BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 543
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Date of Hearing: August 14, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
SB 543 (Block) - As Amended: April 10, 2013
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote:7-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill specifies that theft, embezzlement, forgery, fraud,
and identity theft committed against an elder or dependent adult
qualify as prior convictions for the crime of petty theft with a
prior theft conviction.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Unknown annual GF costs, potentially in excess of $250,000,
for increased state prison commitments. While the author
intends this bill to be, in most cases, a clarification of
current law, explicitly making theft-related crimes against an
elder or dependent adult qualifying predicate offenses for
enhanced state prison penalties, when the offender is a
registered sex offender, or has a violent or serious prior
offense, would likely increase prison commitments.
For order of magnitude purposes, in the years immediately
prior to correctional realignment, some 3,000 persons per year
were committed to state prison for petty theft with a prior,
and over the past three years, 250 persons have been committed
to state prison for financial elder abuse. While many of the
petty theft with a prior commitments are now realigned and not
state prison-eligible, correctional data indicates that
hundreds of these annual petty theft commitments involve sex
registrants, or serious or violent felons, and therefore
remain state prison-eligible. For every 10 additional
offenders committed to state prison as a result of this bill,
annual GF costs would be about $250,000.
2)Unknown annual state and local realignment costs, potentially
SB 543
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in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars, to the extent
this bill results in additional county jail commitments for
petty theft with a prior.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . According to the author, "SB 543 ensures that elder
theft is treated with the same seriousness as any other form
of theft. It updates current law to remove the ambiguity of
whether or not a conviction of elder theft qualifies as a
prior for subsequent theft crimes.
"SB 543 does not create a new crime. Rather it ensures that
elder theft is added to Penal Code Section 666 which currently
lists grand theft, petty theft, burglary, auto theft, and
carjacking as qualifying prior offenses for purposes of
sentencing enhancements."
2)Current law defines grand theft as any theft where the money,
labor, or property taken from a victim is valued at more than
$950. Theft in other cases is petty theft, punishable by up to
six months in county jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000.
Notwithstanding the punishment for petty theft, if a person
has been convicted three or more times of specified
theft-related offenses (petty theft; grand theft; auto theft;
burglary, carjacking; robbery; and receiving stolen property)
and is subsequently convicted of petty theft, the penalty is
up to three years in the county jail.
If a person is required to register as a sex offender, or has
a prior violent or serious felony conviction, and is convicted
of specified theft-related offenses, including petty theft,
that theft is punishable by up to one year in county jail, or
16 months, two, or three years in state prison.
The punishment for theft, embezzlement, forgery, or fraud, and
identity theft and identity crimes against an elder or
dependent adult ranges from up to one year in county jail
and/or a fine of up to $1,000, to up to four years in county
jail and or a fine of up to $10,000.
3)Current law is ambiguous as to whether a prior conviction for
theft-related offenses against an elder or dependent adult is
a theft for purposes of enhanced penalties for subsequent
petty theft. As noted in the Assembly Public Safety analysis,
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current law, in referencing theft convictions, simply states
"petty theft" and "grand theft" without reference to Penal
Code provisions. The statute does not distinguish among
victims of theft crimes. Therefore, elder theft appears to
qualify as a conviction for enhancing the sentence of a petty
theft conviction.
However, the fact that a defendant was convicted under the
statute defining theft-related crimes against elder or
dependent adults does not necessarily establish that the prior
conviction involved theft, because the elder financial abuse
statute also includes embezzlement, forgery, fraud, and
identity theft. Moreover, the exclusion of theft from an
elder or dependent adult from the current predicate offense
list indicates that the Legislature did not intend to include
the crime as a qualifying conviction for purposes of petty
theft with a prior conviction.
This bill eliminates these potential ambiguities by including
all forms of elder financial abuse as qualifying prior
convictions.
4)Supporters include the CA District Attorneys Association, the
CA State Sheriffs Association, and the County Welfare
Directors Association.
5)There is no known opposition .
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081