Hul

*185 Opinion

A jury convicted Pheap Hul of possessing a usable quantity of cocaine. (Health & Saf. Code, § 11350, subd. (a).) Hul committed the offense on May 26, 2011, and he was arrested and booked into jail that day. He did not make bail and remained in jail through the jury verdict in early October 2011 and sentencing later that month, when the trial court imposed the low term of 16 months in what the parties agree would have been a sentence to state prison had Hul been sentenced a month earlier. Instead of prison, the trial court under the Criminal Justice Realignment Act of 2011 (Realignment Act), operative October 1, 2011, remanded Hul to local custody to serve his term. (Pen. Code, § 1170, subd. (h)(1) [felonies with terms not otherwise specified “shall be punishable by a term of imprisonment in a county jail for 16 months, or two or three years”]; all further undesignated statutory references are to this code.)

At sentencing, Hul requested “day-for-day” presentence conduct credits, but the trial court concluded Hul’s maximum potential conduct credits for serving his term in local custody were two days for every four days of actual custody, effectively half-time.…