People v. Toussaint

Filed 9/30/26 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION ONE THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, A171743 v. JOSEPH TOUSSAINT III, (Alameda County Super. Ct. No. 623995) Defendant and Appellant. THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Appellant, A171743 v. (Kern County JOSEPH TOUSSAINT III, Super. Ct. No. SC066756A) Defendant and Respondent. The Kern County District Attorney (Kern DA) has purported to appeal on behalf of the People of the State of California (the People) from an Alameda County Superior Court (Alameda Court) order resentencing Joseph Toussaint III on three crimes. (Pen. Code, § 1172.1.)1 Two of the crimes were murders committed 50 years ago in Alameda County, for which the Alameda Court imposed concurrent life sentences. The third crime, possessing marijuana in state prison, was committed 20 years later in Kern County, for which the Kern County Superior Court (Kern Court) imposed a consecutive, third-strike sentence of 25 years to life. 1 All undesignated statutory citations are to the Penal Code. 1  The Alameda Court’s resentencing order required that Toussaint, who by then was 65 years old and had been incarcerated for 48 years, be immediately released from prison. Neither the Alameda County District Attorney (Alameda DA) nor the Attorney General appealed the ruling. However, the Kern County District Attorney (Kern DA), who had not been involved in the proceeding, filed a notice of appeal ostensibly on behalf of the People challenging resentencing on the Kern County crime. The Attorney General and Toussaint maintain the Kern DA has no authority to exercise the People’s right to appeal the Alameda Court’s order. The Attorney General suggests, however, the Kern DA might be able to seek writ review of the order. In that regard, Toussaint disagrees. We agree with the Attorney General and Toussaint that the Kern DA lacks authority in this case to exercise the People’s right to appeal the Alameda Court’s resentencing order. We also agree with Toussaint that the Kern DA cannot circumvent her lack of authority in that regard by way of a writ petition. We therefore dismiss this appeal for lack of appellate jurisdiction. We realize our conclusion might arguably result in a sentencing error by the Alameda Court going unaddressed. However, this is hardly clear. While the Kern DA disputes that the Alameda Court had authority to resentence the Kern County conviction, Toussaint maintains the court had the authority to do so, and the Attorney General seems to acknowledge the Alameda Court at least had the authority to consider the issue. As to the substance of the Alameda Court’s resentencing order, the Attorney General and Kern DA do not agree as to the basis of any supposed error, and Toussaint insists there was no error. 2  In any case, the Attorney General and Alameda DA, each of whom had the authority to exercise the People’s right to appeal, made the decision to accept the Alameda Court’s ruling and close the matter, as was their prerogative to do so. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND2 Toussaint’s Crimes In 1976, then-17-year-old Toussaint and another teen burgled the home of a neighboring elderly couple in Hayward and, when discovered, brutally killed them. A jury found Toussaint guilty on two counts of first degree murder (§ 187), for which the Alameda Court imposed two concurrent life sentences.3 Toussaint was sent to a prison in Kern County where, nearly 20 years later, in 1996, a jury found him guilty of possessing marijuana in prison (§ 4573.6). For that crime, the then–newly enacted Three Strikes Law required the Kern Court to impose a sentence of 25 years to life (§ 667, subd. (e)(2)(A)(ii); § 1170.12, subd. (c)(2)(A)), which the court made consecutive to Toussiant’s life sentences for murder. In 2012, California voters approved Proposition 36 (Prop. 36), which amended the Three Strikes Law to bar third-strike sentences for felonies that were, like Toussaint’s possession of marijuana, neither serious nor violent. (Prop. 36, § 2, as approved by voters, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 6, 2012), adding § 667, 2 Because the parties are familiar with the known facts of the underlying cases and the resentencing-related proceedings, we recite only those facts and procedural developments essential to our analysis of appellate jurisdiction. 3 The jury also found Toussaint guilty of burglary (§ 459), for which the court stayed execution of sentence pursuant to section 654. The burglary sentence is not at issue in this appeal. 3 subd. (e)(2)(C).) The amendment did not affect Toussiant, however, for it did not apply to persons whose prior strike offenses included murder. (§ 667, subd. (e)(2)(C)(iv)(IV); § 1170.12, subd. (c)(2)(C)(iv)(IV).) Trial Court Resentencing and Related Proceedings In July 2024, Toussaint—who by then was 65 years old and had been incarcerated for 48 years—filed a memorandum inviting the Alameda Court to exercise its newly expanded discretion under section 1172.1 to recall his sentences and resentence him. (See Stats. 2023, ch. 446, § 2, eff. Jan. 1, 2024 [amending § 1172.1 to enable court to exercise recall-and-resentence power “on its own motion . . . at any time” if sentencing laws have since changed].4) The Alameda Court accepted the invitation, which the Alameda DA neither supported nor opposed; recalled Toussaint’s sentence in light of his age, rehabilitation, and lack of current dangerousness; and resentenced him for the 1976 killings on two counts of voluntary manslaughter (§ 192, subd. (a)), not murder, for which it imposed consecutive sentences of 11 years each. Turning to the Kern County third-strike sentence for possessing marijuana in prison, the court dismissed the strikes in the interest of justice (§ 1385, subd. (c); People v. Superior Court (Romero) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497) and imposed an upper-term sentence of four years, to run concurrently with the sentences for manslaughter. This yielded a total sentence of 22 years, or 4 Previously, section 1172.1 authorized a court to recall a sentence on its own motion only within 120 days of imposing sentence. (Stats. 2023, ch. 446, § 2.) The current law specifies a defendant “is not entitled to file a petition seeking relief from the court under this section,” and “[i]f a defendant requests consideration for relief under this section, the court is not required to respond.” (§ 1172.1, subd. (c).) The Alameda Court thus acted “on its own motion” in recalling Toussaint’s sentence and resentencing him (id., subd. (a)(1)), even though it in fact did so in response to his invitation. 4 less than half the time Toussaint had already served. The Alameda Court imposed the new sentence on September 17, 2024. Between that date and the Kern DA’s filing a notice of appeal on behalf of the People four weeks later, several procedural events unfolded. First, the Alameda Court issued an amended abstract of judgment, to which the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) responded by letter, stating the Alameda Court could not modify the Kern County sentence. The Alameda Court promptly responded with an order reiterating its intent to resentence Toussaint “on the aggregate term,” which it believed properly included the Kern County sentence, in a way intended to result in his prompt release. Next, when the CDCR did not respond by promptly releasing Toussaint, he petitioned the Alameda Court for a writ of habeas corpus. The court promptly ordered the Attorney General to show cause why a writ should not issue. A day later, the Kern DA filed a notice of special appearance in the Alameda Court, as attorneys for the People, and moved to vacate the resentencing order on the ground the Alameda Court had no jurisdiction to recall a sentence imposed in Kern County. The court took no action on the motion to vacate. The Attorney General then filed two returns to the order to show cause—the first explaining the CDCR was briefly holding Toussaint for a statutorily mandated psychological evaluation, and the second reporting that the CDCR had released him, and thus asking the court to deny the habeas petition as moot, which it did. The Attorney General’s first return included a footnote stating that he “defers to the Kern County [DA], who has filed a motion to vacate [the] resentencing order,” while “not[ing] that an inmate’s 5 consecutive sentence for [an] in-prison offense cannot be merged or aggregated with an inmate’s original term for [an] out-of-prison offense.” (See In re Tate (2006) 135 Cal.App.4th 756, 764–65, citing § 1170.1, subd. (c).) “Instead,” the Attorney General stated, “the two terms are treated as separate terms, with the term for the in-prison offense beginning only when the inmate completed the term for his out-of-prison offense.” Although the resentencing order resulted in Toussaint’s release, neither the Alameda DA nor the Attorney General filed a notice of appeal from the order. Two days after Toussaint was released, the Kern DA did so. Proceedings in This Court After Toussaint and the Kern DA filed their briefs on appeal—with Toussaint raising as a jurisdictional issue whether the Kern DA could appeal on behalf of the People—we issued an order inviting the Attorney General “to file a brief in this matter or to file a statement indicating that he declines to participate because he authorizes and adopts the position taken in this appeal by the Kern County [DA] that her office appropriately initiated this appeal on behalf of the People of the State of California and represents the People in this appeal.” We asked the Attorney General to address, inter alia, the Kern DA’s “authority and/or standing to file a notice of appeal” from the Alameda Court’s order, and “whether the term of imprisonment imposed in [the 1996 Kern County case] is part of the same ‘sentence,’ for purposes of . . . section 1172.1 and of the ‘full resentencing rule’ set forth in People v. Buycks (2018) 5 Cal.5th 857, 893 [(Buycks)][5], as the term of imprisonment imposed in [the 1976 Alameda County case].” 5 Under “statutes addressing recalled sentences,” the Buycks court held, “the resentencing court has jurisdiction to modify every aspect of the sentence, and not just the portion subjected to the recall,” and “may consider ‘any pertinent circumstances which have arisen since the prior sentence was 6  The Attorney General specially appeared and filed a brief advising “[a]s a threshold matter” that he “has not authorized the Kern County [DA] to act on behalf of the People or the Attorney General in this matter.” The Attorney General further stated he “declines to authorize or take over this appeal.” The Attorney General then suggested we might in our discretion “treat the appeal as a petition for writ of mandate by the Kern County [DA], [who] has a substantial beneficial interest in preserving the integrity of the separate conviction out of Kern County.” The Attorney General additionally discussed why the Alameda Court may have substantively erred in its resentencing on the Kern County crime. In response, the Kern DA insisted she did have authority to appeal on behalf of the People. But if not, she urged us to treat the appeal as a petition for writ of mandate. She then disagreed with much of the Attorney General’s discussion of the merits of the Alameda Court’s resentencing ruling on the Kern County crime but nevertheless maintained the court had erred. Toussaint, unsurprisingly, agreed with the Attorney General that the Kern DA lacked authority to file an appeal on behalf of the People. He also maintained writ relief was unavailable. And he disputed that the Alameda Court had made any resentencing error. DISCUSSION “Generally, a reviewing court acts in the procedural context of either a direct appeal or a writ proceeding.” (Griset v. Fair Political Practices Com. (2001) 25 Cal.4th 688, 696.) “Whether review should be pursued by direct appeal or by writ,” a treatise explains, “ordinarily depends on whether the imposed.’ ” (Buycks, supra, 5 Cal.5th at p. 893.) The court deemed this the “ ‘full resentencing rule.’ ” (Ibid.) 7 judgment or order is appealable.” (Eisenberg et al., Cal. Practice Guide: Civ. Appeals and Writs (The Rutter Group 2025) ¶ 2:2.) The resentencing order at issue was unquestionably appealable by the People. (See § 1238, subd. (a)(5)–(6) [authorizing “the people” to appeal from order in criminal case “made after judgment, affecting the substantial rights of the people” or “reducing the degree of the offense or the punishment imposed or modifying the offense to a lesser offense”]; see People v. Eubanks (1996) 14 Cal.4th 580, 588 (Eubanks) [“[i]n California, all criminal prosecutions are conducted in the name of the People of the State of California and by their authority”].) Thus, the salient question here is not whether the resentencing order was fundamentally appealable, but which of three public prosecutors had the authority in this particular case to decide on behalf of the People whether to exercise their right to appeal the order. The Attorney General and Alameda DA Had the Authority to Exercise the People’s Right to Appeal the Resentencing Order The “ ‘prosecution of criminal offenses on behalf of the People is the sole responsibility of the public prosecutor.’ ” (Eubanks, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 588.) “The district attorney of each county is the public prosecutor, vested with the power to conduct on behalf of the People all prosecutions for public offenses within the county. (Gov. Code, § 26500. . . .)” (Id. at p. 589.) The district attorney of each county therefore “independently exercises all the executive branch’s discretionary powers in the initiation and conduct of criminal proceedings.” (Ibid.) However, the exercise of this power is “[s]ubject to supervision by the Attorney General (Cal. Const., art. V, § 13; Gov. Code, § 12550).” (Eubanks, at p. 589.) Here, we consider the authority of three public prosecutors: The Alameda DA who exercised the executive branch’s powers in prosecuting the 8 1976 Alameda County case against Toussaint and who participated in the Alameda Court resentencing proceeding. The Kern DA who exercised those executive powers in conducting the 1996 Kern County case against him. And the Attorney General who, at all times, has both the constitutional authority to supervise those district attorneys and the constitutional “duty,” “[w]henever in [his] opinion . . . any law of the State [was] not being adequately enforced in any county,” to “prosecute any violations of law” and, in so doing, to exercise “all the powers of a district attorney.” (Cal. Const., art. V, § 13.) The present situation—where the People unquestionably had the right to appeal the Alameda Court resentencing order but it is unclear who had the authority to decide whether the People should exercise that right—differs in several significant ways from the typical case in which a party with the right to appeal must decide whether to do so. To begin with, the nature of the People’s interest in a criminal case differs qualitatively from the interest of a private party in typical litigation, making more complex the assessment of whether a ruling is against the People’s interest. Unlike the typically self-focused, pecuniary interest of a party to civil litigation, the People’s “interest” in a criminal proceeding is to secure an outcome consistent with justice. (Eubanks, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 589.) Unlike an “ ‘ “ordinary party to a controversy,” ’ ” the People are a sovereign “ ‘ “whose interest . . . in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done,” ’ ” which entails “ ‘ “the twofold aim . . . that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer.” ’ ” (Ibid., quoting Berger v. United States (1935) 295 U.S. 78, 88, intermediate quotation omitted.) 9  A public prosecutor assessing whether an order aggrieves their client, i.e., the People, must therefore balance the incommensurable interests of many persons: “ ‘The prosecutor speaks not solely for the victim, or the police, or those who support them, but for all the People. That body of “The People” includes the defendant and his family and those who care about him. It also includes the vast majority of citizens who know nothing about a particular case, but who give over to the prosecutor the authority to seek a just result in their name.’ ” (Eubanks, supra, 14 Cal.4th at pp. 589–590, quoting Corrigan, On Prosecutorial Ethics (1986) 13 Hastings Const.L.Q. 537, 538–539.) As a result, deciding whether the People should appeal an adverse ruling is more complex than deciding whether the defendant in a criminal case, or a typical party in a civil case, should appeal an adverse order. For a private party, deciding whether a ruling aggrieves them is usually simple; the real decision is whether an appeal is worth the cost. But for the People in a criminal case, as this case illustrates, reasonable prosecutorial officers may disagree as to whether an adverse ruling is unjust, when assessed in light of the interests of all those who make up “the People,” and may thus disagree whether the People should appeal. Additionally, the People cannot, themselves, resolve a disagreement between multiple attorneys over whether a ruling should be appealed. If a private party has two attorneys who disagree about the advisability of filing an appeal, the client must ultimately decide, as an attorney cannot file an appeal without their client’s consent. (See, e.g., In re Sean S. (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 350, 352). The People, however, as the client, cannot resolve a dispute between the multiple public officers who serve as their attorneys by choosing which one’s advice to follow. Instead, the law must in some manner designate which of the People’s legal representatives has the authority, in the 10 circumstances at hand, to make the call on the People’s behalf whether to exercise their right to appeal. The Attorney General and Toussaint urge that the ultimate decisionmaker for the People is the Attorney General, given the constitutional mandates set forth in article V, section 13 of the California Constitution and the bounds of a county DA’s authority to conduct on the People’s behalf “all prosecutions for public offenses within the county.” (Eubanks, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 589; see People v. Superior Court (Jump) (1995) 40 Cal.App.4th 9, 13 [DA is a “county officer who is authorized by statute to prosecute those crimes committed within the geographic confines of his or her county”].) These authorities do not, however, address the issue here—whether a county DA who is not a participant in a resentencing proceeding filed in another county can nevertheless appeal on behalf of the People, overriding the decision of the People’s attorneys in that proceeding (here, the Alameda DA and the Attorney General) not to pursue an appeal of the resentencing order. The Kern DA, in turn, points out there is no authority that expressly bars a DA from a county other than the county where the inmate files a petition for resentencing from appealing the resentencing order on behalf of the People. She notes, for example, neither section 1238 nor California Rules of Court, rule 8.304, governing appeals by the People, specifies which prosecutorial officer can file an appeal. The Kern DA also takes exception to the Attorney General’s and Toussaint’s assertion that her authority on behalf of the People is “limited” to her county. She notes in that regard that she appears in the Fifth District Court of Appeal and our Supreme Court, courts located outside Kern County. But when the Kern DA appears before the Fifth District Court of Appeal, she 11 does so after having filed a notice of appeal in the Kern court to invoke the appellate jurisdiction of the Fifth District, to whom the Legislature has assigned responsibility for appeals taken from Kern court rulings. (Gov. Code, § 69100, subd. (e).) And when she appears before the California Supreme Court, she does so after having filed a petition for review of an opinion by the appellate court responsible for appeals from rulings by the Kern court. What occurred here is entirely different. In short, no party cites any directly pertinent authority. Nor are we aware of any. A fundamental principle of appellate review is that the appellant “bears the burden of establishing appealability” and appellate jurisdiction. (Brown v. Upside Gading, LP (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 140, 144; accord, Parkford Owners For A Better Community v. County of Placer (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 714, 722.) While the parties have not cited, and we have not found, any precedent addressing who bears the burden of persuasion on the issue of authority to appeal, we presume that, as with appealability and appellate standing, the burden also rests with the appellant as “ordinarily ‘a party who seeks a court’s action in his favor bears the burden of persuasion thereon.’ ” (Oakland Raiders v. National Football League (2007) 41 Cal.4th 624, 640; accord, In re A.L. (2014) 224 Cal.App.4th 354, 368 [“As is the usual case, the person seeking an action from the court . . . has the burden to show he is entitled to it.”].) Thus, the absence of authority supporting the appellant Kern DA’s view weighs somewhat more heavily against her than does the lack of authority supporting the contrary view of the Attorney General and Toussaint. More significantly, our state Constitution counsels us to defer—absent pertinent constitutional, statutory, or precedential authority—to the 12 Attorney General’s view of the matter. The Constitution makes the Attorney General “the chief law officer of the State,” assigns him “the duty . . . to see that the laws of the State are uniformly and adequately enforced,” and gives him “direct supervision over every district attorney . . . in all matters pertaining to the duties of their respective offices.” (Cal. Const., art. V, § 13.) In an exercise of that constitutional authority, the Attorney General has expressly not authorized the Kern DA “to act on behalf of the People . . . in this matter,” and further has expressly “decline[d] to authorize” this appeal. No law precludes this exercise of the Attorney General’s constitutionally endowed executive authority. We therefore conclude that, in this case, the People’s decision to appeal rested with the Alameda DA and the Attorney General. The Kern DA Cannot Seek Writ Relief The Attorney General suggests we might alternatively treat the Kern DA’s unauthorized appeal as a writ proceeding. “Ordinarily,” states the Attorney General, “a district attorney from another county would not have standing to challenge a sentencing ruling by a court even if that ruling affected the sentence on a crime that [had] occurred” in the district attorney’s county. But “circumstances may arise,” he posits, in which a superior court “addresses a sentencing issue related to an offense committed in its home county and erroneously extends that ruling to a conviction from a sister county, such that only the district attorney from the sister county would have an interest in ensuring that latter error is addressed.” Such interest being, for example, to ensure “the court and local district attorney have not colluded 13 (intentionally or unintentionally) to improperly alter a separate judgment from another county.”6 The Attorney General’s suggestion that the Kern DA’s improper appeal might be considered a writ petition raises two threshold questions pertinent specifically to writ relief. As we explain, the analysis devolves into these two questions because the Attorney General is not clear as to who the postulated petitioner would be—the People represented by the Kern DA, or the Kern DA in her own right as a county official. If the supposed petitioner is the People represented by the Kern DA, the question is whether the People can satisfy the foremost requirement for writ relief—that they have no “plain, speedy, and adequate remedy in the ordinary course of law” to redress error by the Alameda Court. (People v. Superior Court (Howard) (1968) 69 Cal.2d 491, 497, citing Code Civ. Proc., §§ 1085–1086 [writ available only if petitioner has no adequate remedy at law]; People v. Superior Court (Farley) (2024) 100 Cal.App.5th 315, 324 [“In order to justify extraordinary writ relief, a petitioner must establish that there is no adequate remedy at law and that the petitioner will suffer irreparable injury if the writ is not granted.”].) If the supposed petitioner is the Kern DA, in her own right as a county official, the question is whether she has the requisite “beneficial interest” to seek writ review. (Carsten v. Psychology Examining Com. (1980) 27 Cal.3d 793, 796 (Carsten) [writ petitioner must have “some special interest to be served or some particular right to be preserved or protected over and above the interest held in common with the public at large”]; Department of 6 The Attorney General comments in passing that “that appears to be the situation here.” He provides no record citation that supports this comment, and we have no idea what he means by “unintentional” collusion. 14 Corrections & Rehabilitation v. Superior Court (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 1025, 1041 (Escobedo) [“ ‘To be “beneficially interested,” a petitioner must generally have “ ‘some special interest to be served or some particular right to be preserved or protected over and above the interest held in common with the public at large.’ ” ’ ”].) The Kern DA Cannot, on Behalf of the People, Seek a Writ Whether we can, or should, treat the Kern DA’s appeal as a writ proceeding on behalf of the People—thus effectively circumventing the Alameda DA’s and Attorney General’s decisions not to appeal—seems a relatively straightforward question. Writ review through ordinary mandamus is available, absent exceptional circumstances, only “when no plain, speedy, and adequate remedy at law is available.” (People v. Mena (2012) 54 Cal.4th 146, 153, citing Code Civ. Proc., § 1086; accord, Olson v. Cory (1983) 35 Cal.3d 390, 401; People v. Superior Court (Farley), supra, 100 Cal.App.5th at p. 324.) If an order is immediately appealable—as was the case here—mandate is not available unless “the remedy by appeal would be inadequate or the issues presented are of great public importance and must be resolved promptly.” (Powers v. City of Richmond (1995) 10 Cal.4th 85, 113 (Powers).) An immediate direct appeal is presumed to be an adequate legal remedy. (California Privacy Protection Agency v. Superior Court (2024) 99 Cal.App.5th 705, 719 (California Privacy Protection Agency); FlightSafety Internat., Inc. v. Los Angeles County Assessment Appeals Bd. (2023) 96 Cal.App.5th 712, 718 (FlightSafety Internat.) [“ ‘ “it has long been established as a general rule that the writ will not be issued if another such remedy was available to the petitioner,” ’ ” quoting Flores v. Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (2014) 224 Cal.App.4th 199, 205].) 15  Thus, a party seeking to forego an appellate remedy and secure review by writ “bears the burden of demonstrating that appeal would not be an adequate remedy under the particular circumstances. . . .” (Powers, supra, 10 Cal.4th at p. 113; accord, FlightSafety Internat., supra, 96 Cal.App.5th at p. 718 [“The burden is on the petitioner to show that it did not have such a remedy.”].) There is no dispute the People had a presumptively adequate remedy, namely an immediate appeal from the resentencing order. (§ 1238, subd. (a)(5)–(6).) The Alameda DA and Attorney General each knew of the order well within the time to file a notice of appeal on the People’s behalf. Both chose, however, not to exercise the People’s right of appeal. Thus, this is not a situation where an appeal would have been an inadequate remedy. Rather, this is a case where the Alameda DA and the Attorney General, presumably on the basis of the multiplicity of factors that go into deciding whether or not to appeal, chose not to appeal, in contrast to those cases where the aggrieved party has filed both a notice of appeal and a writ petition asserting that the appeal will not be an adequate remedy. (E.g., People ex rel. Becerra v. Superior Court (2018) 29 Cal.App.5th 486, 494 [dispute over availability of assisted suicide to persons expected to die within six months]; California Trial Lawyers Assn. v. Superior Court (1986) 187 Cal.App.3d 575, 579 [dispute over election to one-year term of office in private association].) In short, the People cannot, on the one hand, knowingly choose (through the Alameda DA and Attorney General) not to exercise their right to appeal, and claim (through the Kern DA), on the other hand, that an immediate appeal is not an adequate remedy and writ review is warranted. 16  The Kern DA Cannot, on Behalf of Her Office, Seek Writ Relief We therefore consider whether the Kern DA might be able to seek writ relief, not on behalf of the People, but solely on behalf of her county office. “Section 1086 expresses the controlling statutory requirements for standing for mandate: ‘The writ must be issued in all cases where there is not a plain, speedy, and adequate remedy, in the ordinary course of law. It must be issued upon the verified petition of the party beneficially interested.’ The requirement that a petitioner be ‘beneficially interested’ has been generally interpreted to mean that one may obtain the writ only if the person has some special interest to be served or some particular right to be preserved or protected over and above the interest held in common with the public at large.” (Carsten, supra, 27 Cal.3d at p. 796; accord, Escobedo, supra, 94 Cal.App.5th at p. 1041; Synergy Project Management, Inc. v. City and County of San Francisco (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 21, 30.) Neither the Attorney General nor the Kern DA suggests how the latter could have, in her own right, an interest in the Alameda Court resentencing order “over and above the interest held in common with the public at large” (Carsten, supra, 27 Cal.3d at p. 796, italics added)—that is, over and above that of the People. Nor does either cite any authority suggesting a county DA has an interest in their own right, distinct from the interest of the People, in a criminal conviction and sentence secured by their office. The Attorney General notes California law designates a district attorney as a required officer in each county (Cal. Const., art. xi, § 1; Gov. Code, § 24000), and he quotes authority holding that a district attorney “wears two hats” and acts “as both a county officer and a state officer in the exercise of the powers for which he has been elected.” (Pitchess v. Superior Court (1969) 2 Cal.App.3d 653, 657.) True. But the Pitchess court made that 17 comment in addressing a very different issue—whether, in an action naming only a county, a court could issue an injunction against its district attorney. (Id. at p. 656.) More importantly, the court went on to state that “ ‘for some purposes a district attorney is a county officer and as such exercises some of the “powers” of a county,’ ” but “ ‘[w]hen . . . he conducts prosecutions for the punishment of crimes denounced by act of the [L]egislature, he certainly discharges functions which pertain to the state and not to the county.’ ” (Id. at p. 657, quoting Sloane v. Hammond (1927) 81 Cal.App. 590, 599; see Sloane, at p. 598 [“punishment of crime is a matter for the state, and not for a city, within the meaning of the phrase ‘municipal affairs’ as employed in the [C]onstitution”].) Nor does Pitts v. County of Kern (1998) 17 Cal.4th 340, 356, 361 suggest a county DA could challenge a sentencing decision not on behalf of the People, but solely on behalf of the local prosecuting office. In fact, Pitts undermines any suggestion that a local DA has a beneficial interest as a county officer, rather than on the People’s behalf, in a conviction secured and sentence imposed in that county. Pitts held that, for purposes of liability under title 42 United States Code section 1983—which authorizes civil rights claims for damages against counties, but not against states—a “district attorney represents the state, not the county, when preparing to prosecute and when prosecuting crimes.” (Pitts, at p. 345, italics added.) It would thus be wholly unprecedented, so far as the parties have shown or we can find, to rule that a county DA has the requisite beneficial interest in a criminal case to seek writ relief as a representative, not of the People, but of their county office. The Attorney General has offered a “cf.” cite to Escobedo, supra, 94 Cal.App.5th at page 1041, for the proposition that the Kern DA has a 18 special interest in the Kern County conviction. But that case is far afield. After being released from CDCR custody on lifetime parole, Escobeo committed serious new crimes, and CDCR and the Alameda DA each exercised their parallel, independent statutory powers to file probation- revocation petitions (§ 1203.2, subds. (a) & (b), italics added), which would, if granted, have unconditionally compelled the court to return him to prison. (Escobedo, at pp. 1033, 1037, citing § 3000.08, subd. (h).) The Alameda DA, without notifying CDCR, purported to withdraw both petitions pursuant to an indisputably unlawful plea deal under which Escobedo would admit the new crimes but not be returned to prison. The Alameda Court nevertheless accepted the plea. (Id. at pp. 1034–1035.) CDCR could not appeal the ensuing sentencing order, as it was not a party to the criminal case. (Id. at p. 1039.) The Attorney General thus filed a mandamus petition on CDCR’s behalf. Escobedo, in turn, challenged CDCR’s standing to seek writ review. (Id. at pp. 1035, 1041–1043.) The Court of Appeal held CDCR had a “ ‘ “direct and substantial” ’ ” legally protected interest, over and above that held in common with the public at large, arising from its independent statutory duty to oversee parolees and its independent statutory power to file revocation petitions. (Escobedo, supra, 94 Cal.App.5th at p. 1041.) By sentencing Escobedo to probation instead of remanding him to CDCR’s custody, the order had “a direct, immediate, detrimental impact on CDCR’s statutory authority and obligation to supervise lifetime parolees.” (Ibid.) CDCR had a “direct and substantial interest in enforcing the legislative directive that it supervise parolees (§ 3000, subd. (a)), including by petitioning the court to revoke parole in an appropriate case,” and a direct and substantial interest in enforcing its “legal 19 obligation, independent of the district attorney’s, to file a petition to revoke parole.” (Id. at p. 1042, italics added.) A supposed interest of the Kern DA in seeking writ relief, not on behalf of the People but solely on her own behalf, is not remotely comparable to the CDCR’s interest in Escobedo in protecting its own statutory authority with respect to lifetime parolees. Whereas the Legislature expressly assigned parallel, concurrent authority and responsibilities regarding lifetime parolees to the CDCR and to the People, as represented by the DA of whatever county in which a parolee might commit a new crime or other parole violation (Escobedo, supra, 94 Cal.App.5th at p. 1037), it has not assigned any such authority to, or imposed responsibility on, a county DA other than as the representative of the People. Or stated another way, the Legislature did not assign parallel, concurrent responsibilities for resentencing orders to both the People as represented by the Attorney General or the DA of the county in which an imprisoned person seeks resentencing, and the office of another county’s DA that secured one of the sentences at issue, with two narrow exceptions set forth in section 1172.1. The first authorizes a court to recall a sentence and resentence an inmate not only on its own motion, as the Alameda Court did here, but upon a recommendation by any of several officials: “the Secretary of [CDCR] . . . or the Board of Parole Hearings . . . , the county correctional administrator . . . , the district attorney of the county in which the defendant was sentenced, or the Attorney General if the Department of Justice originally prosecuted the case. . . .” (§ 1172.1, subd. (a)(1), italics added.) If, unlike here, a proceeding arises from a request by such an official, there is “a presumption favoring recall and resentencing . . . , which may only be overcome if a court finds the defendant currently poses an unreasonable risk of danger to public 20 safety. . . .” (Id., subd. (b)(2).) The statute secondly bars a court that has recalled a sentence on its own motion from “impos[ing] a judgment on any necessarily included lesser offense or lesser related offense if the conviction was a result of a plea bargain without the concurrence of both the defendant and the [sentencing county DA].” (Id., subd. (a)(4).) What these two provisions show is that the Legislature knows how to allocate interests and authority in the recall and resentencing process when it intends to do so. As to county DAs who secured convictions and prison sentences, the Legislature has provided them two distinct and limited roles in the section 1172.1 resentencing process: (1) the authority, if they choose, to recommend that a court resentence an imprisoned person they prosecuted (triggering a presumption in favor of resentencing); and (2) the ability to block a resentencing that would abrogate a plea bargain they entered. The resentencing process here did not in any way abrogate these grants of statutory authority to county DAs. And we cannot embrace the notion that beyond these statutorily accorded interests, a county DA has an interest, not on behalf of the People but on behalf of their own office, that can support writ review of a resentencing order that the Attorney General and the county DA representing the People have chosen not to appeal. We further observe that superior courts often must impose aggregate sentences on defendants, or resentence imprisoned persons to new aggregate sentences, for convictions entered by other counties’ superior courts. (See § 669, subd. (a) [“[w