P. v. Magallanes
Filed 6/24/13 P. v. Magallanes CA3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
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opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for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.
IN THE COURT OF
APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
THIRD APPELLATE
DISTRICT
(Yolo)
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>
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. OLIVIA MAGALLANES, Defendant and Appellant. | C069727 (Super. Ct. Nos. CRF112565, F070048, F083151) |
A jury
convicted defendant Martha Magallanes of taking
and receiving a stolen vehicle. On
appeal, she challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the verdicts
on both counts. We affirm.
FACTS AND ANALYSIS
The limited
scope of appellate review of an insufficiency of the evidence claim is well
known. From a review of the entire
record, we must determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found
the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. (People
v. Johnson (1980) 26 Cal.3d 557, 576.)
We must review the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution
and presume the existence of every fact the trier of fact could reasonably
deduce from the evidence in support of the judgment. (Id.
at pp. 576-577.) We are not at liberty
to substitute our assessment of the evidence for that of the jury. (People
v. Ceja (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1134, 1139.)
With these principles in mind, we cite the facts the jury could
reasonably deduce from the evidence offered by the prosecution.
Bonaficia
Sierra owned a Chevrolet Tahoe and a Toyota Corolla, both of which were parked
in her driveway when she went to sleep around 10:30
p.m. on June 1, 2011. She hung one set of keys on a hook inside the
house. At approximately 3:00 a.m., her sister, who lived with her and
worked nights, called her to inquire where the Tahoe was. Sierra and her husband investigated and
discovered their car was missing. They
concluded they must have left their garage door open. Sierra called the police.
While they
waited for the police to arrive, they heard a car pull into their court, which
was unusual at that hour. Sierra watched
a Chevy Blazer pull into her driveway and an African American male attempt to
get into her Toyota Corolla. She stepped
into the garage and asked the couple who arrived in the Blazer what they were
doing there. The woman responded, “What
are you doing?†Sierra closed the garage
and went back into the house. Her sister
was also watching from a window in a bedroom close to the driveway. Defendant and her male companion drove
away. Defendant was driving.
When the police
arrived, Sierra and her sister both gave descriptions of the two people they
saw in their driveway. According to
Sierra, she described defendant as a heavyset Hispanic woman who wore her hair
in a bun. According to the investigating
police officer, Sierra described the woman as African American. She changed the police report to indicate
that the female suspect was Hispanic and not African American. Her sister described the woman as African
American and “heavy.†She too said the
woman wore her hair in a bun.
Less than
24 hours later, Sierra was notified her Tahoe had been found in West
Sacramento. Sierra and her
sister went to retrieve it. To their
surprise, they were asked to make an in-field identification. Defendant and an African American woman were
sitting in the back of a patrol car.
Separately, Sierra and her sister identified defendant as the woman they
had seen in their driveway. Sierra
recognized her voice. Neither had seen
the other woman before the previous morning.
The police
officer who found the car and detained the occupants testified at trial. He explained that when he approached the
vehicle, defendant was standing on the step bar on the driver’s side rummaging
through her purse, with the key to the vehicle lying on the driver’s seat. Defendant told him that her first name was
Olivia but denied that her last name was Magallanes. He confiscated mail addressed to her and
photos of her from the passenger compartment.
In short,
two witnesses identified defendant as the woman they saw in their driveway in
the middle of the night, defendant was later apprehended with the stolen
vehicle and with indicia that she was the driver, and she gave false
information to the police officer.
Although the parties agree on the elements of the crimes and the need
for only “slight corroboration,†defendant insists there is not substantial
evidence to constitute slight corroboration that she knew the vehicle was
stolen and intended to deprive Sierra of her car, either temporarily or
permanently. We disagree.
The jury
convicted defendant of taking and receiving a stolen vehicle and acquitted her
of burglary. The elements of theft include: 1) the taking or driving of a vehicle
belonging to another; 2) the owner had not consented to the taking or driving;
and 3) the accused had the specific intent to deprive the owner either
permanently or temporarily of the owner’s title to or possession of the
vehicle. (Veh. Code, § 10851, subd. (a);
People v. O’Dell (2007) 153
Cal.App.4th 1569, 1574.) Once the
unlawful taking has been established, the defendant’s possession of the
recently taken vehicle requires only slight corroboration to prove guilt. (People
v. Green (1995) 34 Cal.App.4th 165, 181.)
Similarly, receiving
a stolen vehicle requires proof that the vehicle was stolen, the defendant was
in possession of it, and that the defendant knew it was stolen. (People
v. Reyes (1997) 52 Cal.App.4th 975, 984.)
“[P]roof of knowing possession by a defendant of recently stolen
property raises a strong inference of the other element of the crime: the defendant’s knowledge of the tainted
nature of the property. This inference
is so substantial that only ‘slight’ additional
order to permit a finding of guilty.
[Citation.]†(
414, 432.)
No one
disputes that the car was stolen and the owner was deprived of its possession
without her consent. The issue is
whether there was substantial evidence that defendant knew it was stolen when
she drove it and intended to deprive Sierra of possession. Because defendant was apprehended in
possession of a stolen vehicle at 4:00 o’clock the morning following the
theft, only slight corroboration is necessary.
We conclude the evidence and the reasonable inferences to be drawn from
the evidence were more than ample to corroborate the evidence of her knowledge
and intent since she was identified by Sierra and her sister as one of the two
people in the driveway shortly after the car was taken, she appeared to be the
driver since she was standing on the driver’s side with the key in close
proximity, and she provided false information about her identity to the investigating
police officer. Beyond providing her
first name, she was otherwise uncooperative.
Defendant
challenges the use of evidence that she was identified in the driveway because
the jury acquitted her of burglary. But
burglary involves additional elements the jury might have reasonably concluded
the prosecution had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. To convict her of burglary, the prosecution
had to prove that she entered the residence with the intent to commit a
felony. Yet there was no evidence that
the African American male or defendant had entered through the garage and into
the house to retrieve the keys to the vehicles, which hung on a hook inside the
door to the garage. Thus, the fact the
jury acquitted defendant of burglary does not mean it disbelieved Sierra’s and
her sister’s identifications of defendant as present in the middle of the night
in their driveway; rather, it simply means the jury was not convinced beyond a
reasonable doubt that she was the one that entered with a felonious intent.
Defendant’s
argument on appeal is nothing more than a repeat of the argument she made to
the jury below. It was the jury’s
prerogative, not ours, to determine how credible Sierra’s and her sister’s
identifications were, and to draw the inferences it deemed reasonable from the
evidence that she was at the scene of the taking, she was driving a stolen
vehicle without permission, she was apprehended in the middle of the night with
the stolen vehicle within approximately 24 hours of the theft, and she was not
forthcoming about who she was or why she was in possession of a stolen
vehicle. We reject defendant’s argument
that there was not substantial evidence to corroborate her guilt of theft and
receiving stolen property.
DISPOSITION
The
judgment is affirmed.
RAYE ,
P. J.
We concur:
NICHOLSON , J.
DUARTE , J.
