Tang

Penal Code section 1203.03 empowers a sentencing court to temporarily commit a convicted felon to a diagnostic facility of the Department of Corrections for a report containing a “diagnosis and recommendation concerning the disposition of the defendant’s case.” (Pen. Code, § 1203.03, subd. (b).) (All further statutory references are to the Penal Code, unless otherwise indicated.) This case presents the question whether such a report, when prepared pursuant to a negotiated plea, binds the court to accept the recommended disposition under circumstances where defendant contends the recommendation is faulty in its premises. We conclude the court and the defendant may agree to be bound by such a recommendation so long as the court actually exercises its sentencing discretion.

I. Background

On July 6, 1994, defendant was a 53-year-old cabdriver and sometime chef. He had no criminal record. During the course of the day, he and the victim, Gong Bo Kwong, quarreled repeatedly over a $20 bet Mr. Kwong had made with defendant’s wife. Late in the evening Mr. Kwong walked up to defendant in a hotel lobby, pulled out a cleaver and “struck [defendant] on the left side of his head,”…