CA Unpub Decisions

On January 16, 2020, the Department filed a section 300 petition on behalf of (then) eight-year-old C.G. (born September 2011). The petition alleged, under section 300, subdivisions (a), (b)(1), and (c), that father’s domestic violence issues and use of aerosol inhalants placed the minor at substantial risk of serious physical and emotional harm. Because the evidence supporting the allegations against father is not relevant to this writ proceeding, we omit the details of his transgressions. There were no factual allegations relating to mother, whom the Department had not yet located. The minor was detained and placed with the paternal grandparents (grandparents). The minor had a close bond with the grandparents; they were his primary caretakers while father was incarcerated.
Mother was located living in Oregon; she appeared prior to the jurisdiction hearing. She and father had been litigating the minor’s custody since January 2015.

Defendant pled guilty to three counts of robbery, each with a section 12022.53, subdivision (c) enhancement for discharging a firearm, and to one count of voluntary manslaughter, and was sentenced to a 42-year four-month state prison term.
There was no stipulated term as part of the plea agreement. At sentencing, the trial court rejected defendant’s argument for a mitigated term for the principal robbery conviction, instead imposing an aggravated five-year term on one of the robbery counts as part of the 42-year four-month total term.
In defendant’s first appeal, we remanded to allow the trial court to determine whether to exercise its discretion to strike the firearm enhancements pursuant to the then newly enacted Senate Bill No. 620, and otherwise affirmed. On remand, the trial court struck the firearm enhancements as to two of the robbery counts, for a total term of 29 years.

A group of robbers, including defendants Tesfazghi and Trejo, attempted to rob the home of a family where marijuana was grown. During the attempt, one of the victims of the robbery shot and killed one of the robbers. At trial, numerous witnesses testified including several members of the victim family and several of the robbers.
The Victims’ Testimony
The mother of the victim family testified that she was serving lunch to her children, when she heard a car drive quickly up their driveway. Looking out the window, she saw four people get out of the car, wearing masks. One drew a gun.
She told her adult son (the shooter) that masked men with guns were coming. The shooter told her to take the younger daughter to the bedroom. The mother did, and from the bedroom she heard gunshots.
The shooter testified that he heard someone drive into the driveway very fast. His mother then told him armed, masked men were outside.

In July 2020, the mother, Rebecca V. (Mother), tested positive for amphetamines and marijuana when she gave birth to K.V. K.V. also tested positive for these substances. At that time, Father was incarcerated. N.V. was nine months old and in Mother’s care.
DCFS took the children into protective custody and placed N.V. with a maternal aunt. K.V. remained in the hospital for approximately seven weeks after her birth, and was then placed with the maternal aunt. The children remained in that placement throughout the dependency proceeding.
On July 28, 2020, DCFS filed a juvenile dependency petition concerning the children. Under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivisions (b) and (j), DCFS alleged that Mother and Father have an extensive substance abuse history that renders them incapable of providing for the children, and Father has a criminal history that includes convictions for drug related offenses.

In May 2021, appellant was charged with, inter alia, one count of dissuading a witness by force or threat (§ 136.1, subd. (c)(1)) (count two). In July 2021, appellant pled no contest to count two, pursuant to a plea deal under which he agreed to be placed on probation for three years. In August 2021, the court dismissed all other counts, suspended imposition of sentence on count two, and placed appellant on three years’ probation. Appellant timely appealed.

In January 2021, about a week after V.M. was born, DCFS filed a dependency petition alleging mother had a history of substance abuse, is a current abuser of substances, and tested positive for amphetamine on the day she gave birth to V.M. Also in January 2021, V.M. was detained from mother’s custody and placed with maternal great-aunt.
In March 2021, the juvenile court sustained the dependency petition. At the disposition hearing held in April 2021, the court removed V.M. from mother’s custody and denied mother’s request for reunification services. Maternal great-aunt attended the disposition hearing by phone. V.M. remained placed with her maternal great-aunt.
In August 2021, the court held a permanency planning hearing. By that time, maternal great-aunt was committed to adopting V.M. The court found V.M. was adoptable and terminated mother’s parental rights. The identity of V.M.’s father was never confirmed before the court terminated mother’s parental rights.

We grant defendant’s request for judicial notice of portions of the file pertaining to his 1995 conviction.
In 1995, defendant was charged with one count of committing a lewd act upon a child under the age of 14 in violation of Penal Code section 288, subdivision (a). According to the probation report, defendant’s nine-year-old stepdaughter told her mother defendant had touched her inappropriately on numerous occasions, the first time when she was just seven. Her mother, who had two younger sons with defendant, called the police.
At a hearing on July 12, 1995, defendant was represented by deputy public defender Bruce Schweiger and assisted by a Spanish language interpreter.

Mother has an extensive dependency history for issues arising out of substance abuse and child neglect. Because the sole issue on appeal relates to ICWA compliance, we omit a summary of the facts leading to the court’s jurisdiction over her children, Mateo G. (born July 2017) and Dominic B. (born Aug. 2018).
In a May 2021 detention report, DCFS reported that mother had denied having any Indian heritage. Both children were placed in the home of Mateo’s paternal grandparents, Maria G. and Audie G. On May 26 and 27, 2019, mother and Mateo’s father, Adam G., filed separate Parental Notification of Indian Status (ICWA-020) forms in which they indicated that they did not have any known Indian ancestry.
Present at the detention hearing were mother, maternal grandmother, Tina W., Adam G., and Maria G. Dominic’s alleged father, Jose N., did not appear at the detention hearing. The court did not ask anyone present at the hearing whether Mateo or Dominic were Indian children.

The instant dependency proceedings began in 2018 when the juvenile court took jurisdiction over Ar.P. and his brother, Father’s now-adult son A.P., based on “Father’s history of volatile and aggressive conduct and because Father threatened to harm A.P. with a baseball bat.” The baseball bat incident resulted in a criminal restraining order against Father and a conviction for “threaten[ing] to use force on a person ([c]hild [a]buse).”
“[T]he petition also alleged that the children did not want to visit” Father, who lived separately from the mother. The children continued to refuse contact with Father during the first approximately two years of the dependency proceedings. Their therapist also reported they were not ready to begin such visits.
Father participated and made progress in services during this time, but also violated the criminal protective order in September 2019, resulting in a misdemeanor conviction.

Mother Karla E. appeals from the juvenile court’s March 12, 2021, dispositional orders removing her three children, A.L., David S. Jr. (David), and D.S. from her custody, due, in part, to Mother’s substance abuse. Mother argues there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate a substantial risk of injury to the children, especially in light of the fact that between February 2021 and the dispositional hearing the following month, she was able to care for a newborn son, Da., without incident. Neither A.L.’s father, Clifton L., or David and D.S.’s father, David S. Sr. (David Sr.), is a party to this appeal.
We conclude the juvenile court did not err in removing the children from Mother’s custody. The record demonstrates Mother’s longstanding and continuing use of methamphetamines. In 2014, she tested positive for methamphetamines at A.L.’s birth. She tested positive for methamphetamines again in 2017 at David’s birth.

At around 9:00 p.m. on September 15, 1980, the victim, Barry Cohen, and his co-worker, David McDonald, left the automobile dealership at which they worked and drove in Cohen’s 1973 Firebird to a nearby gas station. McDonald was the passenger. Cohen spoke with the manager of the gas station about buying marijuana. The manager headed in the direction of “the projects” and returned with Davis. Cohen went over to Davis and the manager, obtained marijuana from the manager, and walked back to the car, with Davis following closely behind. Cohen got back in the Firebird and stowed the marijuana in the glove compartment.
Davis approached Cohen at the driver’s side window and told him he could get Cohen any drugs he wanted, including a “Sherman joint,” which was a PCP cigarette. Cohen asked what it would cost him to buy a Sherman joint, and Davis replied that it would cost $20 for a whole stick.

In September 2018, the mother and her boyfriend brought the boyfriend’s 19-month-old daughter to the ER with first degree burns on her legs and buttocks. The daughter had been in the mother’s care. The doctors who examined the child believed the injuries were inconsistent with the mother’s story or with an accident. It looked as though the child had been dipped in hot water.
The mother, boyfriend, and Department agreed to a safety plan. After the mother and boyfriend failed to comply with the plan, the Department detained D.T., the mother’s then three-year-old daughter, from the mother. The Department filed a petition alleging D.T. was at risk in the mother’s care based on several injuries the boyfriend’s daughter suffered while in the mother’s care.
In November 2019, the juvenile court ordered D.T. detained from her mother. The mother had monitored visits with D.T. that went well.

In 2015, a jury convicted Adams of one count of second degree murder (§§ 187, subd. (a), 189), and found true an allegation that he committed the offense for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a criminal street gang. (§ 186.22, subd. (b)(4).) The jury found not true an allegation that a principal intentionally discharged a firearm, proximately causing death. (§ 12022.53, subds. (d) & (e)(1).)
The following account of the facts of the case is derived from our opinion in Adams’s direct appeal. (People v. Adams et al. (Aug. 8, 2017, B269551) [nonpub. opn.].) Adams and his codefendant, Nicholas Hempstead, were both members of Trey-57, a street gang affiliated with the Crips. The victim, Deon Davis, was a member of the PDL gang, which was affiliated with the Bloods and an enemy of Trey-57. Lisa Caesar, an associate of the Trey-57s, told Adams and his friends that Davis had forced Caesar’s niece to take crystal meth and work as a street prostitute.

In the operative complaint, Diaz alleges Underwood acquired possession of “vicious dogs from the [City], through the [City’s] adoption program on a date prior to the incident that is the subject matter of this action.” “Underwood was known by [the City] to be a homeless person, who resided on the [City’s] public property where he kept the vicious dogs he owned and possessed, following the adoption.”
In 2018, Diaz was “mauled by dangerous dogs kept unrestrained on [City] property by . . . Underwood.” “[E]mployees of the [City] failed to remove the dangerous dogs which they had observed were tethered on City property in violation of Los Angeles Municipal Code, Sections 53.70(A), and 53.70(D),[ ] knowing that the dogs created a dangerous condition on [City] property.”