Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant-appellant Antonio Moses, III, was convicted by a jury of: human trafficking of a minor; attempted pimping of a minor; and pandering. The district attorney sought review of the Court of Appeal’s decision, which the California Supreme Court granted. The case returned to the appellate court on remand; the Supreme Court reversed as to human trafficking, finding the Court of Appeal misinterpreted the applicable statute. Accordingly, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s ruling, in this case mistake of fact as to the age of the alleged victim was a potential defense under the attempt prong because here, count 1 involved an adult decoy, not an actual minor. Under these circumstances, Moses must have specifically intended to target for commercial sex acts a person he thought was a minor. During a retrial, the prosecution has to establish this element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury here was instructed to the contrary when the trial court included in its instructions the language of the statute, which stated mistake of fact as to age “is not a defense to this crime.” The use of such an instruction here constituted error. This error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt; judgment was therefore reversed and the case remanded for a new trial. View "California v. Moses" on Justia Law

Defendant Eddie Ray Jones, Jr., kidnapped a grandmother, F., and her two-year- old granddaughter, E., while carjacking F.’s car in a restaurant parking lot. At defendant’s direction, F. drove him to a few locations. Eventually, defendant took over driving, parked the car, and forced F. to orally copulate him. At the beginning of this ordeal, defendant took F.’s cell phone so she could not call the police. After the oral copulation, defendant drove to another location, where he took money from F. and then allowed her to leave on foot with her granddaughter as defendant drove away in her car. Defendant would ultimately be convicted by jury of two counts of kidnapping during a carjacking, two counts of robbery, and one count of forcible oral copulation. With respect to each count, the jury also found defendant personally used a firearm in the commission of the offense. The trial court sentenced defendant to serve an aggregate determinate prison term of 33 years plus a consecutive indeterminate term of 32 years to life. On appeal, defendant contended: (1) the evidence was insufficient to support the enhancement for personal use of a firearm attached to the first robbery count, involving the taking of F.’s cell phone, because that robbery was complete before defendant displayed the gun in a menacing fashion; (2) the single larceny doctrine precluded defendant from being convicted of two robberies based on a single course of conduct; (3) the trial court violated Penal Code section 654 by imposing concurrent sentences for both robbery convictions; and (4) the abstract of judgment must be corrected. The Court of Appeal determined the abstract of judgment had be corrected. The Court affirmed in all other respects. View "California v. Jones" on Justia Law

Lund was convicted of possession of more than 600 images of child pornography, at least 10 of which involved a prepubescent minor or a minor under 12 years old (Penal Code 311.11(c)(1)) and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment.One of the tools used in the investigation was CPS (Child Protection System), a privately-developed web interface for viewing results from a suite of several software tools that each search for child pornography on a specific peer-to-peer network. CPS compares the files listed in response to keyword searches against CPS’s database of hash values, which contains the hash values of files that law enforcement officers somewhere in the world have previously tagged as child pornography.The court of appeal affirmed, rejecting arguments that the trial court should have excluded some of the CPS data because the data was case-specific, testimonial hearsay and that the prosecution failed to establish that CPS was reliable and generally accepted in the scientific community. The CPS hash values were not hearsay in this case because they were not admitted for their truth. Lund also unsuccessfully argued that the prosecutor committed repeated, pervasive misconduct and that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the prosecution to play for the jury several child pornography videos. View "People v. Lund" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's denial of defendant's motion to vacate his 1989 conviction for possession for sale of cocaine. Defendant claimed that his defense counsel failed to advise him about the adverse immigration consequences of entering a guilty plea and, as a result, he did not understand that he was facing deportation on the basis of his conviction and plea.The court concluded that defendant failed to establish that he is entitled to relief where counsel was not ineffective because counsel's representation did not fall below the then-contemporary objectively reasonable standard of practice. The court distinguished the facts in People v. Soriano (1987) 194 Cal.App.3d 1470, from the facts in this case, explaining that defendant did not enter his guilty plea based on false assurances by counsel. Furthermore, the court found no merit to defendant's assertion that it was reasonable to expect he could have pleaded to an alternative, immigration-neutral offense had counsel pursued one. Accordingly, even if counsel's advisement was insufficient, defendant's claim still failed because he has not shown prejudice. The court concluded that the trial court's finding that defendant was not credible when he testified that he had no idea of the adverse immigration consequences was not supported by the record. Finally, the court concluded that the trial court did not use an incorrect standard in denying the motion. Under the Martinez factors, the court found the evidence was neither overwhelming nor indicative that the trial court held defendant to an incorrect test. View "People v. Castillo" on Justia Law

Jensen was charged as a coconspirator in a felony indictment alleging a scheme under which members of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department issued hard-to-obtain concealed firearms permits in exchange for substantial donations to an independent expenditure committee supporting the reelection campaign of Sheriff Smith. Jensen is a sheriff’s department captain identified as the individual within the sheriff’s department who facilitated the conspiracy. Jensen unsuccessfully moved to disqualify the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office from prosecuting him, alleging that that office leaked grand jury transcripts to the press days before the transcripts became public which created a conflict of interest requiring disqualification. He also joined in codefendant Schumb’s motion to disqualify the office due to Schumb’s friendship with District Attorney Rosen and Rosen’s chief assistant, Boyarsky.The court of appeal rejected Jensen’s arguments for finding a conflict of interest requiring disqualification: the grand jury transcript leak, Schumb’s relationships with Rosen and Boyarsky, and a dispute between Rosen and Sheriff Smith about access to recordings of county jail inmate phone calls. The trial court could reasonably conclude Jensen did not demonstrate that the district attorney’s office was the source of the leak. Jensen himself does not have a personal relationship with Rosen or Boyarsky. The trial court could reasonably conclude that Jensen did not establish a conflict of interest based on the existence of a dispute between the district attorney and the elected official with supervisory power over Jensen. View "Jensen v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

Schumb was charged as a coconspirator in a felony indictment alleging a quid pro quo scheme in which members of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department issued hard-to-obtain concealed firearms permits in exchange for substantial monetary donations to the reelection campaign of Sheriff Smith. Schumb is an attorney with a history of fundraising for elected officials; he accepted the donations as a treasurer of an independent expenditure committee supporting Sheriff Smith’s reelection. Schumb is a friend of Rosen, the elected Santa Clara County District Attorney, and previously raised funds for Rosen’s campaigns.Schumb unsuccessfully moved to disqualify the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office from prosecuting him, arguing that his friendships with Rosen and Rosen’s chief assistant, Boyarsky, created a conflict of interest making it unlikely Schumb would receive a fair trial. Schumb asserted that he intends to call Rosen and Boyarsky as both fact and character witnesses at trial and. despite their personal connections to the case, neither Rosen nor Boyarsky made any effort to create an ethical wall between themselves and the attorneys prosecuting the case. The court of appeal vacated and directed the lower court to enter a new order disqualifying the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office in Schumb's prosecution. View "Schumb v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

Defendant, along with his codefendants, were tried for murder in violation of Penal Code section 187, subdivision (a); shooting at an inhabited dwelling, in violation of section 246; and felony evading in violation of Vehicle Code section 2800.3, subdivision (a). Defendant was convicted on all counts and the jury found the gang allegation under section 186.22, subdivision (b) true for the shooting at an inhabited dwelling charge. The trial court sentenced defendant to 25 years to life for the murder, 15 years to life for the shooting at an inhabited dwelling, and seven years for the felony evading, to be served consecutively.The Court of Appeal concluded that the trial court erroneously denied defendant's new trial motion because prior to the sentencing, Senate Bill No. 1437 rendered his felony-murder conviction invalid. Therefore, the court reversed the murder conviction based on defendant's SB 1437 contention. Consequently, the issue regarding whether the trial court committed instructional error on the accomplice/codefendant instruction has been rendered moot. Furthermore, defendant's challenge to the jury instruction as part of his additional contention that the denial of his severance motion violated due process lacked merit. The court also concluded that there was no prosecutorial misconduct; counsel for a codefendant did not commit pervasive misconduct denying defendant due process of law; the joint trial did not ultimately result in a denial of defendant's right to due process; the trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding lay opinion on gang territory; and claim of cumulative error rejected. Accordingly, the court affirmed in all other respects. View "People v. Thomas" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeal affirmed defendant's conviction of attempted premeditated murder with enhancements for personal use of a deadly weapon and personal infliction of great bodily injury. The court need not decide whether the trial court erred in not instructing the jury on the lesser included offense of attempted voluntary manslaughter due to heat of passion because its omission was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Although the trial court erred in instructing the jury that a knife could be an "inherently deadly or dangerous" weapon, the error was harmless. The court also concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant’s midtrial request for one-day continuance, and defendant failed to establish the requisite substantial change of circumstances or new evidence casting a serious doubt on the prior finding of competence.The court held that a request for "pretrial diversion" under Penal Code section 1001.36 is timely only if it is made prior to the jury's guilty verdict. In so holding, the court parted ways with People v. Curry (2021) 62 Cal.App.5th 314, but have no occasion to go as far as People v. Braden (2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 330, 333. Alternatively, the onus is placed on the defendant to raise the issue of diversion. In this case, because there was no evidence offered at trial that defendant suffered from a mental illness, and it is reasonable to assume that defense counsel was aware of a statute in effect for almost an entire year before trial began, diversion was not appropriately raised. View "People v. Graham" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of first degree murder in 1983 after he drove three companions to and from an armed robbery and burglary. After the passage of Senate Bill No. 1437, defendant filed a Penal Code section 1170.95 petition for resentencing. The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's denial of the petition for resentencing without issuing an order to show cause. The parties agree, as does this court, that the matter must be remanded for the trial court to issue an order to show cause and to hold an evidentiary hearing. View "People v. Aleo" on Justia Law

Tousant was convicted of multiple counts related to a shooting targeting several individuals in a Berkely residential area and to his possession of firearms. The shootings were motivated by the murder of Tousant’s son, probably the result of gang violence. On appeal, Tousant primarily challenged the denial of his motion to suppress evidence downloaded from his cellphone, seized after an allegedly illegal search of his car left at the scene of an Oakland shooting. He also challenged the admission of his incriminating statements to a police officer, admission of uncharged acts, denial of a motion to sever, and a response to a jury question.The court of appeal affirmed, rejecting those arguments and a claim the evidence supporting three convictions was insufficient. The search and seizure were justified under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement; there was probable cause to believe the cellphone would contain evidence related to the shooting. Law enforcement’s 15-day retention of Tousant’s cellphone before securing a warrant to search its contents was not unreasonable. Tousant did not require Miranda warnings because he was not interrogated. The court reasonably concluded admitting the evidence of uncharged acts was not unduly prejudicial. The statutory requirements for joinder were satisfied. Tousant did not establish ineffective assistance of counsel. View "People v. Tousant" on Justia Law