THE PEOPLE, Plаintiff and Respondent, v. AQUILES G. JIMENEZ, Defendant and Appellant.
D081951
COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION ONE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Filed 7/22/24
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION; (Super. Ct. No. CR117399)
Aurora E. Bewicke, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Assistant Attorney General, Christopher P. Beesley and Michael D. Butera, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Jimenez contends on appeal that Senate Bill No. 775 (Stats. 2021, ch. 551 (Senate Bill 775)) and our Supreme Court‘s decision in People v. Reyes (2023) 14 Cal.5th 981 constitute changes in the law which make сollateral estoppel3 and law of the case inapplicable. Jimenez also contends, in supplemental briefing, that People v. Pittman (2023) 96 Cal.App.5th 400 (Pittman) changed the law regarding how courts should consider an offender‘s youth when determining whether he acted with implied malice. (Id. at p. 417.)
We conclude that since the time of the trial court‘s original ruling of August 2021, there have been significant changes in the law relating to the culpability of defendants who were young adults in their teens or early 20s at the time of their crimes. The nature and timing of these rapid developments are such that we cannot presume the trial court had an adequate opportunity tо consider evidence of Jimenez‘s youth (19 years old) and brain development in deciding whether he acted with malice. Nor can we presume that the defense had an adequate incentive to present new evidence on the issue based on the law as it then existed. Because the law has changed significantly, and we did not decide this issue in the prior appeal, collateral estoppel and law of the case do not bar Jimenez‘s second petition. Although we express no view on how the trial court should rule on remand, we conclude that the error is
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
A. Paul J.‘s Killing
We repeat relevant facts as summarized in our prior opinion affirming Jimenez‘s conviction.4 (See People v. Jimenez, supra, D079630.)
In August 1990, Cynthia Wilson told an acquaintance that she was upset with the victim, Paul J., because of how he treated her when they were dating. Wilson told the acquaintance that she wanted to get a gun to shoot Paul J. to “put him out of his misery.” Around that time, Wilson began dating Jimenez, and she told him that she was afraid of Paul J. and that he had hurt her emotionally. Jimenez, who sold and used methamphetamine, knew Paul J. was a drug dealer. Jimenez was also a gun collector, and at Wilson‘s rеquest, he took her out to practice shooting with one of his guns.
In the middle of a night in September 1990, Wilson asked Jimenez to drive her to a hotel to meet with Paul J. Wilson had been using methamphetamine that night, but Jimenez was not using drugs at the time because he was on pain medication for an injury. When they went to Paul J.‘s hotel room, Paul J. offered Wilson methamphetamine and went to the bathroom to prepare the drugs, where Wilson and Paul J. began arguing. Jimenez was adjusting the radio when Wilson pulled out a small pistol belonging to Jimenez, which he usually kept in his truck‘s glove compartment, and shot Paul J. a few times. Jimenez said during a parole hearing that he did nоt realize Wilson had taken his gun until that moment, and that she had hidden it under her jacket. He also denied knowing that Wilson was going to shoot Paul J.
After Wilson first shot Paul J. and he fell to the floor, Jimenez pulled the phone out of the wall socket to prevent Paul J. from calling anyone. During
The following morning, a hotel clerk found Paul J. dead in his room. An autopsy determined that he died from two gunshot wounds through the chest and back. During a subsequent search of Jimenez‘s residence, law enforcement officers found ammunition matching the type found in Paul J.‘s room.
Jimenez was 19 years old at the time of the offense, and Wilson was 20 years old.
B. Jimenez‘s First Petition for Resentencing
Jimenez pled guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree murder (
Alternatively, the court found that the record evidence proved Jimenez‘s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt as an aider and abettor of second degree murder who acted with implied malice. The court noted that Jimenez had weapons and ammunition at his residence that matched the murder weapon, he drove Wilson to the hotel, he “did nothing to stop the first оr subsequent shots,” and he admitted to pulling the phone out of the wall while Paul J. was still alive. The court found that Jimenez supplied Wilson with a gun, he went shooting with her, and he knew that Wilson “hated the victim.” The court further noted that Jimenez did not attempt to render aid to the victim or report the crime to the police, and he disposed of the murder weapon.
Although Jimenez‘s attorney made brief reference to Jimenez‘s status as a “youthful offender” at the evidentiary hearing, the trial court‘s order did not mention his age or maturity level.
Jimenez timely appealed the order denying his first petition. We affirmed the order in an unpublished opinion in Deсember 2022 on the ground that
C. Jimenez‘s Second Petition for Resentencing
In September 2022, before we issued our opinion in his first appeal, Jimenez filed a second petition for resentencing under
In March 2023, the trial court denied Jimenez‘s second petition at the prima facie stage, finding that the changes in Senate Bill 775 do not apply to Jimenez as the direct aider and abettor in the underlying murder. Referencing Jimenez‘s first petition and our prior opinion, the court further found there was no legal basis entitling him to a second petition for resentencing.
Jimenez timely appealed the denial of his second petition.
DISCUSSION
The People contend that Jimenez‘s second petition is barred by the doctrines of collateral estoppel and law of the case. In response, Jimenez argues that he is entitled to rеlief because the law has changed regarding whether and how the trier of fact may consider an adult offender‘s youth in determining whether he acted with implied malice. Jimenez relies on Pittman, a case decided in October 2023, in which the Court of Appeal held that a defendant who was 21 years old at the time of the offense was entitled to remand for the trial court to consider his youth in determining whether he acted with implied malice. (Pittman, supra, 96 Cal.App.5th at pp. 416, 418.) The People argue that Pittman did not constitute a “concrete” or “significant” change in the law. We agree with Jimenez that there have been significant changes in the law governing young adult offenders since the time of the heаring and ruling on his first petition. We therefore conclude that the doctrines of collateral estoppel and law of the case do not bar Jimenez‘s second petition. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for a new evidentiary hearing and ruling.
Pittman is one of the latest in a series of recent cases addressing the role an offender‘s youthfulness plays in various contexts, from sentencing to assessing guilt. The first to apply this developing case law in a
In Harris, which was decided in February 2021, the Court of Appeal reversed an order denying Harris‘s petition for resentencing at the prima facie stage. (Harris, supra, 60 Cal.App.5th at p. 961.) The court concluded that an evidentiary hearing was necessary to determine, among other things, whether “given Harris‘s youth at the time of the crime” (17 years old) he was a major participant for felony-murder purposes who was “actually aware ‘of particular dangers posed by the nature of the crime, weapons used, or past experience or conduct of the other participants.‘” (Id. at p. 960.) In support of its decision that youth was a relevant consideration, the court cited Eighth Amendment precedents on cruel and unusual punishment recognizing, in the context of sentencing for juvenile offenders, that children under the age of 18 are more immature, reckless, and impetuous than adults and may fail to appreciate the risks and consequences of their actions. (Ibid. [citing Graham v. Florida (2010) 560 U.S. 48; Miller v. Alabama (2012) 567 U.S. 460 (Miller); People v. Gutierrez (2014) 58 Cal.4th 1354 (Gutierrez)].)
Harris was the only
The first few cases following Harris also involved defendants who were under the age of 18 at the time of the offense. As we will show, however, the
About four weeks after the trial court denied Jimenez‘s first petition, another Court of Aрpeal decided in In re Moore (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 434 (Moore). In vacating a robbery-murder special-circumstance finding, the court held that Moore‘s age of 16 years old at the time of the offense was a relevant factor in determining whether he acted with reckless indifference to human life. (Moore, at pp. 454-455.)
People v. Ramirez (2021) 71 Cal.App.5th 970 was decided shortly thereafter in November 2021. There, the court found that the defendant‘s youth at the time of the offense, as a 15-year-old, “greatly diminishe[d] any inference he acted with reckless disregard for human life” during an attempted armed carjacking. (Id. at pp. 990-991.) In concluding there was insufficient evidence that Ramirez had the requisite culpable mental state, the court reasoned that his “age may well have affected his calculation of the risk of death posed by using the firearm in the carjacking, as well as his willingness to abandon the crime.” (Id. at p. 991.)
These early post-Harris cases involved defendants under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes. (See also In re Harper (2022) 76 Cal.App.5th 450, 470 [“[a]ssuming without deciding that youth is a proper factor among many” the court “may consider under the totality of the circumstances,” but concluding it is not “a decisive factor whenever the defendant was a minor at the time of the offense” and denying habeas relief to defendant who was 16 at time of murder]; People v. Keel (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 546, 558-559 (Keel) [“We agree youth can be a relevant consideration—potentially an important one, depending on the facts of the case—bearing on whether a juvenile defendant[,]” who was 15 years old at the time of the offense, “acted with reckless indifference to human life.“].)
In the years that followed, however, courts extended Harris to defendants like Jimenez who committed their offenses between the ages of 18 and 25. For example, in People v. Mitchell (2022) 81 Cal.App.5th 575, decided in July 2022, the trial court expressly considered Mitchell‘s youth even though he was already 18 years old at the time of the offense. The trial court observed that Mitchell was “just a teenager at the time,” but nonetheless still found he was a major participant who acted with reckless indifference. (Id. at p. 586.) The Court of Appeal affirmed the denial
In People v. Jones (2022) 86 Cal.App.5th 1076 (Jones), decided in December 2022, the Court of Appeal concluded that legally sufficient evidence supported a finding that Jones was a major participant in the underlying robbery and acted with reckless indifference to human life. (Id. at p. 1088.) The court, however, still reversed the order denying Jones‘s petition for resentencing and remanded the case for the trial court to “have a meaningful opportunity to consider Jones‘s youth as part of the totality of the circumstances germane to determining whether he was a major participant who acted with reckless indifference to human life.” (Id. at p. 1093.) Notably, Jones was already 20 years old at the time of the underlying offense, and the court acknowledged that the defendants in Harris and Moore were both juveniles. (Id. at pp. 1092-1093.) The court also observed that Jones “volunteered to perpetrate the crime he helped to plan and then grabbed a loaded gun to do it[.]” (Ibid.) Nonetheless, the court believed it was “in the interest of justice” to allow the trial court to consider Jones‘s youth. (Id. at p. 1093.)
In People v. Oliver (2023) 90 Cal.App.5th 466 (Oliver), decided in March 2023, the Court of Appeal “аcknowledge[d] the trajectory of the legislation and case law recognizing the psychological and neurological differences between youthful and adult offenders, which both lessen the culpability of the young and increase the likelihood of their rehabilitation.” (Id. at p. 488.) The court declined, however, to decide whether Oliver, who was 23 years old at the time of the offense, fit the definition of “youthful.” (Id. at p. 489.) The court also declined to decide whether it is incumbent on a trial court to expressly consider youth. (Id. at p. 488.) The court instead concluded that even if the trial court was required to consider Oliver‘s youth, any such error was harmless because there was no evidence that Oliver‘s criminal behavior was motivated by impulsivity or vulnerability to peer pressure, two hallmarks of youthful offenders. (Id. at pp. 488-489, citing Miller, supra, 567 U.S. at p. 461.)
Several months after Oliver came Pittman. Pittman was 21 years old at the time he and two juvenile cohorts committed a robbery that resulted in death. (Pittman, supra, 96 Cal.App.5th at pp. 403-404, 405.) In reversing the trial court‘s denial of Pittman‘s resentencing petition, the Court of Appeal concluded that Pittman‘s age at the time of the offense was relevant, and that “[t]he policy interests underlying the felony-murder cases—that youth is relevant to a criminal defendant‘s ability to perceive risk and consequences,
In аddition to these developments in the case law, the Legislature has enacted similar changes by statute in recent years. For example, the Legislature has raised the cut-off age for youth offender parole hearings to 25 based on “scientific evidence that neurological development, particularly in areas of the brain relevant to judgment and decision making, continues beyond adolescence and into the mid-20‘s.” (People v. Hardin (2024) 15 Cal.5th 834, 846) Likewise, effective January 1, 2022, prosecutors must now consider a defendant‘s youthful age as a mitigating factor during plea negotiations—with “youth” defined to include “any person under 26 years of age on the date the offense was committed.” (
B. Analysis
Considering this evolving landscape, and applying de novo review, we reject the People‘s contention that Jimenez‘s second petition is barred by collateral estoppel. (See Thee Aguila, Inc. v. Century Law Group, LLP (2019) 37 Cal.App.5th 22, 28 [a trial court‘s application of collateral estoppel or issue preclusion is a question of law subject to de novo review].) Collateral estoppel ” ‘bars relitigation of issues earlier decided “only if several threshold requirements are fulfilled. First, the issue sought to be precluded from relitigation must be identical to that decided in a former proceeding. Second, this issue must have been actually litigаted in the former proceeding. Third, it must have been necessarily decided in the former
Even if these requirements for collateral estoppel are met, however, ” ‘the doctrine will not be applied if such application would not serve its underlying fundamental principles’ of promoting efficiency while ensuring fairness to the parties.’ [Citation.]” (Curiel, supra, 15 Cal.5th at p. 454.) A well-settled equitable exception to the general rule of collateral estoppel ” ‘holds that preclusion does not apply when there has been a significant change in the law since the factual findings were rendered that warrants reexamination of the issue.’ [Citation.] ‘This exception ensures basic fairness by allowing for relitigation where “the change in the law [is] such that preclusion would result in a manifestly inequitable administration of the laws.” [Citation.] It also reflects a recognition that in the face of this sort of legal change, the equitable policies that underlie thе doctrine of issue preclusion—“preservation of the integrity of the judicial system, promotion of judicial economy, and protection of litigants from harassment by vexatious litigation” [citation]—are at an ebb.’ ” (Ibid.)
We conclude that even assuming the threshold requirements of collateral estoppel are met, this equitable exception applies here. Because California cases only recently began to require consideration of a young adult offender‘s age in resentencing petitions involving implied malice murder convictions, there have been material changes in the law since the trial court‘s original ruling which warrant reexamination of the factual question whether Jimenez acted with malice. Based on the law in effect when the trial court denied Jimenez‘s first petition and found him guilty on an implied malice theory, the court may well have believed that Jimenez‘s youth was irrelevant because he was not a juvenile at the time of the offense. The only case on the issue at the time was Harris, which involved a 17-year-old offender and the court there cited new scientific evidence on “adolescent brain development” and relied exclusively on Eighth Amendment case law drawing a bright line between juvenile аnd adult offenders. (Harris, supra, 60 Cal.App.5th at p. 960, italics added.) In these circumstances, the trial court could have felt compelled to conclude that Harris‘s discussion of youth did not apply to young adults. The fact that the trial court did not mention Jimenez‘s youth in its ruling on the first petition further supports this inference. (Jones, supra, 86 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1091-1093.)
The timing of the trial court‘s August 2021 ruling on Jimenez‘s first petition is similar to that in Jones, which was the first decision to reverse the
Accordingly, “in the interest of justice,” the Jones court decided “it is best for the trial court to have a meaningful opportunity to consider Jones‘s youth as part of the totality of circumstances. . . .” (Jones, at p. 1093.)
We reach the same conclusion here. As in Jones, principles of fairness require that Jimenez be given a new evidentiary hearing for the trier of fact to address his youthfulness under current сase law. Although his defense counsel made passing reference to his youth at the original hearing, his counsel did not have a sufficient incentive to develop the issue or present additional evidence on it under the existing case law at the time, which was limited to juvenile defendants. Jimenez could present additional evidence and argument at a new hearing, focusing on the “hallmarks” of youth as part of the totality of the circumstances relevant to determining whether he acted with malice. (Gutierrez, supra, 58 Cal.4th at p. 1388; see
For similar reasons, we also conclude that the law of the case doctrine does not apply. ” ‘The law of the case doctrine holds that when an appellate opinion states a principle or rule of law necessary to the decision, that principle or rule becomes the law of the case and must be adhered to through its subsequent progress in the lower court and upon subsequent appeal.’ ” (People v. Cooper (2007) 149 Cal.App.4th 500, 524.) The doctrine prevents parties from seeking appellate reconsideration of an already decided issue in the same case, ” ‘absent some significant change in circumstances.’ ” (Id. at pp. 524-525.) For the doctrine to apрly, the point of law must have been presented and determined by the court, the issue must have been necessary to the prior decision, and application of the doctrine must not result in an unjust decision. (Id. at p. 524.) But the doctrine does not apply “where the controlling rules of law have been altered or clarified by a
Not only has there been a significant intervening change in the law, but we simply did not decide the legal issue now before us in the prior appeal. We did not decide whether a new evidentiary hearing should be held for the trial court to assess the significance of Jimenez‘s youth under current case law in deciding his guilt. We only decided Jimenez‘s sufficiency of the evidence claim, drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the trial court‘s ruling. (See People v. Jimenez, supra, D079630.) Whether the trial court properly considered Jimenez‘s youth and brain development in finding him guilty was not raised or decided in the prior appeal, and the law of the case doctrine “does not extend to points of law which might have been but were not presented and determined in the prior appeal.” (Estate of Horman (1971) 5 Cal.3d 62, 73.) Accordingly, we find that the law of the case doctrine does not bar Jimenez‘s youthfulness argument.
We therefore turn next to whether the trial court‘s error in omitting consideration of Jimenez‘s age was harmless. The parties agree that the Watson standard applies, which asks whether it is reasonably probable that a result more favorable to Jimenez would have been reached absent the failure to consider his youth. (People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836.) We conclude that it is reasonably probable because there is evidence that Jimenez displayed the “hallmark features” of youth discussed in case law which may be relevant to determining whether he possessed the requisite mental state. (Gutierrez, supra, 58 Cal.4th at p. 1388.)
Jimenez was only 19 years old at the time of thе crime and still on the lower end of the young adult age range. Presumably, the younger the defendant, the less mature he is. (Cf. Oliver, supra, 90 Cal.App.5th at p. 489 [observing about 23-year-old defendant that “the presumption of immaturity weakens as a defendant approaches 26“].) Wilson, the actual shooter, was herself only 20 years old at the time. Courts have observed that a youthful offender may be vulnerable to “peer pressure” from his cohorts, and the evidence in this case could support an inference that Jimenez was influenced by Wilson. (See Pittman, supra, 96 Cal.App.5th at pp. 403-404, 418 [finding “[i]nferences of immaturity and peer pressure may be drawn” from the fact that the 21-year-old defendant participated in the crime “with two peers who were 16 and 17 years old“]; Jones, supra, 86 Cal.App.5th at p. 1093 [noting concern in Harris and Moore that a youthful offender “was vulnerable to the influence of others and could fail to appreciate the dangers of his activities and his cohort‘s actions“].) This is especially true given that Jimenez had only recently begun dating Wilson and could have been particularly susceptible to the influence of a new girlfriend.
The evidence also shows that Jimenez was less involved in the underlying offense than the defendant in Jones, who volunteered to perpetrate the robbery, helped plan it, insisted on taking a loaded gun, was callous toward the victim, and then laughed about the shooting afterwards. (Jones, supra, 86 Cal.App.5th at pp. 1088, 1093.) Furthermore, Jimenez may present additional or new evidence on remand that bears on the trial court‘s youthfulness analysis. Accordingly, as in Jones, we conclude it is in the interest of justice to give the trial court a meaningful opportunity to consider Jimenez‘s youth “as part of the totality of the circumstances germane to determining” whether he acted with malice under current law. (Id. at p. 1093.)
We acknowledge we have already found that the evidence presented at the first evidentiary hearing was legally sufficient to support a finding of malice notwithstanding Jimenez‘s youth. (People v. Jimenez, supra, D079630.) We are not suggesting otherwise in this opinion, nor are we expressing any view as to how the trial court should rule on remand. All we are holding is that Jimenez is entitled to a new evidentiary hearing so that the trial court can consider and apply the rapidly developing case law on youth and brain development in determining whether he acted with malice. Because we do not act as a trier of fact, this factual question is not for us to decide in the first instance. Accordingly, we reverse the denial order and remand for a new evidentiary hearing applying current law.5
The order denying Jimenez‘s second petition for resentencing is reversed, and the matter is remanded to the trial court with directions to issue an order to show cause, conduct a new evidentiary hearing, and make a new ruling consistent with current law.
BUCHANAN, J.
WE CONCUR:
McCONNELL, P. J.
HUFFMAN, J.