Justia California Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant Charles Brady stabbed a former customer following a “street side jewelry transaction gone awry.” Based on that incident, defendant was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon inflicting great bodily injury. By convicting Brady, the jury necessarily rejected his primary defensive theory: that he was acting in self-defense. On appeal, he defendant asserted no reasonable jury could reach that conclusion. While his argument ultimately challenged the sufficiency of the evidence underlying his conviction, before arriving there, the Court of Appeal found defendant raised an interesting question as to the relevant legal standard. Because the objective standard looks from "the defendant's perspective," Brady contended it should take into account his mental condition and past traumatic experiences. “Essentially, Brady argued that the relevant question is what a reasonable person with bipolar disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and his personal history would have done in the situation—i.e., what would a reasonable Brady do?” That, the Court determined, was not the proper standard. Applying the correct legal standard (as the jury did), the Court concluded sufficient evidence supported its rejection of Brady's self-defense theory for want of objective reasonableness. Moreover, there was sufficient evidence for the jury to repudiate his self-defense claim on other grounds. “The jury may have concluded that Brady was not acting out of actual fear for his life since, contrary to his testimony at trial, he told police officers shortly after the event that he was acting to protect his property and made no mention of protecting his person. Alternatively, the jury may have determined that any threat to Brady was not imminent or that the force he used was unreasonable, given that video surveillance showed Brady acting more aggressively than his victim.” View "California v. Brady" on Justia Law

Flint was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to three counts of committing lewd and lascivious acts on children under the age of 14. Flint was paroled, but pleaded guilty the following year, again under Penal Code 288(a). One month before his scheduled release, the Mendocino County District Attorney filed a petition to involuntarily commit him as a Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) (Welf. & Inst. Code 6600). Flint unsuccessfully moved to prohibit the prosecution from calling him as a witness, arguing that it was an equal protection violation to compel an SVP to testify because the prosecution could not call as a witness a person found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGI) or a juvenile in commitment extension hearings. The prosecution called as witnesses Flint, three of his victims, a psychologist and SVP evaluator. Flint called a behavior specialist at the hospital where he was confined, two psychologists who had evaluated him, and a friend who had offered him a job and housing on his release. The jury found Flint qualified as an SVP. The court ordered Flint committed for an indefinite term to a state hospital. The court of appeal remanded for consideration of the justification for the differential treatment of SVP’s and NGI’s in their respective commitment hearings. View "People v. Flint" on Justia Law

After an argument, the victim Christopher Sisoukchaleun, took off his shirt to fight defendant Antoine Blessett. Instead, defendant followed Sisoukchaleun into the street and shot him between the eyes at nearly point-blank range with a firearm he had retrieved only moments earlier from his pickup truck, which was parked nearby. Defendant then fired a second close-range shot, striking Sisoukchaleun in the torso. A jury found defendant guilty of the first degree murder and possession of a firearm by a felon. The jury also found true enhancements that defendant personally used a firearm and proximately caused death or great bodily injury, that he personally used a firearm in the commission of a felony, and that he committed the murder for the benefit of a criminal street gang. Defendant appealed, claiming numerous trial errors and that the 10-year sentence imposed pursuant to Penal Code section 186.22 must be struck. Additionally, the Court of Appeal granted defendant’s request for supplemental briefing on the impact of Senate Bill No. 620 and whether the matter must be remanded for the trial court to consider whether to exercise its discretion to strike the Penal Code section 12022.5 and 12022.53 firearm enhancements. In the published portion of its opinion, the Court of Appeal concluded defendant’s confrontation clause violation contentions under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) and California v. Sanchez, 63 Cal.4th 665 (2016) were forfeited: the boilerplate in limine motions filed prior to trial contained only a vague reference to the confrontation clause, and the oral arguments made during the in limine motion hearing, in which no confrontation clause claim was made, were insufficient to preserve the contentions defendant makes on appeal. Furthermore, the Court concluded defendant has failed to establish that he received constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel based on the forfeiture. In the unpublished portion of its opinion, the Court of Appeal agreed with defendant that the 10- year term for the gang enhancement had to be struck. Defendant’s other claims of trial error were forfeited, without merit, or pertained to errors that were harmless or did not prejudice defendant. However, the case was remanded for the trial court to consider whether to exercise its discretion to strike the section 12022.5 and 12022.53 firearm enhancements, and, in the event that the court declined to exercise that discretion, for the court to impose sentences on the section 12022.5(a), and 12022.53(b), firearm enhancements and then stay execution of those sentences pursuant to section 12022.53 (f). Otherwise, the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment. View "California v. Blessett" on Justia Law

Joseph Bocklett appealed a jury verdict adjudicating him a sexually violent predator (SVP) under the Sexually Violent Predators Act (the Act). On appeal, he challenged the constitutionality of Penal Code section 3000 (a)(4), which tolled the parole period for an SVP on equal protection and ex post facto grounds. He also asserts that the procedure for obtaining conditional release under the Act violated equal protection. With respect to section 3000 (a)(4), Bocklett argued his right to equal protection was violated because he was similarly situated to mentally disordered offenders (MDOs) who do not have a similar tolling provision- that it does not serve a compelling governmental interest for SVP's to remain on parole after they have been fully discharged from their commitment. He maintains that once an SVP has been unconditionally discharged, the person is no longer an SVP. To this, the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court, concluding California has shown a compelling interest to toll the parole period for SVP's so that SVP's receive parole supervision after they have been fully discharged from their commitment. “Notably, this is not a situation where MDO's are treated differently. Rather, it is a legal impossibility to toll the parole period for an MDO because mental health treatment for an MDO is imposed as a condition of parole.” View "California v. Bocklett" on Justia Law

In California v. Woods, 19 Cal.App.5th 1080 (2018), the Court of Appeal held that Senate Bill No. 620 (and the associated amendment to Penal Code Section 12022.53, effective January 1, 2018) applied retroactively to nonfinal cases. Defendant Colleen Ann Harris filed a motion to recall the remittitur to either permit briefing on the application of Senate Bill No. 620 and the amendment to section 12022.53 to her case, which was final almost a year before the statute’s effective date, or remand the case to the trial court to exercise its discretion as to whether to strike the firearm enhancement under the amendment. Noting that recalling a remittitur is an extraordinary remedy generally available in a limited number of instances, the Court found defendant relied on a narrow exception as announced by the California Supreme Court in California v. Mutch, 4 Cal.3d 389 (1971). The Court determined the narrow exception did not apply here. Accordingly, the Court denied the motion and held a motion to recall the remittitur was not the appropriate procedural vehicle through which to seek the requested relief in cases that are final and do not involve Mutch-type circumstances. View "California v. Harris" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's denial in part of cross-defendants' anti-SLAPP motion that sought to strike certain allegations in a cross-complaint filed by Joel D. Kettler, alleging defamation and other causes of action. The court held that the trial court did not err in concluding that complaints to the Certified Financial Planners Board of Standards was not protected activity. The Board was not a public agency and there was no public interest issue. The court also held that the litigation privilege did not protect the communications in question (communications to AXA reporting cross-complainant's wrongdoing). View "Kettler v. Gould" on Justia Law

Appellants challenged the trial court's order and judgment dismissing appellants' petition for writ of mandate and complaint. At issue was whether Proposition 65's reliance on the International Agency for Research on Cancer to identify known carcinogens violated various provisions and doctrines of the California and United States Constitutions. The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment, rejecting appellants' arguments that the Labor Code listing mechanism violated article II, section 12 of the California Constitution, because the Agency did not qualify as a private corporation under the constitutional provision; that the Labor Code listing mechanism was an unlawful delegation of authority; that the Labor Code listing mechanism violated procedural due process rights; and that the Labor Code listing mechanism violated the Guarantee Clause of the United States Constitution. View "Monsanto Co. v. Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment" on Justia Law

In 2014, Misha Sanders pleaded guilty to two counts of commercial burglary and two counts of identity theft. Sanders discovered a credit card on the ground; the card belonged to someone else. Sanders used the card to obtain cigarettes and a beverage at a convenience store. She also obtained cash at a Burger King restaurant. The total amount of charges made by Sanders on the credit card were $174.61. In 2017, Sanders filed a petition under Proposition 47 (Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, section 1170.18) to reclassify all of her convictions as misdemeanors and to dismiss the identity theft counts. The trial court granted the petition as to the burglary counts, reasoning they qualified as "shoplifting" under section 459.5. The court denied the petition with regard to the violations of section 530.5. Sanders contended that since the burglary charges have been reclassified as misdemeanor shoplifting and the amount of goods taken from the merchants was under $950, the section 530.5 violations should have been considered petty thefts, be reduced to misdemeanors and dismissed. She asserted that in light of the court's opinions in California v. Page, 3 Cal.5th 1175 (2017) and California v. Romanowski, 2 Cal.5th 903 (2017), the Court of Appeal should find the violations of section 530.5 to be theft offenses and thus subject to the determination they amount to petty theft within the meaning of section 490.2. The Court found the violations of section 530.5(a) were not theft offenses: they are not specified in section 1170.18, and are not subject to reclassification under that section. Nor did the Court believe the decisions in Page and Romanowski compelled adoption of Sanders's interpretation. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the trial court's decision. View "California v. Sanders" on Justia Law

Patrick Jackson appealed his conviction and sentence for one count of lewd contact with a minor, arguing the trial court erroneously found him competent to stand trial before taking his guilty plea and again before sentencing him. Numerous psychologists found him incompetent to stand trial and unlikely to be restored to competency because he suffered from a stable developmental disability which limited his capacity for understanding and communication. Hospital staff “drilled” Jackson until he could answer simple, concrete questions about the judicial system. As a result, in February 2010, the trial court found Jackson competent based on the staff report, then accepted his guilty plea. Before he could be sentenced, new psychological evaluations reported Jackson denying his guilt and not understanding he had pled guilty. The new report also questioned the basis of the report finding him competent. In June 2010, the trial court found substantial evidence Jackson was incompetent. Over a year later, and in the face of additional evaluations finding Jackson incompetent and unlikely to improve, the trial court again found Jackson was competent and sentenced him to three years in state prison. This time, the court based the competency finding on the contents of an evaluation Patton State Hospital staff had prepared nearly nine months earlier which simply copied the analysis from its early 2010 “drilling” report and failed to address any of the concerns raised thereafter. On appeal, Jackson argued neither his conviction nor his sentence should stand because neither competency finding was based on substantial evidence. The Court of Appeal agreed and therefore reversed the judgment. View "California v. Jackson" on Justia Law

While watching a small dog that belonged to his girlfriend’s parents, defendant Jesse Tom beat, stabbed, and strangled the dog. Defendant covered the dead dog with oil and placed it inside a barbeque. Before he could light the deceased dog on fire, however, officers arrived on scene and apprehended defendant after he fled. A jury convicted defendant of two counts of animal cruelty (Pen. Code, § 597, subds. (a)—count one, & (b)—count two), resisting, delaying, or obstructing an officer (count three), and attempted arson (count four). The jury found true the special allegation that defendant had personally used a deadly weapon, a broken wine bottle, within the meaning of Penal Code section 12022(b)(1). At a subsequent proceeding, the court found true a prior prison allegation, and later sentenced defendant to an aggregate term of five years eight months in state prison. Defendant did not dispute the facts underlying his convictions, but on appeal he argued he could not be convicted of violating section 597(a) and (b) based on the same act. He further contended the court should have stayed the sentence on his attempted arson offense because his actions were a part of one indivisible course of conduct. Based on the plain language of section 597, the Court of Appeal concluded defendant could not be convicted of violating both subdivision (a) and (b) based on the same conduct. The Court further concluded the trial court properly sentenced defendant for the attempted arson offense alleged in count four. View "California v. Tom" on Justia Law