P. v. Park
Filed 8/15/06 P. v. Park CA2/4
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION FOUR
| THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. RICKY SEONG PARK, Defendant and Appellant. | B184267 (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BA216648) |
| In re RICKY SEONG PARK, on Coram Vobis. | B187488 |
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Kathleen Kennedy-Powell, Judge. Affirmed.
PETITION for writ of error coram vobis. Dismissed.
Richard Leonard for Defendant and Appellant.
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Susan D. Martynec and Alan D. Tate, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
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Ricky Seong Park appeals from the trial court's denial of his motion to vacate his no contest plea and petitions this court for writ of error coram vobis. We conclude that he failed to establish a basis for reversal of the order denying his motion to vacate the sentence and affirm. We dismiss the related petition for writ of error coram vobis, brought on the same grounds raised in the appeal, as moot.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL SUMMARY
Park was charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, and enhancements for the use of a firearm and for committing an offense for the benefit of a criminal street gang. His discovery motion was pending when he entered a no contest plea to the lesser charges of attempted murder and attempted manslaughter in February 2003. Park filed a notice of appeal in May 2003, but dismissed that appeal in September 2003 (B167420). Our remittitur issued November 17, 2003.
In September 2004, after retaining attorney David P. Elder as his new counsel, Park moved to vacate the judgment on the ground that his plea was the result of ineffective assistance of prior counsel, duress or fraud, and suppression of evidence by the prosecution. His theory is that when he retained new counsel after he entered his plea, he learned of information which could have been used to impeach Los Angeles Police Officer Ronald Kim, who had participated in the investigation of these crimes. In addition, Park claimed that his counsel at the time of entry of the plea was ineffective in allowing him to enter it before discovery had been conducted.
A declaration in support of the motion to vacate by Park's new attorney, David P. Elder, stated that based on information provided by the prosecutor on the case, Officer Kim appeared at this crime scene voluntarily, and was instrumental as an intermediary between the district attorney's office and Joon Myong and James Lim. Elder declared that Officer Kim spoke with the two defendants [unidentified, but we infer this means Myong and Lim] on several occasions prior to their arrests and ultimately procured allegedly false statements from Myong and Lim that caused Park to believe he could not prevail at trial.
According to the motion to vacate, Elder had collected information on Officer Kim and had concluded that â€
