Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Super. Ct. Nos. CM025980, CM020155
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, J.
Defendant Don Henry Wideman, Jr., entered pleas of no contest to charges contained in two separate cases. The trial court sentenced him to state prison, imposing the minimum restitution fine and parole revocation fine in each case. On appeal, the defendant contends that the imposition of a separate restitution and parole fine on each case violated the terms of his plea and was also an abuse of discretion. We shall affirm.
FACTS
The facts underlying the convictions are not pertinent to the defendant’s claims on appeal, so we will dispense with them. Our focus is instead on the relevant procedural details.
In November 2003, the prosecution filed a complaint that charged the defendant with assault with a firearm and being a felon in possession of a firearm, along with a use allegation. (Case No. CM020155 [the assault case].) The defendant pled not guilty in August 2006. By stipulation in October 2006, the parties waived the preliminary hearing and deemed the complaint to be the information.
In November 2006, the prosecution filed a complaint that charged the defendant with two counts of felony impersonation and included recidivist allegations. (Case No. CM025980 [the impersonation case].) The defendant again pled not guilty.
The defendant, who was released on his own recognizance, failed to appear for court-ordered hearings in the cases in January 2007. This led the prosecutor to file a new complaint (case No. CM026358 [the FTA case]) that is not included in the present record, which apparently charged the defendant with a willful failure to appear while released on his own recognizance.
In January 2008, the defendant appeared and waived the preliminary hearing in the impersonation and FTA cases. The parties also stipulated to deem the two complaints to be informations. Thereafter, the trial court granted the prosecutor’s motion to consolidate the impersonation and FTA informations under case No. CM025980.
In February 2008, the prosecutor filed a consolidated and amended information in case No. CM025980, the impersonation/FTA case, now designating the impersonation charges as misdemeanors. On the following day, in both cases, the defendant changed his pleas to no contest, in exchange for which the prosecutor amended the assault count to allege force likely to produce great bodily injury and dismissed the remainder of the allegations in the assault case.
The discussion at the plea hearing of the terms of these pleas did not include any express reference to fines. The single plea form incorporating both cases did not include any reference to fines among the listed inducements for the pleas. It did advise in one of the preprinted sections that the defendant was subject to “a restitution fine of a minimum of $200.00 or a maximum of $10,000” if imprisoned or granted probation.
At sentencing in May 2008, the court imposed the upper term for the assault, a consecutive term for the failure to appear, and concurrent terms for the misdemeanors, for a total of four years and eight months. With respect to the restitution fines, the probation report had recommended “a restitution fine . . . in the amount of $1600.00.” The trial court, however, found “no ability to pay fines and [legal] fees. . . . He is to pay a restitution fine of $200 in CM020155 [the assault case] and CM026358 [the FTA case], which was consolidated with 25980 [impersonation case], for a total of $400. He is to pay a restitution [sic] fine suspended of $200 in each of those two cases.” Defense counsel did not raise any arguments regarding the recommended amount of these fines, or object to the court’s imposition of the fines.
DISCUSSION
The defendant has undoubtedly framed his argument in terms of a violation of his plea agreement in order to escape the consequences of failing to object to the structuring of his sentence in the trial court, as he was not at any time advised of his right to withdraw his plea if his sentence deviated from it. (People v. Walker (1991) 54 Cal.3d 1013, 1026.) Otherwise, he has forfeited the issue, since the trial court had authority to impose multiple restitution/revocation fines totaling $400 because the cases proceeded separately rather than in a manner that was a functional equivalent of formal consolidation (People v. Schoeb (2005) 132 Cal.App.4th 861, 865; People v. Enos (2005) 128 Cal.App.4th 1046 [both cases involving single plea disposing of independent cases; multiple fines are proper]; compare People v. Ferris (2000) 82 Cal.App.4th 1272, 1276-1278 [separate cases jointly tried are one case for purpose of fines]; People v. Smith (2001) 24 Cal.4th 849, 852 [no forfeiture for failure to object only where sentencing element cannot be imposed under any factual circumstances]). He also could not possibly demonstrate prejudice from this sentencing decision because the total amount of fines is less than $10,000. (Schoeb, supra, at p. 865.)
The issue of whether a single resolution by plea of multiple cases results in only a single case to which the $10,000 limit applies is before the Supreme Court. (People v. Soria (2008) 163 Cal.App.4th 247, review granted Aug. 27, 2008, S164796.)
A plea agreement is construed under the same rules as any other contract. (People v. Toscano (2004) 124 Cal.App.4th 340, 344.) Considering the absence of any express reference to the restitution/revocation fines in the portion of the written plea agreement that reflects the inducements for the plea specific to the defendant, and the absence of any references to fines at the hearings on the plea or sentencing, we do not believe it was reasonably (or actually) within the expectations of the parties that only a single pair of fines would be part of the sentence simply because the preprinted portion of a form ordinarily used for a single case made reference only to “a” fine.
In any event, the imposition of the two sets of fines is harmless where the plea provided for a fine to be set in the court’s discretion in any amount up to $10,000. (Cf. Schoeb, supra, 132 Cal.App.4th at p. 865.) The defendant utterly fails to establish that he would not have entered the plea because of this manner of structuring his sentence.
Lastly, the defendant’s contention that the trial court abused its discretion in setting the total amount of the fine fails because it either disregards the requirement that a court must impose a minimum fine in each separate case, or it is forfeited for the failure to object.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: RAYE, Acting P. J. ROBIE, J.