Misdemeanors.

Schultz, with a coauthor from the Senate, frames the measure as enlarging the court’s pretrial authority to reclassify offenses from felony to misdemeanor by allowing a misdemeanor designation at any time before trial, with the case then proceeding as if the defendant had been arraigned on a misdemeanor. This opening adjustment sits at the core of the proposal and is accompanied by a procedural safeguard: after a pretrial designation motion is denied, any later motion under the same provision may be made only upon a showing of changed circumstances.

The bill preserves the existing structure that a crime punishable by imprisonment in state prison or in a county jail, or by a fine or jail, may be deemed a misdemeanor for all purposes under specific pretrial conditions. Those conditions include: (1) after a judgment imposing a different punishment; (2) when the court designates the offense as a misdemeanor during commitment to a secure youth treatment facility; (3) when probation is granted and the offense is declared a misdemeanor at or after the grant; (4) when the prosecutor files a misdemeanor complaint unless the defendant objects at arraignment, in which case the case proceeds on the felony complaint; (5) a pretrial designation by the court on its own motion or the motion of a party, with any subsequent motion after denial limited to changed circumstances. The text also retains related provisions governing infractions, youth-disposition interactions, restitution, and sex-offender registration, ensuring alignment with broader Penal Code mechanics and collateral-consequence considerations.

Implementation and policy context considerations are addressed in the measure’s structure: there is no new appropriation or local-program mandate, so fiscal effects would hinge on how cases shift between state-prison and county-jail pathways and related administrative dynamics. The pretrial designation framework introduces a procedural pathway that could influence plea bargaining, trial strategy, and case management in courts, while maintaining a cap on repeated designations absent new facts or legal developments. Stakeholders—defense, prosecution, courts, corrections, and victims’ interests—would interact with the expanded designation window and the criteria for recognizing “changed circumstances.” The text does not specify an explicit operative date within the document provided, and the broader context suggests the measure progresses through the regular legislative process with the noted amendments and status.