CA Unpub Decisions

Defendant Arturo Aguirre appeals the trial court’s order that revoked his parole, arguing that there was insufficient evidence he willfully violated parole by failing to report to his parole agent. We reverse, concluding the court abused its discretion by revoking defendant’s parole.

Appellant A.S. was placed at home on probation after the juvenile court sustained a petition under Welfare and Institutions Code section 602, subdivision (a), alleging that appellant committed the felony offense of battery with serious bodily injury (Pen. Code, § 243, subd. (d)). Appellant appealed the dispositional order, which we affirmed. (In re A.S. (Sept. 20, 2018, B287306) [nonpub. opn.].)
Following a victim restitution hearing, the juvenile court determined that $23,345 was owed to the victim, R.G., for injuries sustained because of the battery. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal.
We appointed counsel to represent appellant. After an examination of the record, counsel filed an opening brief requesting that the court make an independent review under People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436. (See In re Kevin S. (2003) 113 Cal.App.4th 97, 99 [Wende procedure applies in juvenile delinquency appeals].)

These parties have a history of suing each other. (E.g., Hart v. Darwish (2017) 12 Cal.App.5th 218.) Barbara Darwish and others sued attorney Dennis P. Riley and others on December 28, 2017. This case was assigned to a Superior Court judge new to the parties and their earlier suits.
On February 13, 2018, the trial court heard defendant Riley’s ex parte application. The plaintiffs represented themselves. Barbara Darwish said her lawyer had “died unexpectedly” and “it’s very upsetting for everybody concerned.” The court told moving party Riley “I’m not seeing irreparable harm here” and that it could hear the matter on ordinary notice the following month. Riley said he understood and was “fine with the date the court has set . . . .”

A law firm sued its former client for unpaid attorney fees, and the client countersued for malpractice. Both sets of claims went to arbitration and neither party prevailed on its claims. After the client successfully moved to have the arbitrator’s ruling confirmed, he sought over $15,000 in costs. The trial court awarded him $60. The client now appeals the trial court’s order compelling arbitration as well as its ruling on costs. We conclude that we lack jurisdiction over the former, and that the client has failed to establish error as to the latter. Accordingly, we affirm.

Jonathon Burdett High was convicted of transporting and possessing for sale, 66 grams of cocaine in his car in 1997. (Health & Saf. Code, §§ 11352, 11351.5.) We previously concluded he is not entitled to resentencing on the conviction for transporting cocaine under Proposition 36, the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2012. (People v. High (Aug. 26, 2014, B253668) [nonpub. opn.]; Pen. Code, §§ 667 and 1170.12.) The record supported the trial court’s finding that resentencing would pose an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety.

After a woman died from complications from the insertion of a gastric lap band, her two daughters sued the medical practitioners who inserted the device as well as the device’s potential manufacturers. The case against the practitioners proceeded to contractual arbitration, while the case against one of the manufacturers remained in court. The trial court subsequently dismissed the case against that manufacturer due to the daughters’ failure to bring it to trial within five years. The daughters appeal. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion or otherwise err in dismissing the case, and accordingly affirm.

Wayne Allen Romans appeals a judgment following conviction of assault with a deadly weapon, vandalism, and misdemeanor battery. (Pen. Code, §§ 245, subd. (a)(1), 594, subd. (b)(1), 242).) We affirm.

A jury found Andy Mena guilty of felony resisting an executive officer (Pen. Code, § 69, count 1) and misdemeanor vandalism (§ 594, subd. (b)(2)(A), count 2). The trial court found Mena to be in violation of probation on a prior case and sentenced him to three years in prison on that case. In the instant case, the trial court sentenced Mena to a consecutive term of eight months on count 1 and a concurrent term of 180 days on count 2. We affirm.

Defendant Laura Shipley appeals from a judgment of conviction for second degree robbery. She challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, argues that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of prior crimes, and claims the trial court abused its discretion in denying her motion to strike a prior conviction under People v. Superior Court (Romero) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497 (Romero). Defendant demonstrates no error under the appropriate standards of review. We affirm the judgment. Upon remand, the trial court shall exercise its newly-obtained discretion to strike or dismiss a prior serious felony conviction for sentencing purposes.

This case arose out of an early morning confrontation at a convenience store. A jury convicted defendant John Thomas Pulskamp of the attempted voluntary manslaughter of one of the store’s customers, Raul Rubio (Pen. Code, §§ 192, subd. (a), 664), as a lesser offense of attempted murder and found true the allegation Pulskamp personally used a deadly and dangerous weapon, a truck, in the commission of the crime (id., § 12022, subd. (b)(1)). The jury also convicted him of assault with a deadly weapon on the store clerk (id., § 245, subd. (a)(1)), vandalism of the store causing over $400 in damage (id., § 594, subd. (a)), and misdemeanor evading a peace officer (Veh. Code, § 2800.1, subd. (a)). Pulskamp pleaded no contest to an additional charge of vandalism over $400 based on damage he caused to Rubio’s car.

A decade ago respondent and cross-appellant Martha Vincent leased her luxury home in Westlake Village to appellants and cross-respondents Dawn Christie and Johnny Pequignot. Sixteen months later Vincent evicted Christie and Pequignot for failure to pay rent. The ensuing years have been consumed by litigation over the value of personal property that remained on the premises, claimed to be worth in excess of $4 million. The matter before us is the second appeal. It comes to us following a 29-day court trial. The parties contest the attorney fees and costs awarded to both sides which, in the aggregate, exceed $1 million. The current litigation began when Christie, Pequignot and their production company, Togetherness Productions, LLC (Togetherness), sued Vincent, her husband, Billy Ridge, and Billie Jackson dba Sequels (Jackson) for damages based on the alleged conversion of personal property left on the premises. Vincent and Ridge cross-complained.

Appellant Rosario Mariana Duran-Ortiz (Duran-Ortiz) was convicted of two felony counts of driving under the influence of alcohol with three prior DUIs, one felony count of driving with a blood-alcohol content of .08 percent or higher with three prior DUIs, five misdemeanors for driving with a suspended license, and one infraction for driving with a blood alcohol content of .01 percent or higher while on DUI probation—all arising from drunk driving arrests in 2015 and 2016. After finding eleven sentencing enhancements to be true, the court sentenced Duran-Ortiz to six years in jail, followed by one year and eight months of mandatory supervision.

At an October 2014 resentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced Andrew Lawrence Moffett to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP) plus 23 years, for crimes Moffett committed when he was almost 18 years old. Moffett appealed. In 2016, we directed the court to modify the sentencing minute order and abstract of judgment, but otherwise affirmed. The California Supreme Court granted review, then transferred the case to this court to determine whether the matter is moot in light of Senate Bill No. 394 (2017–2018 Reg. Sess) (Pen. Code, § 3051, subd. (b)(4)).


We conclude Senate Bill No. 394 moots Moffett’s challenge to his LWOP sentence, but that he is entitled to a juvenile transfer hearing, at which the court must exercise its discretion under section 12022.53, subdivision (h). Accordingly, we conditionally reverse and remand for the court to hold a transfer hearing and to resentence Moffett.

Defendant Kenneth Hunter Wilder was convicted by a jury of one felony count of attempted possession of child pornography (Pen. Code, §§ 664, 311.11, subd. (a)), one felony count of attempted use of a minor for sex acts (§§ 664, 311.4. subd. (c)) and one misdemeanor count of annoying or molesting of a child (§ 647.6). The trial court suspended imposition of sentence and placed Wilder on formal probation for three years.