CA Unpub Decisions

After a jury trial, appellant Tays Eaglet Salazar (Salazar) was found guilty of second degree robbery based on the February 2016 robbery of a store clerk. Salazar does not challenge his conviction on appeal. Rather, he contends only that the trial court erred at sentencing in failing to consider numerous mitigating factors before imposing the upper term of five years for his crime. We conclude Salazar has forfeited his claim of error by failing to object on this basis in the trial court. We additionally reject Salazar’s related ineffective assistance of counsel claim and therefore affirm.

Zavier Pigues appeals the judgment of conviction entered after a jury found him guilty of the second degree murder of Brian Beaufort and found true an allegation that he personally and intentionally discharged a firearm causing Beaufort’s death, a finding that resulted in an enhancement of Pigues’s sentence. Pigues contends the trial court erred by conducting an insufficient inquiry at a Marsden hearing and by refusing to give jury instructions on imperfect self-defense and voluntary intoxication. In supplemental briefing, Pigues argues, and the Attorney General concedes, that remand is required to (1) allow the trial court to exercise its discretion as to whether to strike the firearm enhancement in light of an amendment to section 12022.53, and (2) give the parties the opportunity to make a record with information that will be relevant at a future youth offender parole hearing under sections 3051 and 4801. We affirm Pigues’s conviction but...

This is an appeal by the Post Sustainability Institute, Rosa Koire and Michael Shaw (petitioners) from the Alameda County Superior Court’s judgment denying their petition for a writ of mandate and dismissing their complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief. Petitioners challenged the 2013 adoption of “Plan Bay Area,” a statutorily required, long-term sustainable community strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Bay Area that was prepared by respondents Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) (together, respondents). Petitioners claim Plan Bay Area was unlawful in several respects.

S.R., mother of the minors, A.R. and M.S., appeals from the juvenile court’s visitation order. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 362.1.) She contends there was insufficient evidence to support the order for supervised visitation. We affirm the juvenile court’s order.

In this case we consider whether, under the statutory scheme for dissolving and winding down the State of California’s former redevelopment agencies, defendant Department of Finance (Department) abused its discretion in finding plaintiffs City of Petaluma (City) and the successor agency to the City’s former redevelopment agency Petaluma Community Development Commission (Successor Agency) failed to meet the deadline for reentering a cooperative agreement between the City and its former redevelopment agency. The parties agree that agreements reentered on or after June 27, 2012, are unenforceable. The trial court determined the agreement in question was not reentered into until September 18, 2012, and was therefore unenforceable. We shall affirm the judgment.

In March 2012, defendant Luis Manuel Perez entered a guilty plea to possession of a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11377, subd. (a); unless otherwise set forth, statutory section references that follow are to the Health and Safety Code) (case No. CR533383), and sale or transportation of a controlled substance (§ 11379, subd. (a)). He also admitted an on-bail enhancement (Pen. Code, § 12022.1) (case No. CR53495) all in exchange for dismissal of the remaining counts in both cases.

A jury found defendant Jessica Nicole Bradford guilty of the first degree murder of her newborn baby. The trial court sentenced her to an indeterminate term of 25 years to life in prison. The evidence showed that defendant delivered her baby in secret, carried it to a remote location where she hid it, and failed to give it any nourishment. The baby died three days after it was born.
Defendant argues: (1) a juror was improperly dismissed, (2) the jury should not have been instructed on the felony-murder theory of first degree murder, (3) the kidnapping instruction was erroneous, (4) the trial court failed to give a limiting instruction regarding the evidence of defendant’s prior pregnancy, (5) there was insufficient evidence that defendant caused the baby’s death, (6) the trial court should have given a corpus delicti instruction, and (7) cumulative error.

C.H. appeals from the juvenile court’s postjudgment order denying his request to seal records pertaining to Welfare and Institutions Code section 602 petitions that were filed and subsequently dismissed. (§ 786, subd. (e).) We vacate the order and remand.

Jose Belmonte (defendant) appeals from the trial court’s denial of his petition for recall and resentencing pursuant to Proposition 36, the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2012 (Pen. Code, § 1170.126). The trial court determined defendant was ineligible for recall and resentencing because he was armed with a firearm during the commission of the subject offense. (§§ 1170.126 subd. (e)(2), 667, subd. (e)(2)(C)(iii).) We affirm.

Christina M. (mother) appeals from dispositional orders of the juvenile court. Mother contends the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (Department) failed to perform its duties of inquiry and notice under the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq.) (ICWA). The Department concedes and we agree, that it did not conduct sufficient inquiry or provide sufficient notice under ICWA. Accordingly, we conditionally affirm and remand with directions.

Claudia A. (mother) gave birth to two children, Mia, who is now more than three years old, and Scarlett, who died in December 2016 when she was two months old. After Scarlett’s death, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) filed a petition alleging Mia was a child described by Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, charging, in part, that mother and father had caused Scarlett’s death by bed-sharing (also known as co-sleeping) with the child. The juvenile court sustained the allegation. On appeal, mother contends that because there was no evidence that co-sleeping had caused Scarlett’s death, the juvenile court’s true finding as to the section 300, subdivision (f), allegation must be reversed, as must the related subdivision (b) and subdivision (j) allegations. We affirm.

Areknazan Poghosyan filed suit against respondent City of Glendale (City) after she tripped and fell on a City sidewalk, alleging the sidewalk was in a dangerous condition within the meaning of Government Code sections 830, 835, and 835.2. She appeals from the judgment entered after the trial court granted respondent’s summary judgment motion. We affirm.

A jury found Raul Gardea, Jr. (Gardea) guilty of attempted first degree murder, as well as assault with a firearm and possession of a firearm by a felon. On appeal, Gardea contends that he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel and that the trial court committed prejudicial error when it denied his motion for a mistrial and overruled his objections to portions of the prosecutor’s closing argument. We affirm.

Plaintiff and appellant Jamie Higgins, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, initiated a civil action for legal malpractice against defendant and respondent Yolanda Franco, the attorney appointed to represent him in postconviction discovery proceedings ancillary to a petition for writ of habeas corpus (Pen. Code, § 1054.9). The superior court granted respondent’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. Higgins appeals, but failed to provide an adequate record for our review. Accordingly, we affirm.