Justia California Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

In this domestic abuse case, defendant Jose Valdivia challenged a condition of his probation authorizing the warrantless search of electronic storage devices (such as cellular phones and computers) under his control. He argued the condition must be stricken because it: (1) “is unreasonable under [People v.] Lent [(1975) 15 Cal.3d 481], as it bears no relationship to [his] current offense or potential future criminality”; and (2) “is unconstitutional under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution because [his] privacy and privilege against self[-] incrimination far outweigh the State’s purported and unproven rehabilitation and societal protection interests.” Additionally, Valdivia argued the condition infringed on the privacy interests of third parties. The Court of Appeal found no merit in defendant’s arguments that the electronic storage device search condition was unreasonable under Lent, nor under the Fifth Amendment. Furthermore, defendant’s attempt to raise the privacy interests of third parties was barred by forfeiture. The Court of Appeal agreed, however, that on the facts of this case, the electronic storage device search condition was unconstitutionally overbroad because its potential impact on his Fourth Amendment rights exceeded what was reasonably necessary to serve the government’s legitimate interest in ensuring that he complied with the terms of his probation. The case was remanded to the trial court to consider in the first instance whether the condition can be narrowed in a manner that will allow it to pass constitutional muster. View "California v. Valdivia" on Justia Law

In May 2011, defendant Sim Hoffman was indicted on 884 felony counts alleging healthcare insurance fraud. That indictment was ultimately dismissed in 2013 on the ground that the prosecution had failed to provide exculpatory evidence to the grand jury. Rather than proceed by indictment, in January 2014, the State filed a felony complaint. The complaint alleged 159 counts of insurance fraud. The issue in this writ proceeding was whether an information could allege a single offense in a single count, but describe within that count multiple discrete acts, each of which constitute the charged offense. Each count in the State’s complaint identified multiple patient files and a timeframe that spannedyears. Defendant demurred to the information. The court overruled the demurrer and defendant then filed this writ petition. The Court of Appeal concluded the information was proper, and denied the writ petition. “Each count alleges a single offense. Any complications, or undue prejudice to defendant, arising from the fact that multiple discrete acts may constitute the charged offense in each count are adequately dealt with by a unanimity instruction at trial, or by other tools at the court’s disposal, such as a severance of counts, or trial continuances where appropriate. A demurrer on these grounds is not the proper vehicle to address defendant’s concerns.” View "Hoffman v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with possession of a firearm with a prior violent conviction, having a large-capacity magazine, and carrying a loaded firearm. Detective Calderan testified that he was on patrol near Richmond's Crescent Park apartment complex, a high-crime area claimed by a street gang. Defendant was sitting in the back of a van. Others were in the front passenger and driver’s seats. Calderan and others officers approached. Defendant “ducked down." Calderan testified: “We told him to get up and put his hands up. ... After several orders" he did so. The officers had their guns drawn. Calderan approached and located marijuana in the possession of the front-seat passenger. Officers searched the vehicle. Calderan found a gun loaded with a 15-round magazine underneath the rear of the driver’s seat, in front of where Defendant had been seated. Defendant unsuccessfully moved to suppress. The trial court stated it was “clear” that the officers detained Defendant without reasonable suspicion but that Defendant failed to establish a reasonable expectation of privacy in the vehicle. The court of appeal directed the court to vacate its order. The trial court did not do so. The court of appeal issued a writ of mandate. Defendant can challenge the gun evidence as the fruit of an unlawful detention, even if he lacked an expectation of privacy in the searched car. View "Brewer v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

The juvenile court found that Dean W. (the ward) had committed a misdemeanor violation of Vehicle Code section 23152, driving under the influence. He was declared a ward of the court and placed on probation. The ward signed an advisement pursuant to Vehicle Code section 23593 and California v. Watson, 30 Cal.3d 290 (1981). The court later found that the ward had successfully completed his probation and terminated his wardship. Furthermore, the court granted the ward’s request to seal his juvenile court records, except for one document regarding his acknowledgment that he knew driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol was dangerous to human life (his "Watson" advisement). The issue before the Court of Appeal was whether the trial court properly decided not to seal the ward’s juvenile record in full. The Court of Appeal concluded after review that the Welfare and Institutions Code allows minors who have completed their rehabilitation to have “all” records of their juvenile adjudication sealed. The Vehicle Code authorizes criminal prosecutors to use a criminal defendant’s acknowledgment of the dangerousness of driving under the influence as evidence of implied malice in a later second-degree murder case. Here, the ward’s right to have all of his juvenile records sealed includes the ward’s acknowledgment​ of the dangerousness of driving under the influence. Therefore, the Court reversed the juvenile court’s order, with directions to seal the entirety of the ward’s records, to ensure that other government agencies specified in the statute seal the ward’s records, and to consider whether other government agencies also be ordered to do so. View "In re Dean W." on Justia Law

“Max” owed money to a group of other drug dealers for some methamphetamine that had gone missing. He delegated the ambush, binding, robbing of the drugs and money his creditors might have, and their murder. Nine men, including defendant Pablo Sandoval, worked for him; others, including defendant Edgar Ivan Chavez Navarro, worked for a fellow drug dealer named Eduardo Alvarado; and still others, including defendant Jose Luis Perez, worked for (or with) another drug dealer named Flor Iniguez. According to the prosecution’s designated gang expert, most, if not all, of the participants — including all three of the defendants named in this case — were members or associates of the Sinaloa drug cartel; the victims were members or associates of a different cell of the same cartel. The participants carried out the plan, but not flawlessly. One victim survived being shot in the face and chest and provided information that led police to defendant Perez and another. Perez gave statements to police incriminating himself. Defendants were convicted of multiple first-degree murders; they all appealed. In the published portion of its opinion, the Court of Appeal held that defense trial counsel forfeited any objection to expert testimony to case-specific hearsay by failing to raise it as an issue for review. In the unpublished portion of its opinion, the Court held there was insufficient evidence to support the gang special circumstance for which defendants were convicted. The Court also found the trial court erred in failing to instruct on the financial gain special circumstance. The Court, therefore, reversed on those two special circumstances, but otherwise found no prejudicial error. View "California v. Perez" on Justia Law

The victim was walking in San Leandro with his grandson and their dog. A man, whose face was covered, approached to rob him. The victim surrendered his belongings. The man struck the victim on the head with a gun and fled. The victim then heard a “boom.”” Other witnesses heard a gunshot from the area of the robbery and saw two men, one of whom appeared to have an injury and was holding a gun, running. Some remembered seeing those men get out of a light-colored sedan minutes earlier. The same sedan picked them up. No witness was able to identify Mathews. Within minutes, a silver sedan was recorded dropping Mathews off at Highland Hospital. Mathews’s cell phone and bloody clothes were seized. The phone had been used near the robbery at the time of the robbery and “traveled east" to "near Highland Hospital.” Mathews was charged with second-degree robbery, with firearms allegations. Mathews unsuccessfully moved to suppress his clothing, an officer's observations of his wounds, and the cell phone evidence, and sought discovery of the officers' personnel files. The court of appeal affirmed, citing the estoppel principle; when a defendant gives an officer a false name and a check of that name fails to reveal that the defendant subject to a probation search condition, the defendant is estopped from challenging an ensuing search or seizure that would have been authorized had the officer been aware of the condition. View "People v. Mathews" on Justia Law

Defendant Adam Malik was convicted by jury of assault with a deadly weapon (Count 2) and making a criminal threat (Count 3). With respect to the latter count, the jury found defendant personally used a deadly or dangerous weapon. With respect to both, the jury found defendant personally inflicted great bodily injury on the victim. The trial court sentenced defendant to serve seven years in state prison. On appeal, defendant argued: (1) the trial court abused its discretion and violated his federal constitutional rights by allowing the prosecutor to cross-examine his expert witness, a psychologist who testified defendant suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), concerning her review of several police reports; and (2) the trial court violated Penal Code section 654 by imposing and executing sentence on both counts of conviction because these offenses were committed with the same intent and objective. The Court of Appeal affirmed, concluding that though the trial court abused its discretion and violated defendant’s confrontation rights by allowing the prosecutor to relate case-specific testimonial hearsay from the police reports to the jury during her cross-examination of the defense expert, the error was harmless. The Court rejected defendant’s claim the trial court was required to stay execution of sentence on the criminal threats conviction under section 654. View "California v. Malik" on Justia Law

In this case, the Court of Appeal denied a petition for a writ of mandate challenging an order by which the trial court retained jurisdiction to determine the amount of petitioner's restitution. In 2014, petitioner Golnaz Gholipour was charged and convicted of multiple counts of perjury and workers' compensation fraud. The trial court imposed a split six-year sentence, with three years to be served in local custody and three years to be served under mandatory supervision. Following Gholipour's conviction, the trial court entered a restitution award. Gholipour appealed both the judgment of conviction and the trial court's restitution order. In April 2016, while her appeal was pending, Gholipour completed the in-custody portion of her sentence, was released on mandatory supervision and began living in Orange County. Shortly after her release from custody, Gholipour moved to transfer her case and supervision to Orange County pursuant to section 1203.9, which was granted. On June 29, 2016, the Court of Appeal filed its opinion affirming the judgment of conviction; however, the Court reversed the trial court's restitution order and expressly remanded the case to the trial court to conduct further restitution proceedings consistent with the Court of Appeal’s opinion. As the Court of Appeal interpreted Penal Code section 1203.9, although petitioner's case was transferred from the trial court to the superior court of another county while her appeal from her workers' compensation fraud conviction was pending, the trial court in which she was convicted retained jurisdiction over imposition of restitution so that when the Court of Appeal vacated the trial court's initial restitution order, the trial court had the power to impose a new restitution order consistent with our instructions on remand. View "Gholipour v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

In December 2002, defendant Leonard Warmington worked a courtesy clerk at a Redding Walmart. He stole a television from the store, returned it for a $746.46 Walmart gift card, and used the card to purchase various items. Confronted by a police officer, defendant admitted stealing other items from the Walmart, including a recliner chair. Defendant was ordered to return the items he stole. The value of the items stolen by defendant and subsequently returned was $851. Defendant pleaded no contest to embezzlement in October 2003 and was placed on three years’ formal probation in November 2003. In February 2016, defendant filed a Penal Code section 1170.18 petition to redesignate his offense as a misdemeanor. The trial court denied the petition without prejudice to filing a new petition, on the ground that defendant’s crime was not eligible for relief. Defendant appealed, arguing the trial court erred in finding his crime was not subject to section 1170.18 relief. Since the record clearly shows defendant embezzled less than $950 from Walmart and he was not otherwise disqualified, his crime was eligible for section 1170.18 relief, and the trial court was required to “designate the felony offense . . . as a misdemeanor.” View "California v. Warmington" on Justia Law

T.F., then a 13-year-old special education student, was accused of possessing a weapon on school grounds (Penal Code 626.10(a)) and committing a lewd act on a child under age 14 (Penal Code 288(a)). Before and during his wardship proceeding under Welfare and Institutions Code 602, T.F’s defense counsel moved to exclude inculpatory statements he made to the police. The court suppressed the pre-Miranda statements T.F. made when questioned at his school, but admitted the post-Miranda statements he made at the police station. The court sustained the petition, finding true the allegation that T.F. had touched the victim’s vagina when she was three years old. T.F., then 16 years old, was declared a ward of the court and placed on probation in his mother’s home. The court of appeal reversed, finding that T.F.’s statements were made in violation of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. T.F.’s Miranda admonition was “rapidly rattled” off without taking time to determine whether T.F. understood, after T.F. had already undergone a nearly hour-long interrogation by two detectives while confined in a school conference room, which culminated in his arrest. T.F. was sobbing and clearly distraught at school and remained so during the subsequent interrogation. View "In re T.F." on Justia Law