THE PEOPLE, Plаintiff and Respondent, v. MIGUEL ANGEL MEDINA, Defendant and Appellant.
H051661 (Monterey County Super. Ct. No. 23CR004036)
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
Filed 5/5/25
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS. 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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
A. The Information
In the operative first amended information, the Monterey County District Attorney charged Medina with (1) second degree robbery (count 1,
B. Trial Evidence
John Doe had been acquainted with Medina since Doe was in middle school, as Medina’s older brother was one of Doe’s middle school friends. After a night drinking on the town with Medina, Doe was beaten and robbed in his home. Doe’s testimony, corroborated by Medina’s parole-mandated GPS tracking monitor and an accomplice’s declarаtion against interest, implicated Medina in the robbery.
1. Doe’s Testimony
Doe encountered Medina by chance in downtown Salinas. Outside Bankers Casino, Medina asked to borrow $50, which Doe lent him from a $5,000 wad of cash.2 Medina lost the $50 gambling and asked Doe for more, this time more “demanding.” When Doe was ready to leave, he was drunk enough that another friend was hailing him an Uber, but Medina offered Doe a ride instead.
Brooks drove Doe and Medina to Dоe’s apartment, stopping en route at a liquor store for more alcohol. Brooks asked to use Doe’s bathroom, so Doe let Brooks and Medina into his apartment.
Doe grew nervous about Medina and Brooks lingering there, so he agreed to buy Medina’s gun. As Doe was unloading the gun, Brooks wrestled it out of his hands and struck him with it several times, leaving him concussed and bleeding heavily.3 Dazed but conscious, Doe heard Medina tell Brooks to shoot him and saw Medina and Brooks grab his possessions. They fled, taking Doe’s PlayStation 5, Gucci slides, cell phone, and cash.
2. GPS Monitoring
Medina was subject to GPS ankle monitoring as a parolee. The GPS data showed that Medina’s movements that night were consistent with Doe’s account of his movements between the casino, the bar, the liquor store, and Doe’s apartment. And the GPS data were consistent with Medina’s leaving Doe’s apartment by cаr just after the robbery, returning to Medina’s home near the casino in downtown Salinas.
Doe told his older sister A.A. about the robbery and Brooks’s involvement. A.A., who also knew Brooks, was upset and wanted to ask Brooks why she had done that to Doe. So A.A. spoke to Brooks numerous times over three days.4
Brooks told A.A. that she had not realized the night of the robbery that Doe was A.A.’s brother. Brooks and “Miguel” planned the robbery after seeing Doe “showing off money.” Brooks said the robbery took place in Doe’s home after Brooks had driven him there with “Miguel.” Brooks hit Doe in the head with a gun and took a PlayStation 5 and money.
Brooks returned Doe’s PlayStation 5 and some money to A.A. Brooks apologized and said that “Miguel” took the rest of the money.
4. Doe’s Inconsistent Statements
After the robbery, Doe made statements that were inaccurate, inconsistent with other contemporaneous or subsequent statements, оr inconsistent with the physical evidence; these statements concerned subjects including the types of alcohol he consumed, the sex of his assailants, who struck him, the number of times he was struck, and whether he lost consciousness during the attack.
C. Verdict, Prior Strikes, Sentencing, and Appeal
The jury found Medina guilty of second degree robbery (count 1) and conspiracy to commit second degree robbery (count 3), but not guilty of possession of a firearm by a felon (count 2). After a bench trial, the trial court found that Medina had been convicted of two prior strikes as alleged by the prosecution.
Medina timely appealed.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Brooks’s Statements
Medina claims that the trial court erred in admitting over his objection A.A.’s testimony about Brooks’s confessed participation in the robbery. He contends that Brooks’s statements to A.A. are inadmissible hearsay, both in toto and in her statements inculpating Medina. Medina also asserts that Brooks’s statements are so unreliable that their admission violated his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Reviewing for abuse of discretion (see People v. Chhoun (2021) 11 Cal.5th 1, 44 (Chhoun)), we conclude the court properly admitted most of Brooks’s statement to A.A.—including Brooks’s account of robbing Doe with an accomplice—as a declaration against interest (
“Evidence of a statement by a declarant having sufficient knowledge of the subject is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule if the declarant is unavailable as a witness and the statement, when made, was so far contrary to the declarant’s pecuniary or proprietary interest, or so far subjected him to the risk of civil or criminal liability . . . , or created such a risk of making him an object of hatred, ridicule, or social disgrace in the community, that a reasonable man in his position would not have made the statement unless he believed it to be true.” (
A single statement may serve multiple purposes—a declarant may inculpate herself, exculpate herself, and exculpate others in short order. “The exception to the
There is no dispute that Brooks, having refused to testify, was unavailable at trial. (See Chhoun, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 47.) Nor is there any dispute that Brooks’s admissions to hitting Doe over the head with a gun and taking his PlayStation were self-inculpatory. Medina’s focus is the extent to which Brooks’s statements to A.A. were so contrary to her relevant interest as to be reliable enough to admit. He contends that because Brooks knew that Doe already knew the facts she admitted to A.A., Brooks gave up nothing of value. Medina asserts that these worthless admissions were the grain of truth intended to make Brooks’s efforts to excuse herself by implicating Medina more believable. To that end, Medina argues that three statements that were admitted at trial, and one that was not, tend to exculpate Brooks or help her curry favor with A.A.: (1) Brooks and Medina agreed to rob Doe; (2) Medina was present when Brooks attacked Doe; (3) Brooks was unable to return all of the money because Medina had taken some of it;5 and (4) per the excluded statement, Brooks hit Doe because she was afraid Medina
Under our deferential standard of review, we reject Medina’s contention that the entirety of Brooks’s statement was untrustworthy because she was attempting to shift blame and curry favor. (See People v. Duarte (2000) 24 Cal.4th 603, 615 (Duarte).) The trial court could reasonably have interpreted the overall thrust of Brooks’s statement as fully inculpating herself, without shifting blame to another, as means of persuading A.A. of the sincerity of Brooks’s remorse. (See Jasso, supra, 17 Cal.5th at p. 670 [the trial court is entitled to draw reasonable conclusions about the declarant’s motivations from the circumstances surrounding the statements]; see also Grimes, supra, 1 Cal.5th at pp. 717–719 [considering declarant’s motivations in context].) Although Brooks had an interest in avoiding prosecution, confessing her guilt to A.A. did not of itself further that interest. And while Doe already knew of Brooks’s participation in the robbery and had disclosed it to A.A., we cannot say that Brooks’s confirmаtion of Doe’s account did not further inculpate her: Assuming Brooks merely corroborated Doe’s account, the trial court could reasonably infer that Brooks knew enough of Doe’s inebriation when he was robbed to recognize that her corroboration of Doe’s account to A.A. incriminated her further.
Duarte is readily distinguishable. There, an accomplice spoke to police after his apprehension, attributing “the idea of doing a drive-by shooting” to the defendant, described the motive as retaliation for a drive-by shooting by a gang member that had
Here, in the statements as described in A.A.’s trial testimony, Brooks admitted deciding to rob Doe without minimizing her role in reaching that decision, beating Doe with the gun, and taking his PlayStation and his money, but attributed nothing to Medina other than sharing in the decision to commit robbery and his presence in Doe’s apartment as Brooks beat him, and his retaining the bulk of the cash proceeds. There is no serious dispute that Brooks’s hope was to avoid prosecution by expressing remorse and returning what she said she could of the stolen goods. The trial court could reasonably conclude that Brooks’s strategy in speaking with A.A. was to deter prosecution by contrition and restitution rather than denial and that Brooks would not have made these admissions and her general narrative admitting her responsibility6 “ ‘if they weren’t true.’ ” (Duarte, supra, 24 Cal.4th at p. 618.)
Planning a robbery in advance and initiating it with a coconspirator present, rather than acting alone on a spur of the moment impulse, can reasonably be understood to make Brooks’s conduct more blameworthy than less. Circumstances in aggravation in California include that “[t]he manner in which the crime was carried out indicates planning, sophistication, or professionalism” and that the “defendant induced others to participate in the commission of the crime or occupied a position of leadership or dominance of other participants in its commission.” (
Nor are we persuaded that this testimony was inadmissible under federal principles of due process. Medina highlights language suggesting that otherwise admissible hearsay might be rendered inadmissible by constitutional due process requirements if it is “unreliable.” (Michigan v. Bryant (2011) 562 U.S. 344, 370, fn. 13.) Citing the plurality opinion in Lilly v. Virginia (1999) 527 U.S. 116, 131, Medina asserts that Brooks’s statements are presumptively unreliable as an accomplice’s confession that incriminates a defendant. Lilly harkens to a bygone time when reliability was “the touchstone for determining viоlations of the confrontation clause” (People v. Almeda (2018) 19 Cal.App.5th 346, 362), so it does not directly support Medina’s due process argument. But accepting the premise that the reliability discussion in Lilly can be transposed to a due process challenge, Medina’s reliability argument merely restates his state law hearsay objection—Brooks’s statements are unreliable because she shifted blame from herself to her accomplice. (See Lilly, at pp. 131–134.) We reject Medina’s due process argument that the statements were unreliable—the statements are only admissible under state law if the trial court determined, in a proper exercise of its discretion considering all of the circumstances, that the statements are reliable. (See, e.g., Grimes, supra, 1 Cal.5th at pp. 716–717.)
Brooks’s statement, when she returned Doe’s property to A.A., that she did not have all of Doe’s money because Medina “had taken it” is not аn attempt to shift blame for the crime, but to explain why she cannot return more of the money she participated in
Finally, we will assume the trial court erred by overruling Medina’s objectiоn to Brooks’s naming “Miguel” as her coconspirator/coprincipal in the robbery. The identification of her coconspirator did not increase Brooks’s blameworthiness. (See Jasso, supra, 17 Cal.5th at p. 671 [collateral assertion is a statement or portion of a statement not specifically disserving to the declarant’s interests and not inextricably tied to and part of a specific statement against the declarant’s penal interest]; see also Grimes, supra, 1 Cal.5th at p. 717 [considering whether statements minimized “responsibility or shift[ed] blame to others”].) Nor is the identification otherwise against Brooks’s interest such that a reasonable person in Brooks’s position “ ‘would not have made the statement unless [s]he believed it to be true.’ ” (See Grimes, at p. 716.) A person confronted with and admitting their own culpability might still falsely identify their accomplice for a host of reasons.
But any error in admitting Brooks’s testimony that “Miguel” was the accomplice who was present during the robbery and kept some of the stolen money was harmless under any standard.8 Even without identifying “Miguel,” Brooks’s statements supported
the inference that Medina and Brooks agreed to rob Doe before carrying out the robbery. This helped corroborate Doe’s testimony, which was also corroborated by GPS data from Medina’s ankle monitor. Although Doe’s recall and credibility were disputed, he had long known Medina, and the GPS monitoring data strongly supported the inference that Medina participated in the robbery. And the record discloses no reason for Doe to falsely accuse Medina. Brooks’s statements about “Miguel[’s]” participation and the distribution of the loot provide further support for the allegation of conspiracy, but its weight pales in comparison to the other evidence оf their coordinated movements—Doe’s testimony, the GPS monitoring data, and Brooks’s admissible declarations against her own penal interest.
B. Mistrial
Medina contends that the trial court violated state law and his federal due process rights by refusing to declare a mistrial after a law enforcement witness volunteered that Medina was subject to ankle monitoring because he was either a sex offender or a gang member. “ ‘ “ ‘A mistrial should be granted if the court is apprised of prejudice that it judges incurable by admonition or instruction. [Citation.] Whether a particular incident is incurably prejudicial is by its nature a speculative matter, and the trial court is vested with considerable discretion in ruling on mistrial motions. [Citation.]’ [Citation.] A motion for mistrial should be granted when ‘ “ ‘a [defendant’s] chances of receiving a fair trial have been irreparably damaged.’ ” ’ ” ’ ” (People v. Dalton (2019) 7 Cal.5th 166, 240 (Dalton).) Here, the trial court pеrmissibly exercised its discretion by addressing the testimony through curative instructions, rather than declaring a mistrial.
Before trial, the trial court maintained that, unless Medina testified, the probative value of his gang membership was “substantially outweighed” by its prejudicial effect. But the trial court permitted testimony that Medina was a parolee to explain the use of a GPS-enabled ankle monitor, and Medina’s status as a convicted felon was a stipulated fact relevant to the charge for possession of a firearm by a felon.
Bryan Nakayama, a parole agent employed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, testified about Medina’s GPS monitoring data and generally about the GPS ankle monitoring system. Early in Nakayama’s testimony, the prosecutor asked about his “training . . . regarding GPS monitoring.” Nakayama responded, “With GPS monitoring we will supervise . . . the parolees [who] are on the monitor, which are sex offenders and gang members, and review their day-to-day movement and investigate.” Defense counsel asked to approach and, once the jury was excused from the courtroom, moved for a mistrial.
Defense counsel argued that Medina was incurably prejudiced because the testimony identified Medina as either a gang member or sex offender. The prosecutor offered to ask Nakayama “whether anybody on parole is subject to a GPS monitoring, which [the prosecutor believed would] be confirmed, which [he thought could] unring the bell” without further mentioning gang members or sex offenders. “[W]ith [the] understanding” that the witness would be able “to provide another response that is more general in nature,” the trial court reasoned that the issue could be cured. The trial court also invited the parties tо suggest a limiting instruction. So the trial court denied the mistrial motion “at th[at] point.”
Neither party sought to elicit the curative testimony that the prosecutor had surmised Nakayama might be able to provide. Instead, the trial court included a limiting instruction among its jury instructions. Defense counsel described the rationale for this approach. First, “[i]t did not seem that” testimony “broaden[ing] the class” was going to
The trial court instructed the jury as follows: “A witness testified about parolees being on GPS monitoring. You are instructed that many parolees are on GPS monitoring. The GPS monitoring information was introduced for the limited purpose of showing the location by GPS of the device on the given dates. [¶] You may not consider the fact that Mr. Medina was on parole or GPS monitoring in determining his guilt of the charged offense. You are not to speculate in any way as to why Mr. Medina was on GPS monitoring or parole. [¶] Whenever I tell you the People must prove something, I mean they must prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Separately, the trial court instructed the jury that “certain evidence was admitted for a limited purpose. You may consider that evidence only for that purpose and no other.” And in instructing the jury about the stipulation that Medina had been convicted of a felony during its discussion of count 2, the trial court instructed: “This stipulation means that you must accept this fact as true. Do not consider this fact for any other purpose. Do not speculate or discuss the nature of the conviction.”
2. Whether the Trial Court Acted Within its Discretion
Medina contends thаt he was incurably prejudiced by Nakayama’s statement that GPS monitoring is used for “ ‘sex offenders and gang members.’ ” Medina observes that sex offenses are “highly inflammatory” and “ ‘evidence of . . . gang membership creates a risk the jury will improperly infer the defendant has a criminal disposition and is therefore guilty of the offense charged.’ ” Medina asserts that the prejudice was incurable because (1) it “directly undermined [his] defense that . . . Brooks was the primary perpetrator and . . . Doe’s story was too full of inconsistencies to be reliable”; and (2) the jurors listened to all evidence that followed Nakayama’s testimony “with the belief that Mr. Medina was” a “terrifying” sex offender or gang member. And Medina
To be sure, Nakayama’s testimony implied that Medina was either a sex offender or a gang member, and this implication risked prejudicing Medina. (See generally People v. Williams (1997) 16 Cal.4th 153, 193 [explaining that evidence of gang membership “creates a risk the jury will improperly infer the defendant has a criminal disposition and is therefore guilty of the offense charged” and may also have “a highly inflammatory impact”]; People v. Falsetta (1999) 21 Cal.4th 903, 916–917 [discussing admissibility of prior sex offenses as propensity evidence].) But the trial court acted within its “ ‘ “ ‘considerable discretion’ ” ’ ” in finding that the risk of prejudice could be cured with a limiting instruction. (Dalton, supra, 7 Cal.5th at p. 240.)
Courts have upheld rulings denying mistrial motions where the improper evidence was not prejudicial—that is, where it is not reasonably probable that a result more favorable to the defendant would have been reаched absent the improper evidence. (See People v. Welch (1999) 20 Cal.4th 701, 749–750 [holding that evidence the defendant was a drug dealer was inconsequential given uncontradicted evidence of his guilt, so trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying mistrial even if evidence that defendant was a drug dealer was improper]; People v. Alexander (2010) 49 Cal.4th 846, 855, 865, 914–915 [holding that volunteered reference to murder defendant’s prior triple murder conviction was not prejudicial where most of the jurors denied hearing the reference and the two that heard it said they could disregard it in their deliberations].) Here, it is not reasonably probable that a result more favorable to Medina would have been reached absent the improper evidence.
Even without the GPS monitoring evidence, the jury knew by the parties’ stipulation that Medina had a prior felony conviction. Of course, the trial court forbade
And even without what the trial court found to be the witness’s unintentional error, the very purpose of Nakayama’s testimony was to establish a foundation for the GPS monitoring evidence—that Medina was on parole and subject to continuous location monitoring. Again, the trial court instructed the jury not to consider Medina’s parolee status or ongoing GPS monitoring “in determining his guilt of the charged offense.” Further, the trial court instructed the jury that GPS monitoring evidence was introduced for the “limited purpose” of showing Medina’s location by way of the GPS monitor and that evidence admitted for a limited purpose may be considered “only for that purpose and no other.” Without еxpressly referencing the implication that Medina was a sex offender or a gang member, these instructions forbade the jury from considering Nakayama’s testimony to that effect.9 Given this case-specific context, the risk of prejudice from Nakayama’s unsanctioned testimony was curable.
Medina’s challenge to the language of the curative instruction is unpersuasive. Without acknowledging the portions of the instruction we have identified above, Medina asserts that the “instruction did not tell jurors to disregard the testimony.” While technically true, trial counsel explained that the omission of reference to the testimony was to avoid accentuating it. And the net effect of the instruction was to preclude the jury from relying on testimony about Medina’s parole status (including any inferences about the reason he was on parole) in determining his guilt.
On this record, there are no exceptional circumstances to overcome our presumption that the jury followed the trial court’s instructions. (See People v. Daveggio and Michaud (2018) 4 Cal.5th 790, 861.)
Medina’s invocation of federal due process рrinciples does not help him. “[T]he admission of evidence, even if error under state law, violates due process only if it makes the trial fundamentally unfair.” (People v. Partida (2005) 37 Cal.4th 428, 436.) Consistent with our foregoing discussion, Nakayama’s improper testimony did not make Medina’s trial fundamentally unfair. (Cf. People v. Albarran (2007) 149 Cal.App.4th 214, 232, 230 [finding “rare and unusual” circumstances supporting finding of fundamental unfairness where trial court admitted gang evidence about “the threat to
C. Prior Strikes
Medina contends that the trial court erred when it treated evidence of his prior convictions for violations of
1. The Three Strikes Law
“ ‘The Three Strikes law was “[e]nacted ‘to ensure longer prison sentences and greater punishment for those who commit a fеlony and have been previously convicted of serious and/or violent felony offenses’ [citation], [and] ‘consists of two . . . nearly identical statutory schemes.’ ” ’ ” (Gonzalez, supra, 98 Cal.App.5th at p. 1306, review granted.) One scheme was codified by the Legislature in March 1994 at
Under both schemes, a prior “strike” is a conviction for either a “violent felony” identified in
Following a majority of courts to address this issue, we hold that Medina’s (1) gang-enhanced felony and (2) acts in furtherance of a criminal street gang both still qualify as prior serious felonies, because they qualified when he was convicted in 2015 and 2018, respectively. (See Gonzalez, supra, 98 Cal.App.5th at p. 1311, review granted; Aguirre, supra, 96 Cal.App.5th at p. 497, review granted; Scott, supra, 91 Cal.App.5th at p. 1182, review granted; see also People v. Briceno (2004) 34 Cal.4th 451, 456 (Briceno); but see Farias, supra, 92 Cal.App.5th at p. 652, review granted.)
In Gonzalez, the Fifth District analyzed both sides of the split of authority before holding, in line with the majority of appellate courts, that “Assembly Bill No. 333 does not change the status of a defendant’s conviction as a prior strike. . . . [T]he status of defendant’s prior conviction as a strike was fixed upon the date of his prior conviction.” (Gonzalez, supra, 98 Cal.App.5th at p. 1311, review granted; see also id. at pp. 1308–1310.) The court explained that its holding was compelled by “[t]he plain language of the Three Strikes law.” (Id. at p. 1311.)16
We find the Gonzalez court’s analysis of the plain language of the statute persuasive. We considered a narrower reading of the determination clause as designed preserve a conviction as a strike only against post-judgment litigation (e.g.,
Medina urges us to instead adopt the reasoning in Farias, which directed the trial court to consider on remand the amendments wrought by Assembly Bill No. 333 in assessing on remand whether a 2009 violation of
Strike does not help Medina. Strike was convicted, by guilty plea, in 2007 of violating
Medina invokes early cases holding that a conviction predating the Three Strikes law can qualify as a strike to support his proposition that convictions predating Assembly Bill No. 333 should not be treated as strikes. (See People v. Murillo (1995) 39 Cal.App.4th 1298, 1307 [collecting cases].) But Medina overlooks the “basic purpose of deterring recidivism” (Gonzalez v. Superior Court (1995) 37 Cal.App.4th 1302, 1311) that unifies those early cases and the majority approach to Assembly Bill No. 333. Under the punitive logic of the Three Strikes law, the issue is that Medina “ ‘was found to have committed criminal conduct and did not thereafter reform.’ ” (People v. Vargas (2014) 59 Cal.4th 635, 638 (Vargas); see also id. at p. 641.) In this legislative reasoning, it is not merely the persistence of criminal conduct but its persistence despite intervening adjudication as a strike offender and the criminal legal system’s prior ministrations that warrants the severity of Three-Strikes sentencing.
Medina identifies no recent amendment to the Three Strikes law that calls for courts to use a more recent definition of a qualifying offense to a prior conviction. The statutes require us to assess whether his offenses constituted strikes at the time of his convictions in 2015 and 2018—both offenses did under the applicable version of
We recognize the harshness of imposing a heightened punishment for older prior felony convictions where the same underlying conduct, if committed today, would not yield a strike. But the logic of the law is that each strike presents a “chance[] to reform [a person’s] antisocial behavior,” and failing to do so makes “ ‘current criminal conduct . . . more serious.’ ” (Vargas, supra, 59 Cal.4th at p. 638.) Medina was convicted of offenses that constituted prior strikes at the time, and he did not thereafter reform. We cannot say that the severity of the sentence imposed under our reading of the statute here is inconsistent with the intеntion of the Legislature and electorate in enacting the Three Strikes law.
Following the persuasive analysis of the majority of opinions addressing the issue, we agree with the trial court’s determination that Medina’s 2015 and 2018 convictions qualified as prior strikes.
III. DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
LIE, J.
WE CONCUR:
GROVER, Acting P. J.
WILSON, J.
People v. Medina
H051661