Recently in Criminal Law Category

Trial courts denial of defendant's petition for unconditional release after he had been recommitted as an SVP is affirmed where: 1) the trial court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing defendant's petition where defendant did not oppose the dismissal motion and conceded there were no changed circumstances at the hearing; and 2) trial counsel provided effective assistance of counsel in not opposing motion to dismiss where there were no circumstances to support a conclusion defendant's condition had so changed he would not be a danger to others. 

Read People v. Reynolds, No. E047192 [HTML]

Read People v. Reynolds, No. E047192 [PDF]

Appellate Information

Filed November 20, 2009

Judges

Opinion by Judge Ramirez

Counsel
For Appellant:   Rudy Kraft

For Appellee:   Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Rhonda Cartwright-Ladendorf and Kristen Kinnaird Chenelia, Deputy Attorneys General

Defendant's conviction for carjacking, attempted robbery, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and other offenses is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) the true findings on the gang enhancements are reversed as they were not supported by substantial evidence; 2) the prior prison terms must be stricken and the People are barred from seeking to try them upon remand; and 3) the record is sufficiently clear to order the award of custody credits as requested by defendant.     

Read People v. Ochoa, No. E045756 [HTML]

Read People v. Ochoa, No. E045756 [PDF]

Appellate Information

Filed November 20, 2009

Judges

Opinion by Judge Miller

Counsel
For Appellant:   Brett Harding Duxbury

For Appellee:  Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Rhonda Cartwright-Ladendorf, Kristen Chenelia and Vincent La Pietra, Deputy Attorneys General

Rejection of plaintiffs' petition challenging a county trial court's procedures as unconstitutional is affirmed where the summary denial of a prison inmate's ex parte application for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus or a writ of mandate is a subordinate judicial duty that a commissioner may perform pursuant to section 259, subdivision (a) of the Code of Civil Procedure, without violating the Constitution, because it is not the "trial" of a "cause." 

Read Gomez v. Sup. Ct., No. C060710 [HTML]

Read Gomez v. Sup. Ct., No. C060710 [PDF]

Appellate Information

Filed November 20, 2009

Judges

Opinion by Judge Scotland

Counsel
For Appellant:   Jon A. Nakanishi

For Appellee:   Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Jessica N. Blonien, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Heather M. Heckler and Christopher J. Rench, Deputy Attorneys General,

Defendant's conviction for evading a police officer while driving recklessly and kidnapping is affirmed for the most part but reversed and remanded with respect to the kidnapping conviction as the court erred by failing to instruct the jury on a defendant's incidental movement of an alleged kidnapping victim.     

Read People v. Bell, No. G041051 [HTML]

Read People v. Bell, No. G041051 [PDF]

Appellate Information

Filed November 20, 2009

Judges

Opinion by Judge Ikola

Counsel
For Appellant:   John L. Dodd,

For Appellee:   Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey J. Koch, Pamela Ratner Sobeck, and Scott Taylor, Deputy Attorneys General

Defendant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus is granted as the assessment protocols used to evaluate defendant leading to the SVPA commitment petition is invalid as an underground regulation, and as such, the appropriate remedy is to order new evaluations of defendant using a valid assessment protocol and to conduct another probable cause hearing under section 6602(a) based on the new evaluations.     

Read In re Ronje, No. G041373 [HTML]

Read In re Ronje, No. G041373 [PDF]

Appellate Information

Filed November 19, 2009

Judges

Opinion by Judge Fybel

Counsel
For Appellant:   Edward C. Ronje, in pro. per.; and Rudy Kraft

For Appellee:  Tony Rackauckas, District Attorney, and Mike Flory, Deputy District Attorney

Conviction of defendant for carjacking and use of a firearm is affirmed as the controlling constitutional rule in Seibert is that set forth in Associate Justice M. Kennedy's concurring opinion as it does not abrogate the implied waiver rule first articulated by the Supreme Court in Butler, and thus the implied waiver rule, which applies to this case, is not rescinded by Seibert.  As a result, substantial evidence supports the trial court's finding that defendant's admissions were admissible. 

Read People v. Rios, No. B208573 [HTML]

Read People v. Rios, No. B208573 [PDF]

Appellate Information

Filed November 19, 2009

Judges

Opinion by Judge Turner

Counsel
For Appellant:   Jeffrey Lewis,

For Appellee:  Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Scott A. Taryle and David A. Wildman, Deputy Attorneys General

Trial court's order placing defendant on three-years' probation for cultivation of marijuana and simple possession is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) the trial court's error in including the numerical limits set forth in section 11362.77(a) of the Medical Marijuana Program Act (MMPA) when instructing the jury regarding the amount of medical marijuana that defendant could lawfully possess and/or cultivate unconstitutionally amended the Compassionate Use Act passed by the voters, but the error was harmless as defendant admitted he was growing marijuana for at least four other people and he proffered no evidence to show that he was the primary caregiver for any of them; but 2) defendant's conviction for simple possession is reversed as under section 11357(a), the instructional error capping the amount of marijuana defendant could lawfully possess was prejudicial because defendant himself was a qualified patient in April 2006, and as such, he was entitled to possess an amount of marijuana reasonably related to his own medical needs.  

Read People v. Archer, No. D052978 [HTML]

Read People v. Archer, No. D052978 [PDF]

Filed November 17, 2009

Judges

Opinion by Judge Benke

Counsel
For Appellant:   Russell S. Babcock

For Appellee:  Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General,  Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Steve Oetting and Meredith A. Strong, Deputy Attorney General. 

Trial court's order requiring defendant to pay $24,752.35 in restitution to the Municipal Utility District (MUD) after pleading no contest to conspiracy to sell marijuana is affirmed as, under the circumstances, it was reasonable to use the earlier date of when the defendant subscribed for utilities rather than the date when the MUD first determined that power was being illegally diverted into the house.    

Read People v. Phu, No. C060511 [HTML]

Read People v. Phu, No. C060511 [PDF]

Filed November 17, 2009

Judges

Opinion by Judge Nicholson

Counsel
For Appellant:    J. Edward Jones

For Appellee:  Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General,  Michael P. Farrell, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Catherine Chatman and Raymond L. Brosterhous II, Deputy Attorneys General

Petitions for writ of mandate challenging trial court's denial of petitioners' motions to dismiss recommitment petitions, brought after the trial court granted People's motions to convert petitioners' involuntary two-year commitment under the Sexually Violent Predator Act (SVPA) to an indeterminate term under the 2006 amendment to the SVPA, are denied where: 1) substantial evidence supports the trial court's finding that the People made a good faith mistake of law when they failed to timely file the recommitment petitions before the expirations of petitioners' most recent two-year commitment periods; 2) the good-faith exception of section 6601(a)(2) precludes dismissal of the untimely recommitment petitions because petitioners' unlawful custody was due to People's mistake of law; and 3) therefore, the trial court properly denied petitioners' motions to dismiss and the court has jurisdiction to proceed on the petitions.      

Read Langhorne v. Sup. Ct., No. H033845 [HTML]

Read Langhorne v. Sup. Ct., No. H033845 [PDF]

Appellate Information

Filed November 16, 2009

Judges

Opinion by Judge Bamattre-Manoukian

Counsel
For Appellant:    Mary J. Greenwood, Public Defender, Michael S. Ogul, Deputy Public Defender, Matthew M. Wilson, Deputy Public Defender

For Appellee:  Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Bridget Billeter, Deputy Attorney General

Defendant's sentence to an indeterminate term of 25 years to life to run consecutive to a determinate term of four years for child endangerment, evading a police officer, and hit and run causing property damage, is reversed and remanded for resentencing where the  trial court's determination that defendant maintained multiple criminal objectives with regard to his conviction for evading a police officer was not supported by sufficient evidence. Also, on resentencing, the court may reconsider its ruling on a one-year prior enhancement pursuant to Penal Code section 1385. 

Read People v. Pakes, No. H032734 [HTML]

Read People v. Pakes, No. H032734 [PDF]

Filed November 13, 2009

Judges

Opinion by Judge Mihara

Counsel
For Appellant:    Dallas Sacher

For Appellee:  Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General,  Gerald A. Engler, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Stan Helfman, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Jeffrey M. Laurence, Deputy Attorney General.