People v. Williamson CA3

BACKGROUND

In December 2019, defendant was arrested on a post-release community supervision warrant. While in custody in county jail, defendant and another inmate attacked a third inmate. They beat the victim inmate with their fists for approximately one minute then refused to answer questions about the attack. The attack left the victim inmate disoriented and with a laceration behind his ear. The People charged defendant with assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury. (§ 245, subd. (a)(4).) Defendant pleaded no contest to the assault charge and the trial court sentenced him to three years in state prison.2 The court ordered defendant to pay various fines and fees and awarded him 140 days of custody credit. At the time of his conviction, defendant was 23 years old. Defendant appealed without a certificate of probable cause.

Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code. 2 Defendant also pleaded no contest to a charge of misdemeanor failure to appear in Butte County Superior Court case No. 20CF04823. The trial court sentenced him to a concurrent one-year term on that conviction.

DISCUSSION

While defendant’s appeal was pending, section 1170 was…