CA Unpub Decisions

When he was 20 years old, the juvenile court committed Miguel C. for 365 days based on a probation violation. His appointed counsel filed an opening brief that raises no issues but asks this court to conduct an independent review pursuant to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436 (Wende). We have reviewed the record and find no reasonably arguable appellate issue. We affirm.

Appellants Roosevelt W. (Father) and K.W. (Mother), each self-represented, appeal the juvenile court’s order terminating parental rights over their children Kingston and “Ky.” For the reasons discussed, we affirm the court’s order, concluding the court did not err in finding that the children were adoptable and that there was no compelling reason to believe termination of parental rights would be detrimental to them.

C.A. (mother) appeals from the judgment terminating her parental rights over her son, J.R. She argues the court erred by determining the parental benefit exception (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 366.26, subd. (c)(1)(B)(i)) did not apply. We affirm.
A. Detention, Jurisdiction, and Disposition
In August 2015, the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) filed a dependency petition for newborn J.R., alleging he was at substantial risk of harm within the meaning of section 300, subdivision (b). The petition alleged J.R. had tested positive for opiates and methamphetamine at birth and was being treated for withdrawal. The petition also alleged mother and father suffered from unresolved substance abuse and mental health issues.

Appellant Isaac R. was the subject of eight successive Welfare and Institutions Code section 602 petitions. The first was filed in July 2012; the last in September 2015. Eventually, on June 17, 2016, the juvenile court committed Isaac to the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). Isaac contends the juvenile court abused its discretion in committing him to DJJ. We disagree and affirm the disposition order.

Gregory P. Priamos, County Counsel, James E. Brown, Guy B. Pittman, and Carole Nunes Fong, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Appellant R.C. (father) appeals from the juvenile court’s order terminating parental rights as to his daughter, A.C. (the child). He claims that the court denied him visitation without making a finding that visits were detrimental to the child, and that “such an error resulted in the termination of parental rights.” Appellant S.H. (mother) filed a separate brief joining in father’s argument and claiming that, should we reverse the termination of father’s parental rights, the order terminating her parental rights should be reversed as well. We affirm.

Plaintiff Dominique Forrester was injured while snowboarding at defendant ski resort Sierra-at-Tahoe (Sierra) on March 7, 2010. He claimed he was hit by a toboggan, that in turn was being towed by a snowmobile, while on a beginner slope. The trial court found assumption of the risk applied to the claim, and the case went to the jury to answer the question of whether Sierra unreasonably increased the risk to Forrester above that already inherent in the sport of snowboarding. By a vote of 10 to 2, the jury answered “no.”

Steve Choi is a fire engineer with the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (Fire Department). In 2014, he took an examination for promotion to the fire captain rank. He passed all portions of the examination except for a 45-minute timed written exercise. Based on this failing grade, the City of San Diego's Personnel Department (Personnel Department) did not place Choi on the fire captain promotion list.
Choi then requested the Personnel Department to provide him with certain examination materials, including two documents relevant to this appeal: (1) a document reflecting the graders' raw evaluation of his written exercise (individualized-evaluation document); and (2) a document reflecting the objective criteria used by the graders to score the examinations (grading-criteria document). The Personnel Department denied this request.

In this marital dissolution proceeding, Catherine Youssefyeh (wife) appeals from an order imposing monetary sanctions against her after she unilaterally withdrew more than $7.1 million from the parties’ joint bank accounts. Wife contends she did not receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before the trial court imposed the sanctions. In the alternative, she contends that her actions did not frustrate the promotion of settlement or reduction of the parties’ litigation costs. We affirm.

Hamid Yazdanbakhesh was convicted following a jury trial of three counts: residential burglary (Pen. Code, § 459), assault with caustic chemicals (§ 244), and assault with a deadly weapon (§ 245, subd. (a)(1)). The jury also found true the allegation that a person was present during the commission of the burglary. (§ 667.5, subd. (c)(21).) He was sentenced to a term of seven years and now appeals from the judgment of conviction. We affirm.

After a bench trial, the court convicted Alexander Scott Walquist of failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements based on his failure to notify law enforcement of his new residence address. (Pen. Code, §§ 290.013, 290.018, subd. (b).) It found that Walquist had suffered a prison prior under section 667.5, subdivision (b) and a strike prior under section 667, subdivisions (b) through (i). The court sentenced Walquist to five years in prison, which it calculated as follows: the middle term of two years for the current offense, doubled under section 667, subdivision (e)(1) for Walquist's strike prior, plus one year for his prison prior.

Defendant and appellant John Brian Swain appeals from the trial court’s February 25, 2016, judgment finding him to be incompetent to stand trial (Pen. Code, §§ 1368, 1369. ) We conclude that defendant’s appeal is moot, because he has subsequently been found mentally competent to stand trial, and we accordingly dismiss the appeal.

Defendant and appellant, Steven Seeden, pled no contest to two counts of assault by means likely to cause great bodily injury. (Pen. Code, § 245, subd. (a)(4); counts 5-6.) Pursuant to the plea agreement, the court placed defendant on three years’ probation with a suspended sentence of four years’ incarceration. On March 1, 2017, a petition to revoke defendant’s probation was filed. After a contested hearing, the court found defendant in violation of the terms of his probation, revoked his probation, and sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment.

In the underlying action, appellant was convicted of second degree robbery. After his court-appointed counsel filed an opening brief raising no issues, appellant submitted supplemental briefs. Following our independent examina-tion of the entire record pursuant to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436 (Wende), we conclude that no arguable issues exist. Accordingly, we affirm.

Defendants Lisa Marie Pounds and Suzan May Pounds, daughter and mother, stole nearly half a million dollars worth of gold coins and other property from the home of the victims, a husband and wife, taking advantage of wife’s hospitalization and husband’s subsequent death. Defendants were convicted by jury of one count of first degree burglary (Count 1), two counts of second degree burglary (Counts 2 and 5), one count of theft from an elder adult (Count 3), and one count of grand theft (Count 6). With respect to Count 3, the jury found the theft involved a taking of more than $100,000. The jury also found defendants committed two or more related felonies, a material element of which was fraud or embezzlement, and this related felony conduct involved the taking of more than $150,000.