CA Unpub Decisions

Defendant Tivon Ravi Cain was charged with murder, two counts of attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit robbery, amongst other charges. Defendant pled no contest to conspiracy to commit robbery in exchange for a three-year prison term and the dismissal of the remaining charges. The trial court sentenced defendant to three years in prison and, pursuant to Penal Code section 1202.4, imposed restitution in an amount to be determined.
On appeal, defendant contends the trial court erred by imposing restitution to the victims of the murder and attempted murder because defendant did not enter a waiver pursuant to People v. Harvey (1979) 25 Cal.3d 754. Because the losses for which restitution was imposed were a result of defendant’s admitted offense of conspiracy to commit robbery, we affirm.

Defendant Salvatore Carmelo Maggio was found guilty of committing second degree murder in 2005. In 2019, defendant filed a petition for resentencing under Penal Code section 1170.95 ; the trial court denied defendant’s petition. On appeal, defendant contends the trial court improperly made factual determinations at the prima facie stage. Finding defendant ineligible as a matter of law, we affirm.

In 2001, a jury found defendant Lionel Hanson guilty of second degree attempted murder (Pen. Code, §§ 664/187) and assault with a firearm (§ 245, subd. (a)(2)). The jury also found true the allegation that during the commission of the attempted murder, defendant personally discharged a firearm resulting in great bodily injury to his victim (§ 12022.53, subd. (d)). In an unpublished opinion, we affirmed the conviction and sentence on appeal. (People v. Hanson (Nov. 13, 2003, C039008) [nonpub. opn.].)
In 2020, defendant sought resentencing pursuant to section 1170.95. After appointing counsel, the trial court denied defendant’s petition without issuing an order to show cause. The trial court found defendant failed to state a prima facie case because section 1170.95 did not apply to convictions for attempted murder.

This appeal involves an attorney-client relationship that broke down over a decade ago. In late 2011, Bin Yang hired attorney Steven L. Simas to help her challenge a decision from the Medical Board of California. Yang, who graduated from a medical college in China, had applied for a license to practice medicine in California. But the Medical Board denied her application for three reasons. First, it found Yang failed to prove her medical education was sufficient to support licensure in California. Second, it found Yang had multiple criminal convictions, including a 1995 theft conviction and a 2005 assault conviction. And third, it found Yang had engaged in unprofessional conduct when she held herself out as a medical doctor even though she did not have a medical license.
After Yang hired Simas, Simas filed (on Yang’s behalf) a petition for writ of mandate seeking to vacate the Medical Board’s decision. But shortly after, the parties’ relationship quickly deteriorated.

On February 4, 2003, a jury found defendant Pedro William Baca guilty of first degree murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a); count one), attempted murder (§ 664/187, subd. (a); count two), and assault with a deadly weapon (§ 245, subd. (a)(1); count three). The jury also determined that in the commission of the murder and attempted murder, defendant had committed certain enhancements, including that he had personally “used, and intentionally discharged” a gun proximately causing both the death of the murder victim and the great bodily injury of the attempted murder victim (§ 12022.53, subd. (d)). We affirmed his convictions and judgment on appeal. (People v. Baca (Apr. 7, 2004, C043828) [nonpub. opn.] (Baca).)
This appeal concerns the trial court’s August 31, 2020, denial of defendant’s postjudgment petition for resentencing under section 1170.95, enacted as part of Senate Bill No. 1437 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.) (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015) (Senate Bill 1437).

Defendant Andre Dishaun Durham appeals from an order revoking his parole. His appointed appellate counsel filed a brief pursuant to People v. Serrano (2012) 211 Cal.App.4th 496 (Serrano) and defendant filed no supplemental brief. We dismiss the appeal.

Jose Leon Fuentes (defendant) appeals the trial court’s denial of his motion for relief under Penal Code section 1170.95. Defendant’s attorney filed a brief raising no issues and asked this court to independently review the record. Having conducted our own examination of the record, we are satisfied that no arguable issue exists which would call into question defendant’s ineligibility for resentencing relief under section 1170.95. We accordingly affirm the trial court’s order.

In this petition for extraordinary relief, a mother seeks review of a juvenile court’s order in a dependency case involving her infant son that terminated reunification services and set the case for a permanency planning hearing. Mother argues the juvenile court’s finding that the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (the Department) provided her reasonable reunification services was not supported by substantial evidence. We disagree, deny mother’s petition, and dissolve the stay of the permanency planning hearing.

N. V. (Mother) appeals an order terminating parental rights. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 366.26.) The children’s paternal grandmother (PGM) is adopting them. Mother contends that the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) failed to interview extended family members about their ancestry under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA). (25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.; Welf. & Inst. Code, § 224 et seq.)
Mother, an immigrant from Mexico, denied Indian heritage and never, since 2018, claimed otherwise. Neither DCFS nor the court had reason to believe the children are Indian. Even now, Mother makes no claim that she or any relative is Indian. She has not shown prejudice from DCFS’s failure to interview extended family members. We affirm.

Defendant, Jovanny Gonzalez, a member of the Midtown Criminals, and his fellow gang member shot and killed a rival gang member, Armando Reyes. (People v. Gonzalez (Apr. 10, 2020, B296206) [nonpub. opn.] (Gonzalez) at pp. 3, 6.) In a tape-recorded conversation with an informant, Gonzalez said, “ ‘[W]e smoked him’ ” and confirmed Gonzalez himself was the shooter. (Id. at p. 9.) Gonzalez indicated he did not shoot Reyes’s girlfriend, who was at the scene, because his “ ‘bullets were empty.’ ” (Ibid.)
This is defendant’s second appeal. In the first appeal, we reversed the conviction for the attempted murder of Reyes’s girlfriend. We affirmed Gonzalez’s numerous other convictions, including the conviction for the first degree murder of Reyes. Following remand, the People elected not to retry defendant on the second degree murder charge, and the trial court resentenced defendant.

In this juvenile dependency appeal, S.P. (mother) challenges the juvenile court’s order terminating her parental rights to her 3-year-old son J.C. (son). Mother makes two arguments on appeal. First, she argues the juvenile court erred when it refused to apply the beneficial parental relationship exception to termination of parental rights. We conclude both that the juvenile court did not run afoul of our Supreme Court’s recent decision addressing this exception to the termination of parental rights (In re Caden C. (2021) 11 Cal.5th 614 (Caden C.)) and that substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s decision.
Second, mother argues the order terminating parental rights must be reversed because the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (Department) and the juvenile court failed to satisfy their initial inquiry obligations under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq. (ICWA)) and related California law.

The juvenile court terminated Mother’s parental rights to her daughter, R.W. On appeal, Mother does not contest the merits of the court’s adjudication; instead, her sole contention is that reversal is warranted because substantial evidence does not support the juvenile court’s finding that the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) (25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.) and related California law (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 224 et seq.) do not apply to R.W.
We affirm.

In this juvenile dependency case initiated in 2015, the father challenges, for the first time in this 2021 appeal following the termination of his parental rights, the failure of the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (the Department) to ask extended family members, at the time the case was initiated in 2015 or thereafter, about the family’s possible American Indian heritage after he and the mother repeatedly both denied any such heritage. We conclude that any error was harmless, and affirm the trial court’s order terminating his parental rights.

In this dependency case (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 300 et seq.), Francesca S. (Mother) challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the juvenile court’s jurisdictional finding under section 300, subdivision (b)(1) that her conduct posed a substantial risk of harm to her 12-year-old son, Kyle G.
While this appeal was pending, the juvenile court terminated dependency jurisdiction and awarded Mother sole physical custody of Kyle, together with shared legal custody and only monitored visitation to the father. As explained below, because Mother has not appealed from the custody order terminating jurisdiction, her appeal is moot.
Although Mother claims otherwise, the record does not support our discretionary review of the limited jurisdictional finding raised on this appeal.