term of imprisonment fixed by the judgment ... commences to run only upon the actual delivery of the defendant into the custody of the Department of Corrections...."[11]
The People also attempt to derive their proposed rule that all of a prisoner's overlapping terms must, for purposes of credits, be viewed as a single, unitary period of confinement from the language of section 2933.1. The specific language on which the People rely, however, appears not in subdivision (a) but in subdivision (c), and it concerns not postsentence worktime credits under section 2933 but presentence credits under section 4019. Section 2933.1, subdivision (c),[12] provides that "the maximum credit that may be earned against a period of confinement in, or commitment to, a county jail [or other local facility] *11 following arrest and prior to placement in the custody of the Director of Corrections, shall not exceed 15 percent of the actual period of confinement for any person specified in subdivision (a)." (Italics added.) Thus, a person who spends time in presentence (including pretrial) confinement and is eventually convicted of a violent offense may earn, as a credit against his prison sentence, no more than 15 percent of the actual time he spent in presentence confinement, regardless of the offenses for which he was charged. This was the holding of People v. Ramos (1996) 50 Cal. App.4th 810, 815-817, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 24 (Ramos). All other published decisions addressing the same issue about presentence credits have followed Ramos. (People v. Duran (1998) 67 Cal.App.4th 267, 270, 78 Cal.Rptr.2d 884; People v. Aguirre (1997) 56 Cal.App.4th 1135, 1141, 66 Cal. Rptr.2d 77; People v. Palacios (1997) 56 Cal.App.4th 252, 255-256, 65 Cal.Rptr.2d 318.)
The People insist that Ramos, supra, 50 Cal.App.4th 810, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 24, disposes of the different issue before us. It does not. The defendant in Ramos, after a period of presentence confinement, was convicted of a variety of violent and nonviolent offenses and sentenced to a single, aggregate term of 22 years, which included among other things an eight-month consecutive term for a nonviolent offense. (Id., at p. 814, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 24.) The defendant argued that section 2933.1(c) did not affect his ability to earn credit under section 4019 for presentence custody attributable to his nonviolent offenses. Assuming the correctness of that argument, the defendant further contended that he had accrued presentence credit at two different rates: the reduced rate of 15 percent against the portion of his presentence confinement attributable to the violent offense, and at a higher rate (see § 4019, subd. (f)) against the portion attributable to the nonviolent offense. (Ramos, at p. 817, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 24.) The court reasonably rejected these arguments because "the language of section 2933.1[did] not support Ramos' position." (Ramos, at p. 817, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 24.) Section 2933.1, the court reasoned, "limits to 15 percent the maximum number of conduct credits[13] available to `any person who is convicted of a felony offense listed in Section 667.5.' That is, by its terms, section 2933.1 applies to the offender not to the offense and so limits a violent felon's conduct credits irrespective of whether or not all his or her offenses come within section 667.5." (Ramos, supra, at p. 817, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 24, quoting § 2933.1(a).)
The Ramos court's statement that "section 2933.1 applies to the offender not to the offense" (Ramos, supra, 50 Cal. App.4th 810, 817, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 24) makes sense in the context in which the court spoke that of presentence credits authorized by section 4019 and limited by section 2933.1(c). A period of presentence confinement is indivisibly attributable to all of the offenses with which the prisoner is charged and of which he is eventually convicted. The defendant's argument in Ramos would have required the court to parse such a single, unitary period of presentence confinement into hypothetical, overlapping terms eligible to earn credit at different rates. Such a result finds no support in the language of subdivision (c), which limits the credits a prisoner may earn against an "actual period of confinement" (§ 2933.1(c), italics added) following arrest and before sentencing. The People *12 here, departing from the actual holding of Ramos, would read subdivision (c) as if it qualified subdivision (a) by defining all of a prisoner's postsentence time in state prison as a single "actual period of confinement" (§ 2933.1(c)) for purposes of postsentence worktime credit. Although subdivision (c) does refer to subdivision (a),[14] it does so "only to clarify the intended target population" of subdivision (c). (People v. Aguirre, supra, 56 Cal.App.4th 1135, 1140, 66 Cal.Rptr.2d 77.) In other words, subdivision (c) explains that its limitation on presentence credit takes effect only when a person who has served "an actual period of [presentence] confinement" (§ 2933.1(c)) becomes, by subsequent conviction of a violent offense in a proceeding to which the presentence custody is attributable, a "person specified in subdivision (a)" (§ 2933.1(c), italics added), namely, a "person who is convicted of a [violent] felony offense" (§ 2933.1(a)). Subdivision (c) says nothing at all about postsentence credit. Thus, to read subdivision (c) as limiting postsentence credits or qualifying subdivision (a), as the People here would read it, finds no support in the relevant statutory language.
The People attempt to find evidence of legislative intent supporting their position in a letter written by Assemblyman Richard Katz, who sponsored the bill that became section 2933.1 (Assem. Bill No. 2716 (1993-1994 Reg. Sess.)), to the Clerk of the Assembly and printed by unanimous consent in the Assembly Journal after both houses of the Legislature had passed the bill. But the letter itself is ambiguous. In it, the author states: "This letter is to clarify my intent, and that of the Legislature, in writing and enacting AB 2716 ... to ensure that the maximum reduction [for worktime credits] ... from a defendant's term of imprisonment imposed as a result of a violent felony ... be fifteen percent. [¶] In enacting Penal Code section 2933.1, it is my intent and that of the Legislature to ensure that the maximum fifteen percent reduction apply to a defendant's entire term of imprisonment, so long as the defendant has been convicted of at least one violent felony...." (Assemblyman Richard Katz, letter to Dotson Wilson, Chief Clerk of Assem., August 31, 1994, printed at 6 Assem. J. (1993-1994 Reg. Sess.) p. 9353.) The letter's first sentence, which refers to "a defendant's term of imprisonment imposed as a result of a violent felony" (ibid., italics added), might be read as supporting petitioner's argument that section 2933.1(a) applies on an offense-by-offense basis. The letter's second sentence, which refers to an "entire term" (Assemblyman Richard Katz, letter to Dotson Wilson, supra, italics added), has two possible meanings: it could mean that the restriction applies to a prisoner's entire term for a violent offense, even if the term is an aggregate term (see § 1170.1, subd. (a)) combining consecutive terms for both violent and nonviolent offenses;[15] or, using *13 the word "term" in a less formally correct sense, it could refer to a prisoner's entire period of confinement in state prison, as the People here argue. The letter offers no basis for resolving the ambiguity; nor does it specifically address the question of whether the credit restriction proposed in the bill would apply to a separate, concurrent term for a nonviolent offense.
Of no more assistance in the present case is Governor Wilson's message to the Assembly upon signing the bill that became section 2933.1. The Governor wrote that the "bill would limit to 15% the credit inmates in state prison or local custody could earn to reduce their prison sentences for violent crimes." (Governor's message to Assem. on Assem. Bill No. 2716 (Sept. 21, 1994) 6 Assem. J. (1993-1994 Reg. Sess.) p. 9490.) This brief, general statement, which does not specifically address the treatment of concurrent terms, is consistent with both the People's and petitioner's interpretations of section 2933.1.
The People's reading of section 2933.1(a) creates tension with the statutory language in this way: Because petitioner has already served the term for the violent offense that caused the section to apply, the statement that he "is convicted of a [violent] felony offense" (ibid.) is true only as a matter of historical fact, i.e., he was once convicted of a violent offense. But we have already rejected, as contrary to the Legislature's probable intent, the argument that section 2933.1(a) treats a conviction for a violent offense as a continuing disability that restricts an offender's ability to earn worktime credits even after he has served his sentence for that offense. Except in this inapplicable sense, to say that petitioner at the present time "is convicted" (ibid.) of a violent offense is not correct. Today, his conviction for the violent offense gives the Department no claim to his physical custody; but for the time remaining on the separate, concurrent term for the nonviolent offense, he would be entitled to release. For the same reason, given the statute's ambiguity, the People's interpretation of section 2933.1(a) is not entirely fair (to petitioner or others in his situation) or reasonable. (People v. Buckhalter, supra, 26 Cal.4th 20, 28-29, 108 Cal.Rptr.2d 625, 25 P.3d 1103; People v. Bruner, supra, 9 Cal.4th 1178, 1194-1195, 40 Cal.Rptr.2d 534, 892 P.2d 1277; In re Joyner, supra, 48 Cal.3d 487, 495, 256 Cal.Rptr. 785, 769 P.2d 967.)[16]
*14 Petitioner's own interpretation of section 2933.1(a) also creates tension with the statutory language and is likewise neither fair nor reasonable. Following the lower courts, petitioner interprets section 2933.1(a) as having no effect whatsoever on his concurrent sentence for the nonviolent offense. As a result, petitioner continues, he has from the time he entered prison accrued credit at two different rates 15 percent on the term for the violent offense and 50 percent on the term for the nonviolent offense. Reading section 2933.1(a) in this way, petitioner's total time in custody would be five years, which represents the 10-year term for a nonviolent offense minus 50 percent credit. Petitioner concedes, as he must, that section 2933.1(a) applies to the term for the violent offense, but he denies the section has any practical impact on the duration of his commitment to state prison. This is because he has already served the credit-adjusted term for his violent felony offense (four years and three months, or five years minus 15 percent credit) and because the longer, credit-adjusted term for the nonviolent offense will, as he reads section 2933.1(a), keep him in prison a total of only five years exactly the same time he would have served had he never been convicted of and sentenced for the violent offense.
Petitioner's interpretation of section 2933.1(a) would rob the section of any effect in his own case and thus entirely frustrate, if only in similar cases, the Legislature's purpose of delaying the release of violent offenders. Petitioner's interpretation thus cannot be described as fair (to the People) or reasonable. (People v. Buckhalter, supra, 26 Cal.4th 20, 28-29, 108 Cal.Rptr.2d 625, 25 P.3d 1103; People v. Bruner, supra, 9 Cal.4th 1178, 1194-1195, 40 Cal.Rptr.2d 534, 892 P.2d 1277; In re Joyner, supra, 48 Cal.3d 487, 495, 256 Cal.Rptr. 785, 769 P.2d 967.) Petitioner's interpretation also creates tension with the statutory language in this way: During any period of time when petitioner is serving time in prison for both the violent offense and the nonviolent offense, petitioner most certainly "is convicted of a [violent] felony offense" (§ 2933.1(a), italics added) in every relevant sense. Thus, to permit him to accrue worktime credit during such a period of imprisonment at the rate of 50 percent for any purpose literally conflicts with the language of section 2933.1(a).
The arguments supporting petitioner's interpretation of section 2933.1(a) are not persuasive. Petitioner first argues that worktime credit is accrued on an offense-by-offense basis, at least when the offenses are punished with separate, concurrent terms. He bases this argument on the so-called strict causation rule, under which a prisoner "is not entitled to credit for presentence confinement unless he shows that the conduct which led to his conviction was the sole reason for his loss of liberty during the presentence period." (People v. Bruner, supra, 9 Cal.4th 1178, 1191, 40 Cal.Rptr.2d 534, 892 P.2d 1277, italics added.) Thus, for example, a prisoner who serves a period of presentence custody on Florida charges is not entitled to credit against his subsequent prison sentence on *15 California charges, even though a California hold was in effect throughout the period of presentence custody. (In re Joyner, supra, 48 Cal.3d 487, 492, 256 Cal.Rptr. 785, 769 P.2d 967.) "Taking the logic that credits should be allocated to the term for which they accrued and applying it to the credits limitation situation here," petitioner argues, "results in a sensible general rule that the credits limitation applies to the term of imprisonment that is based on a qualifying offense." The argument lacks merit. The strict causation rule has no recognized application outside the context of presentence credits.
Petitioner next argues that the rule of lenity compels us to adopt his interpretation of section 2933.1(a). We disagree. "[A]lthough true ambiguities are resolved in a defendant's favor, an appellate court should not strain to interpret a penal statute in defendant's favor if it can fairly discern a contrary legislative intent." (People v. Avery (2002) 27 Cal.4th 49, 58, 115 Cal.Rptr.2d 403, 38 P.3d 1.) As we have explained, petitioner's interpretation of section 2933.1(a) would require us literally to violate the statute's command that "any person who is convicted of a [violent] felony offense ... shall accrue no more than 15 percent of worktime credit" (ibid.), at least during the period of custody when petitioner is actually convicted of and serving a term for a violent offense. Moreover, as we have also explained, petitioner's interpretation of the section would leave the section without any effect on his own sentence, thus frustrating the Legislature's goal of ensuring that violent felons serve a great portion of their sentences.
In any event, resort to the rule of lenity is unnecessary. An interpretation of section 2933.1(a) exists that is faithful to its language and to what we know of the Legislature's purpose, produces fair and reasonable results, and can be readily understood and applied. Lacking definitive guidance in the language or history of the statute, our aim must be to identify such an interpretation. (E.g., In re Joyner, supra, 48 Cal.3d 487, 495, 256 Cal.Rptr. 785, 769 P.2d 967.) As mentioned at the outset, we interpret the section as follows: Section 2933.1(a) limits to 15 percent the rate at which a prisoner convicted of and serving time for a violent offense may earn worktime credit, regardless of any other offenses for which such a prisoner is simultaneously serving a sentence.[17] On the other hand, section 2933.1(a) has no application to a prisoner who is not actually serving a sentence for a violent offense; such a prisoner may earn credit at a rate unaffected by the section.[18]
*16 Our interpretation is more faithful to the language of section 2933.1(a) than is either the People's or petitioner's interpretation. Unlike the People's interpretation, our interpretation does not require us to treat a person who is no longer subject to imprisonment for a violent offense as a person who "is convicted" (§ 2933.1(a)) of such an offense. Unlike petitioner's interpretation, our interpretation does not require us to treat a person who is currently serving time for a violent offense as a person who is not convicted of such an offense. Our interpretation is also faithful to what we know of the Legislature's purpose because it effectively limits the rate at which petitioner and others in his situation can earn worktime credit while serving sentences for violent offenses. Under our interpretation, petitioner will accrue credit at the rate of 15 percent against his first five years in prison and at the rate of 50 percent for his second five years. He will thus serve a total of six years and nine months, which represents five years minus 15 percent credit, plus five years minus 50 percent credit.[19] Our interpretation is fair and reasonable both to the People, because it imposes a real restriction on a violent offender's ability to earn worktime credits, and to petitioner, because the restriction ends when the term for the violent offense has been served.[20] Of course, our interpretation of section 2933.1 leaves the Legislature free to amend the section if and as it chooses.
III. DISPOSITION
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and *17 the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with the views set forth herein.
WE CONCUR: GEORGE, C.J., KENNARD and MORENO, JJ.
Dissenting Opinion by CHIN, J.
Throughout this proceeding, the parties have offered two conflicting constructions of Penal Code section 2933.1, subdivision (a) (hereafter section 2933.1(a)).[21] Petitioner argues that the 15 percent sentence credit limit under that statute applies only to the sentence he received for his conviction of assault with a deadly weapon which qualifies under section 667.5, subdivision (c)(8), as a violent felony because he inflicted great bodily injury on his victim and does not apply to the sentence he received for possession of a controlled substance, which does not qualify as a violent felony. The People, on the other hand, argue that the 15 percent credit limit fully applies to both sentences. I agree with the People because, as I demonstrate below, their construction is consistent with the statutory language, the legislative history, and 130 years of California case law interpreting California sentence credit statutes under both determinate and indeterminate sentencing schemes.
The majority rejects both constructions and, conjuring up its own, holds that section 2933.1(a)'s credit limit applied to the sentence for petitioner's drug possession conviction only "as long as [petitioner] was serving the term for the violent offense," and became inapplicable "once [he] completed the term for the violent offense." (Maj. opn., ante, 28 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 6, 110 P.3d at p. 1220.) However, the majority's interpretation is inconsistent with the language of the statute viewed in its statutory context and in light of our case law. Instead, the majority's interpretation is based on language that the Legislature could have adopted, but chose not to. The majority's interpretation is also inconsistent with the relevant legislative history. Finally, and ironically, although the majority asserts that its interpretation is "fair and reasonable" (maj. opn., ante, 28 Cal. Rptr.3d at p. 15, 110 P.3d at pp. 1227-1228), the results produced by its interpretation are neither. Here, for example, under the majority's interpretation, petitioner will actually serve less total time in prison because he committed a second crime the drug possession offense than he would have served had he committed only one crime the assault. Surely, the Legislature did not intend to grant defendants a windfall for committing additional crimes. For these reasons, I dissent.
I. Background Facts
The procedural history of this action is important in understanding the consequences of the majority's holding. On January 19, 1999, in case No. 98HF0516, defendant was convicted by guilty plea of assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm. At the same time, he admitted one enhancement under section 12022.7 for inflicting great bodily injury and four enhancements under section 667.5, subdivision (b), for serving four separate prior prison terms for felonies. Sentencing in the case was set for March 12, 1999.
Sentencing did not occur as scheduled on March 12. Instead, petitioner went to trial in case No. 98WF0354, which charged the drug possession offense, one enhancement under section 186.22 for committing the offense for the benefit of a criminal street gang, one enhancement under Health and Safety Code section 11370.2 for a prior drug-related offense, and three enhancements *18 under Penal Code section 667.5, subdivision (b), for serving three separate prior prison terms for felonies. On March 18, 1999, petitioner was convicted of the drug possession offense and the enhancement allegations were found true. On the same date, the court imposed a 10-year priso