People v. Aguirre CA4/2, E077587

Background

On Aug. 20, 2020 Aguirre broke a front window and kicked in the front door of a neighbor’s house; the window was repaired and the door was replaced. Total repair/replacement cost was $522.79.
A jury convicted Aguirre of felony vandalism (Pen. Code § 594(b)(1)); the court implicitly found a prior strike and sentenced him to four years.
The vandalism conviction resulted in probation revocation sentences in two other Riverside cases; those terms were imposed to run concurrently.
Aguirre appealed raising nine issues including sufficiency of evidence for the $400 damage threshold, equal protection challenge to the $400 threshold, failure to instruct on aggregation, admission and limiting instruction on propensity evidence, hearsay, lack of express strike finding, cumulative error, and clerical corrections to abstracts.
The Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction and sentence, found any assumed instructional/hearsay errors harmless, upheld admission of prior-conduct evidence for non-propensity purposes, held the strike finding was implied, and directed amendment of abstracts to show concurrency.

Issues

Issue	People’s Argument	Aguirre’s Argument	Held
Sufficiency of $400+ damage to elevate vandalism	Replacement cost evidence (door + window) established $400+; replacement was "like property"	Replacement door was new and not shown to be "like property," so damage < $400	Substantial evidence supports $400+; replacement door was sufficiently similar and costs support verdict
Equal protection of $400 vandalism vs $950 theft threshold	Different crimes; vandals not similarly situated to thieves	$400 threshold is arbitrary and discriminates compared to $950 theft threshold	No equal protection violation; theft and vandalism are different and not similarly situated
Aggregation instruction for separate acts	Aggregation proper here because acts were part of one plan	Trial court should have instructed jury that separate acts must be one intention/plan before aggregating	Assuming omission error, it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt given proximity/timing and no defense on aggregation
Admission of prior violent incidents (propensity evidence)	Evidence admitted to show absence of justification, defendant’s threatening history, not propensity	Admission was improper character/propensity evidence	Admission was proper for non-propensity purpose (to rebut possible justification) and not an abuse of discretion
Sua sponte limiting instruction (CALCRIM No. 375)	Not required where prior-act evidence had legitimate purpose and was not dominant/prejudicial	Court should have given limiting instruction sua sponte	No duty to give the instruction sua sponte; no error here
Hearsay: victim’s 911 statement repeating prior attacks	911 caller’s repetition was corroborated by Sister’s testimony of prior incidents	911 statement was hearsay and should have been excluded	Assuming error in admitting that portion, it was harmless because Sister testified to the same prior conduct
Prior-strike finding (bifurcated)	Court took judicial notice, defense did not object; sentencing remarks expressly doubled term	Aguirre contends no express true finding was made before doubling sentence	Court impliedly found the prior true when imposing the enhancement; following precedent, the implied finding is sufficient
Abstracts of judgment concurrency	People do not oppose correction	Abstracts incorrectly omitted concurrency language	Trial court ordered to amend abstracts to show the probation-violation terms run concurrently with the vandalism sentence

Key Cases Cited

In re Kyle T., 9 Cal.App.5th 707 (Cal. Ct. App. 2017) (standard for reviewing sufficiency of evidence on vandalism damage)
In re A.W., 39 Cal.App.5th 941 (Cal. Ct. App. 2019) (amount of vandalism damage may be proved by repair or replacement cost)
In re Arthur V., 166 Cal.App.4th 61 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008) (multiple misdemeanor vandalism acts can be aggregated if committed pursuant to one intention or plan)
People v. Atkis, 25 Cal.4th 76 (Cal. 2001) (vandalism malice element reflects general intent)
People v. Collie, 30 Cal.3d 43 (Cal. 1981) (trial court generally has no duty to give sua sponte limiting instruction on past offenses)
People v. Clair, 2 Cal.4th 629 (Cal. 1992) (court may imply a true finding on a prior when it imposes an enhancement)
People v. Merritt, 2 Cal.5th 819 (Cal. 2017) (harmless-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard for instructional error)
People v. Gonzalez, 12 Cal.5th 367 (Cal. 2021) (abuse of discretion standard for evidentiary rulings)