In Harris v. Superior Court, the Supreme Court today holds that a defendant who petitions for resentencing under Proposition 47, after having been sentenced under a plea bargain before the proposition became law, does not risk having the plea bargain undone. The court’s unanimous opinion, written by Justice Ming Chin, states that “[t]he resentencing process that Proposition 47 established would often prove meaningless if the prosecution could respond to a successful resentencing petition by withdrawing from an underlying plea agreement and reinstating the original charges filed against the petitioner.”
The court reverses a 2-1 judgment by the Second District, Division Five, Court of Appeal.