THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. RICHARD VALLES, Defendant and Appellant.
E071361 (Super.Ct.No. RIF1603061)
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO
Filed 5/19/20
CERTIFIED FOR PARTIAL PUBLICATION*
See Concurring Opinions
OPINION
APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. John D. Molloy, Judge. Affirmed.
Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Warren J. Williams, Paige B. Hazard and Steven T. Oetting, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
* Pursuant to
Richard Valles, defendant, got into a fight with the victim Michael Carmona, after Carmona pushed defendant‘s girlfriend down at a river-side homeless camp. Defendant had to break off the fight when he felt a seizure beginning and left the camp. In the meantime, his tent-mate and one-time codefendant, Jesus Renteria, attacked the victim with a knife, inflicting multiple serious wounds. When defendant returned to the camp, he saw a piece of carpet covering the victim where he lay on the ground. Defendant obtained a firearm from his tent and shot the victim in the head, claiming he did so to put the victim out of his misery, although he thought the victim was dead. After a trial, the jury returned verdicts convicting defendant of first-degree murder (
On appeal, defendant argues that (1) his due process rights were violated by the trial court‘s failure to instruct the jury on a theory of heat of passion
I.
BACKGROUND
Defendant and his girlfriend, Cricket, lived in a tent with Jesus Renteria in a tight-knit homeless camp along the Santa Ana River in Riverside. Defendant was acquainted with victim Michael Carmona, known as “Bear,” and had fought with him on occasion.
In June 2016, defendant and Carmona started fighting after Carmona pushed Cricket down and struck her, after kicking Cricket‘s dog. Defendant and Carmona wrestled for 15 or 20 minutes, until defendant felt he was going to have a seizure and let go of Carmona to go down to the river. When he left, “Colt” intervened and administered a choke hold until Carmona lost consciousness.
A short time later, when Carmona regained consciousness, Renteria went into a tent, came out with a knife and proceeded to stab Carmona multiple times. When the stabbing stopped, Carmona emitted gargling and gasping sounds and appeared to be dying. Renteria handed the knife to another camp resident, Peter Strother, who had observed the stabbing, and left. Strother put the knife in a container inside his tent, to keep it for investigators. After Renteria left, Strother could hear Carmona breathing. Defendant returned to the camp, where Strother was waiting, carrying a rifle. Defendant walked up to the victim, whose face was covered with a carpet, and pulled the trigger, after which Strother saw and heard no further movement or breathing from the victim.
On June 18, 2016, law enforcement officers found Carmona in a shallow grave approximately 25 feet from defendant‘s tent, with the assistance of a cadaver-sniffing dog. The body was still wrapped in carpet. Officers also discovered a .22-caliber bolt-action single-shot rifle in defendant‘s tent, and they recovered the knife and a .22-caliber casing from Strother‘s tent.
By the time Carmona‘s body was found, it was already moderately decomposed. The pathologist noted several knife wounds, but not all of them did major damage. One wound punctured the victim‘s lung, and another
In addition, there was a gunshot wound to the victim‘s head, which fractured the skull from the inside. The bullet, which did not exit the skull, was found inside the brain. The bullet wound would have caused death immediately. Any of the three major wounds could have killed the victim, but death would have occurred over an interval of minutes.
The ultimate cause of death was attributed to homicidal violence, meaning there was more than one type of violent act. The pathologist could not say for certain, based on the decomposition of the body, that the victim was alive when the bullet entered his brain.
Defendant was charged with murder (
According to defendant, when he felt a seizure coming on, he went down to the river, and while there he heard Renteria say, “Oh s—t, he‘s dead” or “Oh s—t, he‘s gone.” Approximately 10 minutes later, defendant returned to the camp, where he saw Carmona lying on his back, covered in blood, and not breathing. Carmona was wrapped in a carpet. Defendant knew he was not breathing because he put his hands in front of the victim‘s nose to check for breathing. Carmona was not moving at all or making any noise. Defendant then went into his tent to get his gun, walked over to Carmona and shot him. By this time, Carmona‘s head was covered.
Defendant explained he shot Carmona because he thought the brain could still feel pain, likening the situation to when a chicken is decapitated, and defendant wanted to put Carmona at ease. He denied telling officers that Carmona was moving, although he recalled telling them that he saw movement that he thought was Carmona‘s nerves settling. He explained that when he told police he might have seen movement, he did not really see movement, but was just freaking out. He was sure Carmona was dead. Later, defendant buried the victim.
On rebuttal, Detective Cobb referred to defendant‘s interview, taped at the station, in which defendant denied any involvement in the homicide until being confronted with statements of other witnesses. Defendant never told the detective anything about thinking that dead people feel pain, but, instead, told the detective he was putting Carmona out of his misery after acknowledging there was movement on the part of the victim.
In addition, the court ordered defendant to pay victim restitution in the amount of $925.00 pursuant to
Defendant timely appealed.
II.
DISCUSSION
1. The Trial Court Was Not Required to Instruct on Heat of Passion Voluntary Manslaughter.
Background
Defendant requested instructions on voluntary manslaughter based on sudden quarrel or heat of passion as a lesser offense of murder. The trial court concluded there was no viable theory for voluntary manslaughter because of all the breaks in time and because defendant‘s own testimony was completely contrary to a theory of sudden quarrel, heat of passion. The court subsequently instructed the jury on first- and second-degree murder, as well as involuntary manslaughter.
Defendant argues the trial court erred in concluding there was “no viable theory for voluntary manslaughter” and in failing to instruct on the lesser included offense. Specifically, he claims that the failure to instruct on manslaughter constitutes federal constitutional error because it relieved the prosecution of its burden to prove malice beyond a reasonable doubt. We disagree.
Legal Principles
On appeal, we review independently the question whether the trial court improperly failed to instruct on a lesser included offense. (People v. Souza (2012) 54 Cal.4th 90, 113.)
“‘It is settled that in criminal cases, even in the absence of a request, the trial court must instruct on the general principles of law relevant to the issues raised by the evidence. [Citations.] The general principles of law governing the case are those principles closely and openly connected with the facts before the court, and which are necessary for the jury‘s understanding of the case.‘” (People v. Breverman (1998) 19 Cal.4th 142, 154, quoting People v. St. Martin (1970) 1 Cal.3d 524, 531.)
The obligation to instruct on general principles includes the duty to give instructions on lesser included offenses when the evidence raises a question as to whether all elements of the charged offense were present, but not when there is no evidence that the offense was less than that charged. (People v. Breverman, supra, 19 Cal.4th at p. 154, citing People v Hood (1969) 1 Cal.3d 444, 449-450; People v. Noah (1971) 5 Cal.3d 469, 479; People v. Osuna (1969) 70 Cal.2d 759, 767.) “Such instructions [on lesser included offenses] are required when, but only when, a jury could reasonably conclude that the defendant committed the lesser offense but not the greater one.” (People v. Hardy (2018) 5 Cal.5th 56, 98, citing People v. Breverman, supra, 19 Cal.4th at pp. 161-162.)
Voluntary manslaughter is a lesser included offense of murder. (People v. Duff (2014) 58 Cal.4th 527, 561.) “Heat of passion, which likewise reduces murder to voluntary manslaughter, arises when the defendant is provoked by acts that would ‘render an ordinary person of average disposition “liable to act rashly or without due deliberation and reflection, and from this passion rather than from judgement” [citation], and kills while under the actual influence of such a passion [citation].” (Id. at p. 562.)
A defendant must actually be motivated by passion in committing the killing. (People v. Beltran (2013) 56 Cal.4th 935, 951.) ““[I]f sufficient time has elapsed between the provocation and the fatal blow for passion to subside and reason to return, the killing is not voluntary manslaughter. . . . “” (Beltran, supra, at p. 951, citing People v. Wickersham (1982) 32 Cal.3d 307, 327, disapproved on another ground in People v. Barton (1995) 12 Cal.4th 186, 201.)
Here, the evidence is uncontradicted that after wrestling with the victim (over the victim‘s assault on defendant‘s girlfriend) for several minutes, defendant went down to the river because he felt a seizure coming on. By his own testimony, he was down at the river for about 20 to 30 minutes before returning to the camp. In the meantime, he had heard Renteria say either that “he‘s dead” or “he‘s gone,” and when defendant returned to the camp 10 minutes after hearing that statement, he saw the victim lying helpless on the ground, covered with blood and not breathing. Defendant did not testify that he was still upset or angry over the victim‘s assault on defendant‘s girlfriend, nor did he testify that he felt threatened by the victim.
While defendant described feeling “freaked out” when he told police investigating the crime that he had seen movement on the part of the victim as he lay on the ground, he did not describe any passion that would render an ordinary person of average disposition “liable to act rashly or without due deliberation and reflection,” and killing under the influence of that passion. He certainly did not describe his actions at the time of the shooting as having been performed under heat of passion as he entered his tent to get his gun, and then return to the victim to shoot him in the head. He had cooled off.
By a parity of reasoning, defendant could not rely on the victim‘s earlier assault on defendant‘s girlfriend as creating sufficient anger to mitigate the crime, warranting a voluntary manslaughter instruction, where the victim-aggressor had been rendered helpless before defendant returned to the camp and went for his gun. In any event, defendant‘s testimony, and his pretrial statements to police, that he shot the victim to put him out of his misery, precludes any notion that he was motivated by any desire to defend his girlfriend, or because he was “freaked out,” when he obtained his rifle from his tent and then shot the helpless (and either dying or dead) victim in the head.
To suggest that defendant‘s actions were comparable to those of an ordinary person of average disposition is unreasonable. An ordinary person of average disposition, upon seeing a stabbing victim bleeding on the ground, does not get a rifle to finish him off. The average person of ordinary disposition would seek emergency assistance for the victim, or so we hope. The fact that the defendant did not seek emergency assistance for the victim, and, instead, procured a rifle to put him out of his misery, speaks volumes about defendant‘s mental state at the time of the shooting. He intended to make sure the victim was dead.
Thus, the only evidence of defendant‘s mental state was that of premeditation and deliberation when he entered his tent, obtained the firearm, returned to where the victim lay, and shot him in the head. There is no evidence that the offense was less than that charged. (People v. Breverman, supra, 19 Cal.4th at p. 154.) There was no error in refusing to instruct the jury on the theory of heat of passion voluntary manslaughter.
2. The Trial Court Properly Considered Defendant‘s Inability to Pay in Ordering the Minimum Restitution Fine.
Defendant argues that the $300 restitution and parole revocation restitution fines (
Defendant acknowledges that the court did make a finding that he lacked ability to pay for the preparation of the probation report, the booking fee, and the presentence incarceration costs; he also acknowledges that he failed to
Restitution Fines
We begin by noting that while Dueñas and other recent decisions have treated restitution fines as comparable to the various fees imposed for court operations, probation report preparation and court facilities fees, they are not equivalent, and must be treated differently. The imposition of a restitution fine is punishment. (People v. Allen (2019) 41 Cal.App.5th 312, 321, citing People v. Guillen (2013) 218 Cal.App.4th 975, 984.) Court fees are not. (People v. Alford (2007) 42 Cal.4th 749, 757; see also People v. Knightbent (2010) 186 Cal.App.4th 1105, 1112.) Because the restitution fine is intended as punishment, it is subject to challenge under the excessive fines clause of the Eighth Amendment of the federal Constitution and
It has long been held that the law mandates the sentencing court to impose a restitution fine of at least the statutory minimum and is not required to make a finding of a defendant‘s ability to pay before imposing the statutory minimum fine. (
An ability-to-pay hearing is required only where the court imposes a restitution fine exceeding the statutory minimum.3 (
Additionally, defendant has forfeited any objection to the imposition of the restitution fine and the parole revocation restitution fine by failing to object at the sentencing hearing. (People v. Gamache, supra, 48 Cal.4th at p. 409; People v. Jenkins (2019) 40 Cal.App.5th 30, 40; People v. Forshay (1995) 39 Cal.App.4th 686, 689; People v. Gibson (1994) 27 Cal.App.4th 1466, 1468-1469.)
The decision in Dueñas broke with longstanding precedent in requiring the court to consider ability to pay before imposing the statutory minimum restitution fine and permitting an appellate challenge to the fine absent an objection in the trial court. The decision also ignores precedents holding that
Court Facilities Fee
As for the court facilities fee pursuant to
The record does not establish that defendant has a present inability to pay. While he was homeless at the time of the offense, and has since been committed to state prison, this circumstance does not necessarily establish an inability to pay absent evidence he is ineligible for prison work programs. (See People v. Gamache, supra, 48 Cal.4th at p. 409.) A court may consider a
As defendant will be serving a lengthy prison sentence and the amount of the fees is small, it is appropriate for the court to consider the wages that he may earn in prison. (See People v. Hennessey (1995) 37 Cal.App.4th 1830, 1837 [ability to pay includes a defendant‘s ability to obtain prison wages];
Thus, remand is unnecessary.
3. The Trial Court Properly Understood the Extent of Its Discretion in Imposing the Gun Discharge Enhancement.
At trial, the jury made a true finding on the gun discharge enhancement allegation pursuant to
Defendant does not argue that the enhancement is unsupported by substantial evidence, or that there is a legal impediment to imposition of the enhancement. Instead, he relies on the recent decision in People v. Morrison (2019) 34 Cal.App.5th 217, in arguing that remand is compelled because the trial court did not appreciate the scope of its discretion pursuant to the statutory amendments facilitated by Senate Bill 620. We disagree.
Notably, both the current and former versions of subdivision (h) of section 12022.53 referred to a trial court‘s discretion to dismiss or strike pursuant to
But the power to dismiss or strike does not necessarily include a broad discretion to impose a lesser enhancement. Nothing in the language of
Citing these authorities, Division Five of the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District recently held that the amendment to
provisions, and we may not rewrite a statute to conform to a presumed intent that is not expressed. (People v. Statum (2002) 28 Cal.4th 682, 692.)
The express language of sections
California courts have refused to permit trial courts to invoke
Defendant appears to have conflated a trial and/or appellate court‘s authority to modify a verdict, finding or judgment upon a motion for new trial or on appeal where the evidence shows the defendant to be not guilty of the degree of the crime of which he was convicted, but guilty of a lesser degree of the thereof. (
To date, one other court has recently rejected the reasoning of Morrison in a published decision, concluding that prosecuting authorities have the sole
Here, an allegation was charged pursuant to
In the absence of a legislative pronouncement to that effect, and in the absence of circumstances showing that the greater enhancement is either legally inapplicable or unsupported by sufficient evidence, the scope of sections
III.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed. The concurring opinion of Justice Miller contains the majority view on the analysis of issue number 2, ability to pay restitution fine. However, the majority reach the same result as the lead opinion.
CERTIFIED FOR PARTIAL PUBLICATION
RAMIREZ P. J.
[People v. Valles, E071361]
Miller, J., concurring
I concur in all aspects of this opinion with the exception of the analysis of issue number 2, ability to pay the minimum restitution fine.
I concur in the result the lead opinion reaches in finding that remand is not necessary for an ability to pay hearing for the $300 minimum restitution fine
In Dueñas, the court addressed
process inquiry is whether it is ‘fundamentally unfair’ to use the criminal justice system to impose punitive burdens on probationers who have ‘made all reasonable efforts to pay the fine or restitution, and yet cannot do so through no fault of [their] own....’ [Citation.]
This court in People v. Jones (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 1028, 1033 rejected that a defendant could be found to have forfeited a Dueñas claim as to a minimum restitution fine imposed pursuant to
Such conclusion does not change the result because even if Dueñas does require an ability to pay finding as to a minimum restitution fine, any conceivable error in failing to make such finding was harmless. As the lead opinion found for the fees imposed, any conceivable error was additionally harmless for the $300 restitution fine as defendant was given a lengthy sentence and could pay the fine out of his prison wages.
MILLER J.
[People v. Valles, E071361]
MENETREZ, J., Concurring.
The opinion authored by Presiding Justice Ramirez is not a majority opinion. No member of the panel joins the analysis in Part 2 of the Discussion concerning People v. Dueñas (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1157 (Dueñas), though we are unanimous as to the result. I feel compelled to point this out because otherwise readers could easily be misled. Only by reading the disposition and understanding its import (or by noticing that no one else has signed Presiding Justice Ramirez‘s opinion) would a reader be able to determine that not everything in Presiding Justice Ramirez‘s opinion is the opinion of the court. Given that Court of Appeal opinions (both published and unpublished) are often read in snippets online, dispositions are rarely read by anyone but the parties, and signatures are probably read even less, the potential for confusion here is far from trivial.
In addition, Presiding Justice Ramirez is publishing his Dueñas analysis, which is not joined by any other member of the panel and conflicts with this division‘s published precedent in People v. Jones (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 1028, 1031-1034 (Jones), which held that a Dueñas challenge to a pre-Dueñas minimum restitution fine is not forfeited by failure to raise it in the trial court. Presiding Justice Ramirez‘s opinion does not explain why he is declining to follow Jones; the opinion does not even acknowledge that he is doing so. Moreover, in a footnote within his Dueñas analysis, Presiding Justice Ramirez erroneously refers to his own opinion as “the plurality opinion.” (Lead opn., ante, at p. 11, fn. 2.) “An opinion is characterized as a plurality opinion when it has more signatories than any other opinion supporting the judgment in the cause, but less than a majority.” (Cal. Style Manual (4th ed. 2000) § 1:10, p. 13.) Presiding Justice Ramirez‘s opinion has the same number of signatories as every other opinion in this case (namely, one), and every opinion in the case supports the judgment (on which we are unanimous). In sum, Presiding Justice Ramirez is publishing a dissenting
Justice Miller is the only member of the panel who is in the majority on every issue, both reasoning and result. Our division‘s policy (as well as common sense) dictates that Justice Miller should therefore author the majority opinion. But my colleagues have chosen a different path, with Presiding Justice Ramirez authoring a lead opinion that expresses a minority analysis of the Dueñas issue.
For my part: I concur in the judgment and in Presiding Justice Ramirez‘s opinion except as to Parts 2 and 3 of the Discussion. I also concur in Justice Miller‘s analysis of the Dueñas issue.
All that remains is for me to address the split between People v. Morrison (2019) 34 Cal.App.5th 217 (Morrison) and People v. Tirado (2019) 38 Cal.App.5th 637, review granted November 13, 2019, S257658 (Tirado). Our division recently published an opinion rejecting Morrison and following Tirado. (People v. Yanez (2020) 44 Cal.App.5th 452, review granted Apr. 22, 2020, S260819 (Yanez).) In the present case, Presiding Justice Ramirez (joined by Justice Miller) offers his own analysis in support of following Tirado. I am not aware of any basis to depart from our division‘s decision in Yanez, so I concur in the judgment as to that issue as well.
But in my view Tirado and Yanez (and Presiding Justice Ramirez‘s similar analysis) are mistaken, and I believe it is worth setting forth my reasons.
The issue is whether a court that strikes a firearm enhancement under
I consequently believe that Tirado and Yanez frame the issue incorrectly by asking whether the amended statute “conveys the power to change, modify, or substitute a charge or enhancement.” (Tirado, supra, 38 Cal.App.5th at p. 643; see Yanez, supra, 44 Cal.App.5th at p. 458 [“the question we consider here is whether the statute, as amended, provides authority for a trial court to exercise discretion to impose a lesser included, uncharged enhancement“].) The question is not whether the amended statute conveys the power to impose an uncharged lesser enhancement (or change or modify an enhancement). Rather, the question is whether, having exercised its power under the amended statute to strike a greater enhancement, the court still has its previously recognized power to impose an uncharged lesser. Again, I am aware of no reason why it would not. The statutory amendment did not convey the power to impose the uncharged lesser. The court had that power already.
I am also unpersuaded by the separation of powers concerns articulated in Tirado, supra, 38 Cal.App.5th at page 644, and Yanez, supra, 44 Cal.App.5th at pages 459-460.
Under prior case law, when (1) the prosecution exercises its discretion to place an all-or-nothing wager by charging only a greater enhancement and no lessers, and (2) the prosecution loses because the greater enhancement turns out to be legally inapplicable or factually unsupported, the trial court has the power to spare the prosecution from the full consequences of its bad bet by imposing an uncharged lesser included enhancement. (People v. Fialho, supra, 229 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1395-1396.) No one has ever thought the existence or exercise of that power raises separation of powers concerns because of
For similar reasons, I disagree with the separation of powers analysis in People v. Garcia (2020) 46 Cal.App.5th 786 (Garcia), which also follows Tirado and rejects Morrison. Garcia asserts that the trial court‘s previously recognized power to impose an uncharged lesser included enhancement is merely a power “to salvage as much of the prosecutor‘s charging decision . . . as possible,” so as to “effectuate” the prosecutor‘s exercise of discretion. (Garcia, supra, at p. 793.) In my view, it is nothing of the kind. In the circumstances at issue, the prosecution has exercised its discretion not to charge the lesser included enhancements. It could have charged them, but it chose not to. Rather, it chose to go all-or-nothing. If the only charged enhancement turns out to be legally inapplicable or factually unsupported, then effectuating the prosecutor‘s exercise of discretion would require imposing no enhancement at all. That was the prosecutor‘s choice. Imposing an uncharged lesser in those circumstances thus does not effectuate the prosecutor‘s exercise of discretion. It thwarts it. In effect, the holding of Tirado is that such a power to thwart the prosecutor‘s exercise of discretion exists when it would benefit the prosecution but not when it would benefit the defense.
For all of these reasons, I respectfully disagree with Tirado, Yanez, and Garcia (and Presiding Justice Ramirez‘s similar analysis). But mindful of principles of stare decisis, I am aware of no basis to depart from our division‘s recent decision in Yanez, so I concur in the judgment.1
MENETREZ J.