Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed the revocation of her Post Release Community Supervision (PRCS) and 140 day jail sentence. Defendant alleged that her due process rights were violated because she was not arraigned within 10 days of her arrest and provided a Morrissey v. Brewer compliant probable cause hearing. Morrissey delineates the basic due process protections for a parole revocation and requires a probable cause hearing. The court concluded that nothing in the PRCS revocation procedures employed in this case violate the letter or spirit of Morrissey; defendant did not languish indefinitely in county jail after the hearing officer advised her of the charges and found probable cause for her incarceration; and the revocation hearing was conducted in superior court approximately 45 days after her arrest. Had plaintiff not requested a continuance, the evidentiary hearing would have been held 25 days after her arrest. Because there was no due process violation, the court affirmed the judgment. View "People v. Byron" on Justia Law

Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) inmate Gomez, classified as a violent felon when he arrived in 2000, was relocated to solitary confinement, where he stayed for more than a decade. He is one of many California prisoners who have been housed in solitary confinement, including indefinitely, based on findings of gang affiliation. Gomez was found to have refused nine consecutive meals over a three-day period coincident with a larger hunger strike and work stoppage by state prison inmates protesting solitary confinement practices. PBSP authorities ruled that Gomez had engaged in “behavior which might lead to violence or disorder, or otherwise endangers facility, outside community or another person” in violation of the California Code of Regulations and assessed him 90 days of conduct credits. The court of appeal found that there was not sufficient evidence to support the disciplinary ruling and ordered the PBSP disciplinary ruling reversed. Even assuming that the disorder prohibited by section 3005(a) did not have to rise to the level of endangering “facility, outside community or another person,” nothing in the account of the delays and cancellation of services, and the reallocation of prison personnel, to monitor the hunger strikers, suggests prison operations were thrown into disorder. View "In re Gomez" on Justia Law

While on patrol in his official capacity as a police officer in West Sacramento, defendant Sergio Alvarez induced five women he encountered to provide him sexual favors, often to avoid being taken to jail. A jury convicted defendant of multiple counts of aggravated kidnapping, oral copulation under threat of authority and by duress, and rape under threat of authority and by duress. The jury also sustained kidnapping, residential burglary, and multiple victim sentencing enhancements. He appealed, asserting there was insufficient evidence to support a number of his convictions, and the trial court made various instructional and sentencing errors. The Court of Appeals' opinion in this matter was certified for partial publication, and in the published portions, the Court addressed the limitations on the lawful arrest defense to kidnapping. The Court reversed judgment as to counts 3, 19, 23, 24, and 27. The multiple victim enhancement alleged in association with count 21 was dismissed. Defendant’s sentence on counts 1, 8, 13, and 25, was modified to life with the possibility of parole as to each count. Execution of defendant’s sentence on counts 15 and 16 was stayed. As modified, the judgment was then affirmed. The matter was remanded for further proceedings. View "California v. Alvarez" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Timothy Busch in 1989 of second degree murder of his girlfriend's two-year-old daughter. The court sentenced him to an indeterminate term of 15 years to life in prison. He was first eligible for parole in 1999. The Board of Parole Hearings (Board) found Busch suitable for parole in 2014 based on his exemplary performance while incarcerated. However, the Governor exercised his constitutional and statutory authority to review the Board's parole grant and reversed the Board's decision concluding Busch's claim of innocence and his explanation for the child's injuries were entirely implausible and the evidence as a whole shows Busch currently posed an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison. Busch filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus challenging the Governor's decision. Busch contended the Governor's decision was based upon Busch's failure to admit guilt, and the decision failed to articulate a rational nexus between the circumstances of the crime and his current risk of dangerousness. After review of the record, the Court of Appeal disagreed with Busch's contentions and denied relief. View "In re Busch" on Justia Law

In 2000, defendant Michael Caraballo and a co-defendent Mark Kirksey entered a bank, but left after waiting for about 15 minutes. Police officers were stationed nearby; they had received a tip about defendant’s and Kirksey’s suspicious behavior. Defendant and Kirksey walked side by side toward a vehicle parked between two 6-foot high metal bins. “Kirksey, upon observing police activity, suddenly veered away from defendant, ran between the two metal bins, reached down to his waist, and tossed a . . . handgun on top of one of the bins. Defendant and Kirksey were arrested.” A jury convicted defendant of second degree burglary and found he was armed with a firearm. The court found defendant had suffered two prior strike convictions and sentenced him to prison for 25 years to life for the burglary (pursuant to the Three Strikes law) plus one year for the firearm enhancement. In 2014, defendant petitioned for a recall of his sentence and a new sentencing hearing, alleging that although the jury found he was armed with a firearm, the Court of Appeal stated in a previous case, he was not personally armed with a gun. The Court of Appeal affirmed, finding that defendant was vicariously armed during the commission of his current offense, he was disqualified from resentencing under Penal Code 1170.126 subdivision (e)(2). View "California v. Caraballo" on Justia Law

In April 2009, appellant Sidney Landau was committed to the Department of State Hospitals (DSH) for an indeterminate term as a sexually violent predator (SVP). While that appeal was pending, appellant received an annual examination at the hospital. As a result of the examination, the examiner found appellant was still a pedophile, but concluded he was no longer dangerous and that treatment in a less restrictive setting was in appellant’s best interests. Landau then filed a petition in the superior court for his unconditional release. Appellant received a jury trial on his petition. The matter was submitted to the jury late in the afternoon on December 5, 2013. On December 18, 2013, the jury concluded appellant remained an SVP, and the court recommitted appellant to the DSH. Appellant appealed, raising a number of issues. After review, the Court of Appeal concluded the trial court prejudicially erred in admitting inadmissible hearsay evidence and reversed the judgment. View "California v. Landau" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his multiple felony convictions arising from his theft of nine metal urns containing the cremated remains of 11 people. Defendant argued on appeal that he cannot be convicted of more than one count of removing human remains from the place of interment because the removal was “one-occasion one-offense” under People v. Smith and “one-plan one-offense” under People v. Bailey. The court rejected defendant's argument that the Bailey rule is subject to extension as a matter of law to the removal of human remains from their place of interment. The court noted that the cremated remains of 11 people are irretrievably gone, willfully removed from their places of interment, and then discarded by defendant so he could recycle the metal urns in which they were laid to rest for scrap value. The court also concluded that, given the absence of statutory ambiguity, defendant’s attempt to invoke the rule of lenity is rejected. Likewise, defendant's claim under the Double Jeopardy Clause is rejected. The court concluded, however, that the conviction of two counts of grand theft must be vacated because only nine metal urns were stolen and the People did not introduce evidence that the human remains had any value. The court affirmed the conviction as to the remaining nine counts of grand theft. The court stayed the sentence on the vandalism count. The trial court is directed to amend the abstract of judgment. The judgment is conditionally reversed and remanded to the trial court to conduct an in camera review of Detective Johnson’s personnel records pursuant to the procedure in People v. Gaines, and to order the disclosure of any relevant information. If there is no discoverable information, the trial court shall reinstate the judgment and sentence. View "People v. Reid" on Justia Law

A jury acquitted defendant Bryce Nicholes of attempted murder, but found him guilty of the lesser included offense of attempted voluntary manslaughter (count 2). It also found him guilty of assault with a firearm (count 3), and found true allegations he personally used a firearm and committed the offenses for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a criminal street gang, with the specific intent to promote, further or assist in any criminal conduct by gang members. The trial court sentenced defendant to a total term of 17 years in prison: three years for the attempted voluntary manslaughter conviction; ten years for the gang enhancement on that crime; one year for the assault conviction; one year and four months for the firearm enhancement on that crime; and one year and eight months for the gang enhancement on that crime. The trial court also “stayed” a firearm enhancement of four years with respect to the attempted voluntary manslaughter conviction based on the imposition of the gang enhancement for that crime. On appeal, defendant argued: (1) the trial court prejudicially erred by instructing the jury with CALCRIM No. 3471, regarding mutual combat or an initial aggressor, without also providing an optional portion of the instruction excusing an initial aggressor from withdrawing from a fight in which the victim of the aggressor’s simple assault responds with a “sudden and deadly” counterattack; or (2) alternatively, he received ineffective assistance of counsel who failed to request this instruction; and (3) there was insufficient evidence that defendant’s Oak Park subset of the Norteno gang qualified as a criminal street gang for purposes of the gang enhancements. Finding no reversible error, the Court of Appeal affirmed. View "California v. Nicholes" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of possession of methamphetamine while armed with a firearm, possession of a firearm by a felon, and possession of methamphetamine. Defendant was sentenced to an aggregate prison sentence of five years, including a one-year enhancement under Penal Code section 667.5, subdivision (b). The trial court imposed the enhancement because defendant had been released on parole on February 18, 2005 from a conviction he had suffered in 2002, and then had been arrested less than five years later in October 2009 for a new felony, for which he was convicted in 2011. Between defendant's conviction and sentencing in this case, voters enacted Proposition 47, Penal Code section 1170.18, subdivision (b). Pursuant to the new law, the trial court, before it sentenced defendant in this case, recalled his 2011 felony sentence and resentenced him to a misdemeanor on that conviction. The court agreed with defendant that once the trial court resentenced his 2011 conviction as a misdemeanor he no longer qualified for the one-year sentence enhancement for the 2002 conviction. Accordingly, the one-year enhancement is stricken and the judgment affirmed as modified. View "People v. Abdallah" on Justia Law

Fiu and gang members were on Fiu’s Richmond porch, drinking alcohol. A gang fight broke out. The Fiu group left Espinoza lying on the ground, apparently still alive, and returned to the porch. Johnson, who apparently sold drugs in the area, arrived he kicked and hit Espinoza, then got a milk crate, put it over Espinoza’s neck, and jumped on it at least twice. Johnson and another stabbed Espinoza in the neck. A forensic pathologist testified that Espinoza died from the multiple blunt injuries to his head, but could not say whether the first or second beating resulted in his death; the knife wounds did not cause his death. In 2009, the court of appeal affirmed Johnson's convictions for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit assault with force likely to cause bodily injury, but struck a gang enhancement. In 2016, the court of appeal granted his petition for habeas corpus, finding the conviction no longer valid after the California Supreme Court’s decision in People v. Chiu (2014), that an aider and abettor may not be convicted of first degree premeditated murder under the natural and probable consequences doctrine. The court could not “conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury based its verdict on the alternative valid legal theory.” View "In re Johnson" on Justia Law