People v. Bristow CA3, C101275M

David Earl Bristow was convicted in 2014 for conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, attempted murder, assault with a firearm, and assault with a deadly weapon, with enhancements for use of a firearm and causing great bodily injury.
The offense involved Bristow being hired to kill the victim, who survived a brutal attack involving being beaten, stabbed, shot, and run over.
Bristow was originally sentenced to 15 years (determinate) and 25 years to life (indeterminate), including enhancements and prior prison term findings.
On appeal in 2018, the case was remanded for possible resentencing, particularly to consider striking the firearm enhancement under amended law.
Later, following changes in law invalidating two prior prison term enhancements, Bristow was resentenced; the trial court struck the prior prison terms and a great bodily injury enhancement, but declined to further reduce the sentence.
Bristow did not object to the sentence or specifically argue about consideration of future dangerousness in the trial court.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Abuse of discretion in not reducing sentence due to failure to consider future dangerousness	No abuse, trial court followed proper standards	Trial court focused only on current, not future, dangerousness	Claim forfeited due to lack of objection; no abuse found

People v. Carmony, 33 Cal.4th 367 (Cal. 2004) (presumption of correctness in sentencing decisions; abuse of discretion standard)
People v. Scott, 9 Cal.4th 331 (Cal. 1994) (failure to object to a trial court's sentencing reasoning forfeits appellate review)
People v. Knoller, 41 Cal.4th 139 (Cal. 2007) (use of incorrect legal standard in sentencing is abuse of discretion)