Kuhnel v. Superior Court of Contra Costa County
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Kuhnel was convicted of misdemeanor embezzlement and placed on probation for three years in November 2016. In October 2017, the Orinda Police Department received a report that Kuhnel had committed new acts of fraud. In December 2017, the trial court summarily revoked Kuhnel’s probation and set a hearing on the violation for January 2018. The hearing was continued multiple times, on several occasions because Kuhnel failed to appear and twice at her request. Without the hearing ever being held, Kuhnel moved in June 2021 to terminate her probation, arguing that she had been on probation for more than one year and Assembly Bill 1950 applied retroactively to shorten her probationary term. AB 1950 retroactively limited the maximum probation term for a misdemeanor to one year.
Reasoning that it retained jurisdiction to adjudicate violations that took place during the original term of probation, the trial court denied Kuhnel’s motion. The court of appeal denied Kuhnel’s petition for mandamus relief. The adjudication of violation and revocation of probation occurred before AB 1950 was enacted; they were appropriate under then-governing law, so the trial court retained jurisdiction to conduct a hearing on the probation violation after AB 1950’s effective date.
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