Tomorrow morning, the Supreme Court will file its opinion in People v. Esquivel. (Briefs here; oral argument video here.)
The opinion will be the first for any case in the summer pipeline. It is also filing faster than usual. Esquivel was argued in early-May, but opinions are normally not issued until at least two months after a hearing. By contrast, there has been no decision yet in any case argued on the April calendar.
The court limited the issue in Esquivel to: “Is the judgment in a criminal case considered final for purposes of applying a later ameliorative change in the law when probation is granted and execution of sentence is suspended or only upon revocation of probation when the suspended sentence is ordered into effect?” The court granted review in August 2020. Two weeks before the argument, the court asked counsel to address at oral argument “the issue described in [the] order granting review, not the remedy, if any, to which defendant may be entitled if the judgment is nonfinal.”
The change in the law at issue is Senate Bill 136, which, in 2019, restricted what had been a generally applicable enhancement for prior felony prison and jail terms to one that is now imposed only for those terms served for sexually violent offenses.
The opinion can be viewed tomorrow starting at 10:00 a.m.