THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. LAUREANO ARTEAGA, JR., Defendant and Appellant.
E084038
(Super.Ct.No. BAF1900449)
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO
Filed 4/14/25
Timothy F. Freer, Judge.
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
OPINION
APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Timothy F. Freer, Judge. Affirmed.
Johanna Pirko, under аppointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
INTRODUCTION
A jury found defendant and appellant Laureano Arteaga, Jr., guilty of first degree murder (
II.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
M.U. testified he and victim S.R. were close friends. On the night of Wednesday, April 10, 2019, he and his friends, including defendant (who he referred to as “Louie“) were hanging out at F.M.‘s house. M.U. believed it was on the same date that defendant was “released from prison.”2 M.U. remembered defendant wearing a necklace that night.
While at F.M.‘s house, defendant and S.R. were rapping and they were all drinking. M.U. did not believe anyone was acting out of the ordinary, and he did not witness any disagreement between S.R. and defendant. Although M.U. was drinking that night, he did not believe it affected his perception. While hanging out, defendant retrieved a semiаutomatic gun from his waistband and showed it around to the group. The gun had a laser attachment, and M.U. testified he believed it had a magazine in it. M.U. took the gun from defendant and handed it to F.M., then gave it back to defendant. M.U. did not see anyone else at the gathering with a weapon and, to his knowledge, S.R. did not own a weapon.
At trial, M.U. testified that he did not remember hearing defendant tell F.M. not to touch the bullets in the gun. The prosеcutor attempted to refresh M.U.‘s recollection with his testimony at the preliminary hearing that he remembered defendant making this statement.3
Because the trial court found F.M. to be unavailable for trial, F.M.‘s preliminary hearing testimony was readback for the jury.4 F.M. testified at the preliminary hearing that both defendant and S.R. were his friends. On the night of April 10, 2019, his friends “came over, and [they] had a good timе.” Present were M.U., S.R., defendant, F.M., and F.M.‘s brother. They all spent an hour or two together at the house drinking, listening to
F.M. also testified at the preliminary hearing that defendant was wearing a “God necklace. The ones that have God, . . . like a rosary.” He thought the necklace had a cross on it and a Jеsus on the cross. He recalled that there was a scorpion on the necklace. When interviewed by the police, F.M. told them the necklace defendant was wearing “was a gold-colored necklace with a scorpion and a Jesus piece.” Shown a picture of the necklace recovered from the crime scene, F.M. testified that he did not recognize the necklacе and that it was not the necklace defendant was wearing on April 10, 2019.
F.M. explained the defendant had a “normal gun,” which had bullets in it. F.M. handled the gun and informed the officers that the gun was a .45 caliber as defendant had told him this information. F.M. also testified that defendant told him not to touch the bullets, and he did not recall if he had done so. F.M. told law enforcement that defendant and S.R. left his house at approximately 10:45 p.m. in S.R.‘s white BMW. No оne else was with them. S.R. informed F.M. that he was going to give defendant a ride home.
Banning Police Officer Daniel Deusenberry testified that at 11:06 p.m. on April 10, 2019, he was dispatched to Fourth and George Street where he observed a four-door white BMW that appeared to have collided with a chain-link fence next to a church. Officer Deusenberry observed what appeared to be a bullet hole through the driver‘s side window. Officer Deusenberry believed all the car doors were shut. However, the parties
Officer Deusenberry discovered S.R. slumped in the driver‘s side seat and no passеngers in the car. S.R. still had his seat belt on. Officer Deusenberry observed a wound to S.R.‘s head and a lot of blood. He declared S.R. dead. On the passenger side floorboard, Officer Deusenberry found a spent shell casing that he opined would have been expelled from a semiautomatic firearm. He located an additional spent shell casing outside of the car. Officer Deusenberry explained that tyрically a shell casing would be ejected out of the right side of a firearm when it is shot but that there are some variations depending on the type of gun. He did not examine the casings, but waited for detectives to arrive. He did not find any firearms at the scene.
Banning Police Officer Francisco Nieto arrived at the scene within seconds of Officer Deusenberry. The BMW was still running at the time he arrived. Officer Nieto followеd a K-9 handler using a bloodhound, but did not discover anything of evidentiary value.
Banning Police Detective Derek Thesier arrived at the scene after it had been secured by other officers. Near a mailbox close to the BMW, he observed the bullet casing that had some blood droplets near it, as well as blood droplets on the mailbox post. When the forensic team arrived at the scene, they informed Dеtective Thesier that the casing outside the car was a .9-millimeter casing. A necklace was also found near the
Banning Police Corporal Linda Jimenez assisted with the investigation. She reviewed the “grainy” footage from the church surveillance cameras and could see “the figure of a person rolling out of the passenger‘s side of the white BMW.” It appeared the person left “in the direction of northbound Fourth” toward the “house that[] [is] the church office.” Asked when in the video she could see the person rolling from the car, she testified that it was as the car was moving forward, but that “[t]his is a very horrible image, and you would have to replay and replay the video in order to see it, but you‘re not going to be able to see it on this one because it‘s just really bad quality.” In the
Retired Banning Police Sergeant Michael Bennett arrived at the crime scene shortly after midnight and did a walk-through. There was blood splatter throughout the car but no blood on the passenger seat. This indicated to him that there had been a person sitting in the passenger seat at the time of the shooting. On the driver‘s side floorboard, officers found an “actual projectile.” The two shell casings found at the scene were from .9-millimeter Luger bullets. The difference between a .9-millimeter gun and a .40 caliber gun is the size of the bullet. A .40 caliber bullеt is much larger than a .9-millimeter bullet, and a .40 caliber gun cannot, theoretically, shoot a .9-millimeter bullet. DNA could not be collected off the two shell casings found at the scene.
In addition to the blood in the car, Sergeant Bennett observed blood along the “curb edge [] of Fourth Street” and on the mailbox post. He also observed spots of blood on the outside of the passenger side doorjamb. Sergеant Bennett and his team had watched the church surveillance video “about 90 times.” According to Sergeant Bennett, this footage showed that, as the BMW came through the intersection of Fourth Street and George and veered into the southbound lane, “a person roll[ed] out of the vehicle and [took] off running down the roadway southbound.” Sergeant Bennett explained that if a person instructed others not to touch the bullets in a gun while looking at the gun, it would indicate the person did not “want to leave trace evidence or maybe a fingerprint on the shell casing of the bullet.” However, he agreed there could also be “reasonable”
A week after S.R.‘s killing, officers executed a search warrant at defendant‘s home. During the search, they found defendant‘s cell phone and two gun holsters. They did not locate a scorpion necklace nor any guns. The parties stipulated that defendant admitted the cell phone belonged to him, and that a Cellebrite download of the phone was accurately performed with the results of the download given to the Banning Police Department. In the downloaded contents of the phone, officers discovered a photograph of defendant pointing a handgun into the mirror. To the left of the photograph, the word “Wednesday” was written.5 This photo was created or accessеd or modified on April 11, 2019. Sergeant Bennett could not opine on what caliber of gun defendant held in the photograph, but could tell that the gun was a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic. S.R.‘s iPhone was found in the driver‘s seat of the BMW and the parties stipulated that the Cellebrite download of the phone was accurate and that the results of the download were given to the Banning Police Department. Based on the download, which showed GPS coordinates, Sergeant Bennett determined the phone moved between 10:56 p.m. and 10:58 p.m. on April 10, 2019 from F.M.‘s house to George and Fourth streets where the
After a criminalist had collected DNA swabs from S.R., defendant, the BMW, and the necklace, criminalist Chad Everly analyzed the DNA data. The blood samples from the doorjamb of the passenger side door of the BMW and the inside right door frame all matched S.R.‘s DNA profile with defendant excluded as a contributor. Analyzing the DNA collected from the necklace, Everly concluded that there were at least two contributors to the DNA. Both defendant and S.R. were excluded as “major” DNA contributors, but defendant was included as a possible “minor” cоntributor. Everly concluded that the “major” DNA contributor was a female.
Forensic Pathologist Dr. Louis Pena performed the autopsy of S.R. He observed two entrance gunshot wound injuries on the right side of S.R.‘s scalp at the temple. There were two bullet exit wounds on the left side of S.R.‘s head—one on the left temple and one below the left side of the jaw. There was stippling around the wounds. Stippling is caused when the wеapon is more than six or eight inches from the skin and it is caused by “burnt and unburnt gunpowder [] speckling the skin.” Dr. Pena could not definitively conclude on how far S.R. was from the gun muzzle when the gun was fired, but made a “rough estimate” that the muzzle was less than a foot from S.R. Dr. Pena determined the cause of death was “multiple gunshot wounds of the head” and that S.R. would have died within one second.
On February 26, 2021, the trial court heard and denied defendant‘s Marsden6 motion.
On May 25, 2022, defendant‘s motion to proceed in pro per was heard and granted.
On October 5, 2022, defendant decided he wanted counsel, and the court appointed counsel for him.
On March 7, 2024, the court granted the People‘s motion to permit the prosecutor to present witness F.M.‘s preliminary hearing testimony in lieu of his trial testimony because F.M. was “unavailable.” The People represented that F.M. was—at the time the prosecution investigator attempted to “serve and secure” his presence—out of the country. The court concluded that the People had exercised “due diligence” in attempting to secure F.M.‘s presence.
On March 8, 2024, the trial court ordered that defendant wear a “Band-it [security] device” on his leg during trial. In summarizing this order, the court explained that the parties and court security personnel had met and that “it was brought to [the court‘s] attention that there was some concern about the defendant acting out. . . .” Defense
On March 12, 2024, the parties stipulated that defendant “was residing in a youth facility from Friday, August 31st, 2018, at approximately 8:00 p.m. to Wednesday, April 10, 2019, at approximately 11:00 a.m.”
On March 18, 2024, the jury found defendant guilty of first degree murder and found true the firearm enhancement.
On May 31, 2024, the trial court sentenced defendant to a total term of 50 years to life: 25 years to life for the murder conviction, plus a consecutive term of 25 years to life for the
III.
DISCUSSION
After defendant appealed, upon his request, this court appointed counsel to represent him. Upon examination of the record, counsel has filed a brief under the authority of Wende, supra, 25 Cal.3d 436 and Anders v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 738 (Anders), setting forth a statement of the case, a summary of the facts and potential arguable issues and requesting this court to conduct an independent review of the record.
We offered defendant an opportunity to file a personal supplemental brief, but he has not done so.
Pursuant to the mandate of People v. Kelly (2006) 40 Cal.4th 106, we have independently reviewed the entire record for potential error and find no arguable error that would result in a disposition more favorable to defendant.
IV.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
CODRINGTON
J.
We concur:
McKINSTER
Acting P. J.
FIELDS
J.