“Imposed” Under Penal Code § 1172.75 Includes Prior Prison Term Enhancements Whose Punishment Was Stricken

Case: People v. Espino (Cal. July 2, 2026) S286987
Court: Supreme Court of California (Kruger, J.)
Subject: Retroactive invalidation and resentencing procedure for former Penal Code § 667.5(b) prior-prison-term enhancements under Penal Code § 1172.75

1. Introduction

People v. Espino addresses a narrow but consequential eligibility question under Penal Code section 1172.75, the statute that retroactively invalidates most one-year prior prison term enhancements formerly imposed under Penal Code section 667.5(b). The parties were the People (plaintiff and respondent) and Jack Espino (defendant and appellant), who had admitted a prior prison term allegation in a 2017 case involving robberies and related offenses.

The key issue was statutory: whether a prior prison term enhancement was “imposed” for purposes of section 1172.75(a) when the sentencing court (1) found the allegation true and left it in the judgment but (2) struck the punishment for the enhancement under Penal Code section 1385 (without striking the enhancement allegation itself). If “imposed,” the enhancement is “legally invalid” under section 1172.75(a), and the defendant—if currently serving a term for a judgment that includes it—is entitled to a full resentencing under section 1172.75(b) and (d).

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeal and held that Espino’s prior prison term enhancement was “imposed” despite the trial court having struck the punishment for it. Because the enhancement remained a true finding included in the sentencing order and judgment, it fell within section 1172.75(a)’s invalidation of “[a]ny sentence enhancement that was imposed prior to January 1, 2020” pursuant to section 667.5(b). Espino is thus entitled to resentencing under section 1172.75’s procedures.

The Court relied heavily on its recent decision in People v. Rhodius (2025) 17 Cal.5th 1050, which held that a stayed prior prison term enhancement was “imposed” under section 1172.75(a). Extending that reasoning, the Court concluded that striking punishment does not remove the enhancement from the legally operative judgment—and the enhancement can still carry legal consequences—so it is “imposed” and now invalid.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

• People v. Rhodius (2025) 17 Cal.5th 1050 (Rhodius)
  Role in Espino: Rhodius supplied the interpretive framework for the same statutory phrase—enhancements “imposed” before January 1, 2020—and rejected a narrow reading limiting invalidation to enhancements both imposed and executed. Rhodius held an enhancement is “imposed” when it is made part of a legally effective order, even if punishment is stayed. Espino applies that same ordinary-meaning approach and rejects attempts to use resentencing provisions (especially section 1172.75(d)(1)) to narrow the scope of “imposed.”
• People v. Fuentes (2016) 1 Cal.5th 218
  Role in Espino: Fuentes supports the critical distinction between striking an enhancement’s punishment and striking the enhancement itself. The Court quoted Fuentes for the proposition that striking punishment “merely serves to prohibit a certain purpose for which the [allegation] may be used” and “does not ‘operate to defeat the factual finding of the truth of the [allegation].’” This undergirds the conclusion that a punishment-stricken enhancement remains part of the sentencing order and thus can be “imposed.”
• People v. Buycks (2018) 5 Cal.5th 857
  Role in Espino: Buycks is cited for the concept of “full resentencing” upon remand when part of a sentence is stricken—allowing the court to revisit the entire sentencing package in light of changed circumstances. Espino uses this to rebut the Attorney General’s premise that a punishment-stricken enhancement has “no potential” adverse effect; if resentencing occurs for other reasons, courts historically had authority to reconsider and potentially apply enhancement punishment within the resentencing calculus (subject, now, to subsequent legislative limits).
• People v. Garner (2016) 244 Cal.App.4th 1113
  Role in Espino: Garner is a concrete example from the Courts of Appeal: it held that when resentencing a defendant, a trial court could impose punishment based on prior prison term enhancements whose punishment had previously been stricken. Espino cites Garner to show that, at the time the Legislature acted, existing case law suggested punishment-stricken enhancements could still matter in later resentencings—making it plausible the Legislature viewed them as needing retroactive invalidation.
• People v. Espino (2024) 104 Cal.App.5th 188
  Role in Espino: The Supreme Court reviewed this decision, in which the Court of Appeal majority held section 1172.75 applies whether punishment was executed, stayed, or struck, while a dissent argued “imposed” should exclude punishment-stricken enhancements because they do not lengthen incarceration. The Supreme Court adopted the majority’s bottom-line result, while anchoring its reasoning primarily in Rhodius and ordinary meaning.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. Text-first interpretation: ordinary meaning of “imposed”

The Court reiterated Rhodius’s baseline: “as a matter of ordinary usage, an enhancement is ‘imposed’ when it is made part of a legally effective order.” A true finding on a section 667.5(b) allegation that remains reflected in the judgment—even if its additional time is not added—still forms part of the sentencing order. The Court treated that legal inclusion as the key textual trigger for “imposed” in section 1172.75(a).

B. Distinguishing “punishment stayed” vs. “punishment stricken” did not change the statutory meaning

The Attorney General urged a distinction: stayed enhancements have contingent effect (the stay might later be lifted), while punishment-stricken enhancements supposedly have no adverse effect at all. The Court rejected this as both linguistically and legally incomplete.

Linguistically, the Court found it “not unusual” to describe an enhancement as imposed even when punishment is stricken, because the true finding remains part of the judgment (supported by People v. Fuentes (2016) 1 Cal.5th 218).

Legally, the Court rejected the premise that punishment-stricken enhancements are consequence-free. Pre-section 1172.75 doctrine recognized broad resentencing authority (People v. Buycks (2018) 5 Cal.5th 857) and, in at least some appellate decisions, permitted later imposition of previously stricken enhancement punishment upon resentencing (People v. Garner (2016) 244 Cal.App.4th 1113). That history mattered because it informed what the Legislature could reasonably have understood when it wrote section 1172.75(a) in broad terms.

C. Structure: resentencing provisions do not narrow invalidity

Echoing Rhodius, the Court again rejected using section 1172.75(d)(1)’s “lesser sentence” language to narrow section 1172.75(a)’s invalidation rule. The central move is conceptual: section 1172.75(a) defines legal invalidity; resentencing procedures “follow inexorably from invalidity, not the other way around.” Thus, even if one thinks resentencing might often not shorten custody for a punishment-stricken enhancement, that does not rewrite the antecedent invalidation phrase “imposed.”

D. Legislative purpose: fairness as well as incarceration reduction

The Court acknowledged that the reforms were motivated partly by reducing incarceration burdens. But, consistent with Rhodius, it emphasized a broader legislative goal: advancing fairness by eliminating enhancements that effectively punished a person again for past custody tied to a different crime. Under that fairness rationale, it makes sense to eliminate prior prison term enhancements as legal components of judgments even where punishment was previously stricken.

E. The Court’s limiting note (what Espino does not decide)

The opinion expressly does not resolve the separate question flagged in Rhodius’s footnote: whether a prior prison term enhancement is “imposed” when the enhancement itself (not just the punishment) has been stricken. Espino only decides the situation where the true finding remains, but punishment was stricken.

3.3 Impact

• Expanded eligibility for section 1172.75 resentencing: Defendants whose judgments include a true finding on a former section 667.5(b) enhancement—where the court struck only the punishment—are entitled to resentencing if they are “currently serving a term for a judgment that includes” the enhancement.
• Uniformity across “executed,” “stayed,” and “punishment-stricken” outcomes: After Rhodius (stayed) and Espino (punishment stricken), section 1172.75(a) applies broadly to enhancements included in the judgment pre-2020, largely independent of how the trial court handled execution of the additional time.
• Full resentencing remains the procedural consequence: The decision reinforces that the remedy is a “full resentencing” in which the court considers a broad range of current factors, including changes in sentencing law and favorable postconviction conduct, subject to statutory limits (including that resentencing “shall not result in a longer sentence than the one originally imposed”).
• Administrative and litigation effects: Courts and parties should expect increased petitions/recall-and-resentence proceedings in cases where abstracts of judgment still reflect true findings for prior prison terms, even if the added time was struck. Espino makes those records legally significant for eligibility.
• Remaining contested edge case: Litigation may shift to the still-open question: cases where the enhancement allegation itself was stricken/dismissed (not merely its punishment) and whether such a disposition counts as “imposed.”

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Sentence “enhancement” (here, former § 667.5(b)): An add-on term (often one year) attached to a base sentence due to a qualifying prior prison term.
• “Imposed”: In this line of cases, the Court treats “imposed” as meaning included in a legally effective sentencing order/judgment—i.e., part of what the court formally ordered and recorded—whether or not the time was actually added to the executed prison term.
• Stayed punishment: The court orders the enhancement but pauses its execution; it may be capable of being “lifted” under certain resentencing circumstances.
• Stricken punishment (Pen. Code, § 1385): The court leaves the enhancement finding in place but eliminates the extra time tied to it. Importantly, striking punishment does not erase the fact-finding that the allegation is true (per People v. Fuentes (2016) 1 Cal.5th 218).
• “Full resentencing”: A resentencing hearing where the court may reconsider the sentencing package in light of current law and relevant factors, rather than mechanically subtracting a single year.
• “Lesser sentence” and public safety exception (Pen. Code, § 1172.75(d)(1)): The new sentence generally must be “lesser” due to elimination of the invalid enhancement unless the court finds by clear and convincing evidence that a lesser sentence would endanger public safety; even then, the court cannot impose a longer sentence than the original.

5. Conclusion

People v. Espino cements a broad, judgment-focused interpretation of “imposed” in Penal Code section 1172.75(a): a former section 667.5(b) enhancement is invalid if it was included as a true finding in the pre-2020 judgment, even if the sentencing court struck the enhancement’s punishment. Building on People v. Rhodius (2025) 17 Cal.5th 1050, the Court treats invalidity as a function of the enhancement’s legal presence in the judgment—not merely whether it previously increased custody—aligning the statute’s retroactive remedy with legislative goals of both reducing incarceration and advancing fairness in sentencing.