By Neha Suri
AUBURN, CA – Following much confusion, it was found in a hearing here in Placer County Superior Court Friday that the accused’s time served in custody as pretrial credit was incorrectly noted, leading to a delay in her sentencing and ultimately time served.
The accused was arrested Jan. 13, 2022 for felony counts relating to her alleged possession and transportation of heroin for sale, drug paraphernalia, and prescription medication without a prescription. She has been serving her time since then, more than two and a half years.
A hearing for the accused Friday was meant to address a mandatory supervision violation, but after going over previously delivered sentencing on two of her counts, a new credit memo delivered to the court raised concerns on how the accused’s sentence was being determined.
The accused has already served over 1,200 days in pretrial credits of her nearly five year sentence on two felony counts. However, upon examining the accused’s record, it was determined to have been incorrectly written.
Judge Linda Clark noted she was, “having trouble understanding the credit memo,” and as a new judge to the Placer County Superior Court, it highlighted an issue with how the court documents sentencing for accused.
A clerk on Judge Clark’s bench pointed out an issue with recording the accused’s accrued pretrial credits, explaining two of her counts were documented separately, leading to a problem when entering her served time credits because she did not know which count to put them under.
Puzzled by the issue brought to light, Judge Clark stated the two counts should have been put together as the sentencing was done conjointly, and upon verifying with the clerk that this was not the case stated, “that is wrong.”
Deputy Public Defender Steven P. Lowe seemed equally confused as Judge Clark by the court’s handling of the accused’s sentence, reviewing the credit memo as the judge delivered her comments.
Deputy District Attorney Devan M. Portillo requested another hearing for the following week to ascertain how much time had actually been served by the accused, which DPD Lowe agreed to, and Judge Clark ultimately granted.
Judge Clark also revoked the accused’s mandatory supervision violation and will address other supervision concerns in the hearing next week.
