Does section 1025 of the California Criminal Code require a retrial of a defendant who has admitted to a prior conviction?

Section 1025 speaks to the initial trial of a defendant who is charged with a new offense and prior convictions alleged for purposes of sentence. It does not address the circumstance of an appellate reversal of only an alleged prior conviction, coupled with an affirmance of the conviction on the primary offense. There is nothing in the statute to suggest that when this occurs, the defendant cannot be retried because the jury has been discharged. The consequence of the construction urged by appellant would be a windfall: he would forever escape the effect of his prior conviction on his present sentence. That is the sort of absurd result that courts are abjured to avoid in construing statutes. (See People v. Boggs (1985) 166 Cal.App.3d 851, 856, 212 Cal.Rptr. 683.)

While we find no reported appellate decision that has addressed the construction of section 1025 in the context of the issue we are discussing, we note that there is a well-established practice of ordering a retrial on the issue of an alleged prior conviction in cases where reversal is confined to the prior conviction and the conviction for the primary offense is affirmed. (See, e.g., People v. Weathington (1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 69, 91, 282 Cal.Rptr. 170 [vacating appellant's admission of prior convictions and sentence imposed thereon because the trial court refused to bifurcate the trial of the prior convictions, and remanding to the trial court for further proceedings on the issue of the prior convictions]; People v. Tipton (1984) 160 Cal.App.3d 853, 857, 206 Cal.Rptr. 821 [vacating sentence where motion to bifurcate trial of prior conviction denied, and remanding to the trial court for jury trial on the prior conviction].)