Justia California Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant-appellant Ignacio Ogaz appealed a judgment sentencing him to prison for illegal drug activity. He contended his Sixth Amendment right to confront adverse witnesses was violated by the admission of certain drug testing evidence, and to this, the Court of Appeal agreed. Because appellant did not have the opportunity to cross-examine the analyst who conducted the drug testing, judgment was reversed. View "California v. Ogaz" on Justia Law

In April 2010, a trial court sentenced defendant-appellant Richard Mirmon to 12 years in prison for attempted first degree burglary in Los Angeles County. On June 27, 2011, an information charged defendant with conspiracy to bring a controlled substance into prison, bringing a controlled substance into prison, possession of heroin, and possession of methamphetamine in Riverside. The Riverside information also alleged defendant had a prison prior and two strike priors. As charged in the information, defendant faced: (1) 101 years to life in prison with two strikes; or (2) 14 years four months with one strike. Pursuant to a plea agreement, on September 6, 2011, defendant pled guilty to all four counts in exchange for a sentence of eight years four months. On December 2, 2011, the trial court dismissed one of defendant’s two strikes and imposed the agreed-upon sentence of eight years four months. The court made no reference to defendant's Los Angeles case, but stated the sentence was to be served concurrent with any other sentences defendant was serving. On June 11, 2018, defendant filed a petition under Proposition 47 to reduce counts 3 and 4 in the Riverside Case to misdemeanor convictions. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) filed a letter with the Riverside County Superior Court on June 22, 2018. In the letter, CDCR stated that Penal Code section 667 (c)(8), mandated consecutive, not concurrent, sentences for defendant in the Los Angeles and Riverside cases. On June 22, 2018, defendant filed a motion to dismiss the charges. On September 7, 2018, the trial court held a hearing. The court denied defendant’s petition to reduce counts 3 and 4 to misdemeanor convictions. The court then clarified its order on defendant’s sentence in the Riverside Case and ordered that the sentences in the two cases be served consecutively. Defendant appealed. The Court of Appeal found the Riverside trial judge had no discretion to sentence defendant to a concurrent term for his in-prison possession convictions in the original sentencing on the Riverside case, so the trial court properly sentenced defendant to a term to be fully served consecutively to the sentence defendant was already serving. View "California v. Mirmon" on Justia Law

Defendant Leon Tacardon was charged with possession of a controlled substance for sale, and misdemeanor possession of marijuana for sale. Evidence of these crimes was seized following an interaction with San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Deputy Joel Grubb. After an unsuccessful motion to suppress evidence made during the preliminary hearing under Penal Code section 1538.5, defendant renewed his motion under Penal Code section 995, and prevailed. The State appealed. Based on the magistrate’s factual findings expressed on the record and supported by substantial evidence, the Court of Appeal concluded defendant was detained by Deputy Grubb not when the deputy detained defendant's passenger, M.K., but when the deputy, after smelling marijuana coming from the BMW and seeing three large bags of the substance on the rear floorboard, told defendant to remain in the car while he conducted a records check. "At that point, there can be no doubt the deputy possessed reasonable suspicion defendant was engaged in criminal activity." The Court concluded the superior court erred by setting aside the magistrate’s ruling denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence. View "California v. Tacardon" on Justia Law

A brief encounter between two groups of strangers in a restaurant parking lot at closing time ended in one man shot and killed. Three others were injured. Pedro Cardenas was one of the shooters, and convicted by jury trial on one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and one count of assault with a firearm, and he pled guilty to one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. The trial court instructed the jury on the "kill zone" theory as to the attempted murder counts. On the felon in possession count, Cardenas argued that his rights under California v. Arbuckle, 22 Cal.3d 749 (1978) were violated because he was sentenced by a different judge from the one who took his guilty plea. Cardenas did not object on that basis at sentencing, but he cited California v. Bueno, 32 Cal.App.5th 342 (2019) for the proposition that he did not thereby forfeit the issue. A split Court of Appeal concluded that the evidence was insufficient to justify instructing on the kill zone theory under California v. Canizales, 7 Cal.5th 591 (2019), and the error was prejudicial. The Court therefore vacated the attempted murder convictions. The Court disagreed with Bueno and held that Cardenas forfeited the Arbuckle issue by failing to raise it at sentencing. The Court affirmed in all other respects. View "California v. Cardenas" on Justia Law

Liggins violated the terms of his probation multiple times; each time it was reinstated with modified terms. Police responded to an alleged altercation between Liggins and his girlfriend, Roy, at 4:00 o’clock in the morning. Roy was found outside a San Francisco convenience store crying and yelling. She told officers Liggins had punched, kicked, and choked her. After the fight, Liggins apparently rode away on his bicycle. Roy’s behavior was unruly, characterized by screaming and cursing. Officers arrested Liggins. By the time of Liggins’s preliminary hearing, his former attorney stated that Roy had recanted her accusations against Liggins; her erratic behavior at the scene of Liggins’s arrest, Roy told his attorney, resulted from her being under the influence of a controlled substance and her failure to take prescribed medication for manic-depression. At the probation revocation hearing, Liggins’s attorney asserted hearsay objections to the admission of an officer’s body camera footage, which captured Roy making statements about Liggins’s conduct, and an officer’s testimony to Roy’s statement identifying Liggins. The objections were overruled. The court revoked Liggins’s probation and sentenced him to three years in prison.The court of appeal reversed. While the trial court was within its discretion to admit the challenged statements under the spontaneous statement exception, their admission in the absence of a showing of Roy’s unavailability or other good cause to present hearsay in lieu of live testimony from her violated Liggins’s due process right of confrontation. View "People v. Liggins" on Justia Law

GSS filed suit for malicious prosecution and unfair business competition against defendant and his attorney, alleging that the attorney filed a prior lawsuit against GSS on behalf of his client, knowing that he lacked probable cause to bring the action. GSS also alleged that the attorney maliciously refused to dismiss the prior action and engaged in unfair business practices. The attorney filed an anti-SLAPP motion, which the trial court denied.The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's denial of the anti-SLAPP motion and the attorney's motion for reconsideration. The court held that, although the malicious prosecution and unfair business competition causes of action are based on conduct that is protected activity, GSS has met its burden of showing a probability of prevailing on the merits of these causes of action. Finally, the court held that the attorney's arguments regarding the motion for reconsideration are waived. View "Golden State Seafood, Inc. v. Schloss" on Justia Law

Rick Ryan Febbo was deemed ineligible for early parole consideration because he was serving a sentence and has prior convictions for indecent exposure, an offense requiring registration as a sex offender under California Penal Code section 290. He filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus to challenge the decision denying him eligibility for early parole consideration. The trial court concluded the regulation making him ineligible for such consideration violated Proposition 57 and granted Febbo relief. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) appealed. After review, the Court of Appeal held that indecent exposure under Penal Code section 314 was a nonviolent felony offense as that term was used in section 32(a)(1). The CDCR regulations were therefore invalid to the extent they deny early parole consideration to inmates based solely on a current or prior conviction for indecent exposure. As a consequence, Febbo could not be denied eligibility for early parole consideration solely based on his convictions for that offense. View "In re Febbo" on Justia Law

Appellants Dionte Simpson, Victor Ware, and Nicholas Hoskins were members of 5/9 Brim (Brim), a criminal street gang in San Diego that was a set of the Bloods gang. The Neighborhood Crips (NC) and West Coast Crips (WCC), (together, the Crips), other criminal street gangs, were the main rivals of the Brims. A jury found appellants guilty of multiple crimes related to their gang involvement. Ware admitted a prison prior allegation. The court sentenced appellants to prison as follows: (1) Ware, 27 years plus 40 years to life; (2) Simpson, 36 years plus 25 years to life; and (3) Hoskins, 25 years to life. Appellants challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting their convictions for conspiracy to commit murder (count 1) and criminal street gang conspiracy (counts 6, 7, 9). They also challenged various alleged errors at trial to attack their respective convictions and sentences. The Court of Appeal reversed Ware's and Hoskins's gang conspiracy convictions, but rejected appellants' remaining arguments regarding their convictions. The Court agreed that Simpson's and Ware's sentences had to be vacated; the matter was remanded for resentencing. View "California v. Ware" on Justia Law

Jonas Brown was tried for his involvement in three gang-related shootings. Tremayne Jones, a member of the Skyline gang and a confidential informant, died in the third incident. Among other counts, Brown was convicted by jury of the first-degree murder of Jones. On appeal, Brown claimed one trial error and three sentencing errors: (1) the court prejudicially erred by failing to instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter; (2) his conduct and actual custody credits were miscalculated; (3) two gang enhancements added to his sentence were unauthorized; and (4) the court was unaware of its discretion regarding a firearm enhancement. After review, the Court of Appeal agreed with Jones that his actual custody credits and gang enhancements should be corrected, but otherwise the Court affirmed the judgment. View "California v. Brown" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Simon King appealed an order denying his petition for recall of sentence pursuant to Penal Code section 1170.91 (b), which provided for resentencing of military members or veterans suffering from certain mental health and substance abuse problems as a result of military service if they were sentenced to a determinate term prior to January 1, 2015, and the sentencing court did not consider the mental health and substance abuse problems as factors in mitigation. King contended the trial court erred in summarily denying his petition without holding a hearing, which he contended was the procedure required by statute. Without deciding whether a hearing was required, the Court of Appeal determined King was plainly ineligible for relief under section 1170.91(b). King agreed to a stipulated sentence for a term of years in 2009, and the trial court accordingly would have no discretion on resentencing to depart from the stipulated sentence regardless of King's mental health and substance abuse problems. View "California v. King" on Justia Law