In re Avilas on Habeas Corpus CA4/2

BACKGROUND

Avilas was arrested in early November 2024. Two days later, the San Bernardino

County District Attorney filed a felony complaint charging Avilas with numerous felony

and misdemeanor offenses. At arraignment, the court denied Avilas’s motion to be

released on his own recognizance and set bail at $200,000. At the subsequent

preliminary hearing, the court held Avilas to answer on all charges and set bail at

$75,000.

In January 2025, Avilas filed this habeas corpus petition challenging the

imposition of bail. We summarily denied the petition. The California Supreme Court

granted review and transferred the matter back to this court with directions to vacate the

summary denial order and issue an order to show cause, which we did. We subsequently

issued a tentative opinion indicating that we were inclined to grant the petition. Ten days

later, we granted the People leave to file a supplemental written return. According to the

attached exhibits, Avilas pled no contest to two felony offenses after issuance of our

tentative opinion and was sentenced to 16 months in state prison. The People argued that

we should deny the petition as moot. We gave Avilas an…