CA Unpub Decisions

Nineteen-year-old gang member Freddy Moreno shot into a crowd at a party, wounding three people. A jury convicted him of three counts of attempted premeditated murder as charged (Pen. Code, §§ 187, 664) and one count of attempted voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of attempted murder (§§ 192, 664). It found firearm use and gang enhancements to be true. (§§ 186.22, subd. (b); 12022.5; 12022.53, subds. (b)–(d).) After Moreno admitted he had suffered a strike for a prior juvenile robbery adjudication when he was 16 years old, the trial court sentenced him to 165 years to life. Had the trial court stricken the prior juvenile adjudication as Moreno requested pursuant to People v. Superior Court (Romero) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497 (Romero), he theoretically would have been sentenced to 120 years to life.

Fernando Ortiz appeals from a judgment entered after a jury found him guilty of murdering Anthony Carlos. Ortiz contends the trial court improperly refused to allow him to retake the stand. He also contends the trial court erred in excluding certain evidence and in its jury instructions. Because we find no error, we affirm.

Plaintiff and appellant Quentin Villanueva appeals from a judgment denying his petition for peremptory writ of mandate following an administrative appeal where Villanueva challenged misconduct findings against him by respondents City of Los Angeles and Charles Beck. On appeal, Villanueva contends he committed no misconduct when he detained Leonard Pittman, because (1) he had a reasonable suspicion that Pittman was absconding from parole; (2) Pittman was on probation with search conditions; and (3) Pittman presented a sufficient threat of danger and fleeing the scene. We conclude substantial evidence supports the determination that Villanueva did not have an objectively reasonable belief that Pittman was on parole or probation when he detained Pittman. The bare fact that Pittman was on probation with search conditions, without evidence of the conditions, did not mean he was subject to a suspicionless detention. Although waived, there was no evidence that Pittman posed a threat of da

Defendant and appellant City of Glendale appeals from a postjudgment order awarding attorney fees to petitioner and respondent Glendale Coalition for Better Government. This appellate court reversed and remanded the judgment in Glendale Coalition for Better Government v. City of Glendale (Dec. 27, 2018, B281994 [nonpub. opn.]) for further proceedings. “With the judgment vacated, incidental matters, proceedings, or claims based on the judgment are likewise nullified.” (9 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (5th ed. 2008) Appeal, § 869, p. 929.) An award of costs, including attorney fees authorized by statute or contract, necessarily falls with the judgment. (Harris v. Wachovia Mortgage, FSB (2010) 185 Cal.App.4th 1018, 1027.) The disposition reversing the judgment also reversed the postjudgment order governing attorney fees. Therefore, the City’s appeal from the post-judgment order must be reversed. (See Evans v. Southern Pacific Transportation Co. (1989) 213 Cal.App.3d 1378, 1388 [re

Defendant and appellant City of Glendale appeals from a postjudgment order awarding attorney fees to petitioners and respondents Juan Saavedra and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, AFL-CIO (collectively the Union). This appellate court reversed and remanded the judgment in Saavedra v. City of Glendale (Dec. 27, 2018, B281991 [nonpub. opn.]) for further proceedings. “With the judgment vacated, incidental matters, proceedings, or claims based on the judgment are likewise nullified.” (9 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (5th ed. 2008) Appeal, § 869, p. 929.) An award of costs, including attorney fees authorized by statute or contract, necessarily falls with the judgment. (Harris v. Wachovia Mortgage, FSB (2010) 185 Cal.App.4th 1018, 1027.) The disposition reversing the judgment also reversed the postjudgment order governing attorney fees. Therefore, the City’s appeal from the postjudgment order must be reversed. (See Evans v. Southern Pacific Transportation

At page 9, line 6, add a new sentence where the paragraph currently ends, as follows: “That evidence included the fact that the weapon was found in the defendant’s bedroom under his pillow, while the drugs were located in the garage, about 15 feet away.”
At page 9, lines 10 and 11, delete the last sentence, which begins with “Indeed,” and ends with “by the evidence” and add the following: “And unlike Williams, where the firearm and drugs were found in separate locations of defendant’s house, the evidence here paints a different picture.
“First, the motel room was registered to one of the other persons found inside the room, and that person testified he invited Campbell to join him. It is therefore reasonable to infer that Campbell travelled to the motel. Next, the firearm and drugs were found together inside Campbell’s backpack. As a result, it is reasonable to infer that he travelled to the motel with the backpack, and did so while in possession of both

Srujanta Tangeda (Wife) appeals from an order granting a new trial to Raghavendra Laxmikanth (Husband) in this dissolution action involving division of property and breaches of fiduciary duty. For the reasons explained here, we conclude Husband has met his burden on appeal of showing a statutory basis for a new trial. We will therefore affirm the order.

On September 29, 2016, a felony complaint charged defendant and appellant Mark Anthony Gardner with unlawful driving or taking a vehicle under Vehicle Code section 10851, subdivision (a) (count 1). The complaint also alleged that defendant had suffered a prior conviction for vehicle theft under Penal Code section 665.5, and six prison priors under Penal Code section 667.5, subdivision (b).
On January 30, 2017, defendant pled no contest to count 1, unlawful driving or taking a vehicle, and admitted that he had suffered a prior conviction for vehicle theft. In exchange, the parties agreed that the prison priors would be dismissed. The parties also agreed to the following sentence: four years in county prison under Penal Code section 1170h, subdivision (5)(b), with two years suspended and placed on mandatory supervision for two years. On the same day, the trial court sentenced defendant according to the terms of the plea agreement.

A jury found defendant Abel Josue Salome guilty of first degree murder committed while a principal was armed with a firearm. The court sentenced defendant to a determinate term of one year for the firearm enhancement and a consecutive indeterminate term of 25 years to life for the murder.
On appeal, defendant contends the court erred in denying his motion to exclude statements he made during a July 9, 2016 custodial interview, claiming that he did not make a voluntary and knowing waiver of his Miranda rights, and that the prolonged interrogation and tone of the questioning in any event rendered any incriminating statements made during the interview coercive and thus, inadmissible.

In a proceeding under Welfare and Institutions Code section 602, the juvenile court sustained a petition that then 17-year-old Isaiah S. (the minor) committed a lewd and lascivious act on B.D., a person under the age of 14 (Pen. Code, § 288, subd. (a)), and ordered the minor committed to the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) for a maximum of eight years, not to exceed the statutory limitation for such commitment to age 21. On appeal, the minor contends the commitment to the DJJ was an abuse of discretion and, if the disposition is reversed, then he is no longer required to register as a sex offender. Finding no abuse of discretion, we affirm.

Appellant Anthony G. (Father) appeals the jurisdictional and dispositional orders of the juvenile court as they pertain to him. The court asserted jurisdiction over his daughter, Bella G., under Welfare and Institutions Code section 300, subdivision (b), due to drug use by the child’s mother, but also found jurisdiction based on Father’s criminal history and current incarceration. In its dispositional order, the court, among other things, imposed a drug testing requirement on Father and limited his contact with Bella to monitored visitation. We conclude the court improperly found that assertion of jurisdiction was warranted, as the facts alleged and found true by the court established nothing more than that Father had a 13-year old drug conviction and was currently incarcerated. Accordingly, we reverse the portion of the jurisdictional and dispositional order pertinent to Father.

In this dependency case (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 300 et seq.), Nelly R. (Mother) challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the jurisdiction finding against her. We conclude the evidence presented at the adjudication hearing was insufficient to support jurisdiction and therefore reverse the finding as well as the disposition order.

Plaintiff and appellant St. John’s Emergency Physicians, Inc. (medical group) appeals from a judgment confirming an arbitration award in favor of defendant and respondent RevCycle+, Inc. (RevCycle), the medical group’s billing company. The medical group challenges only the court’s decision to compel arbitration of the dispute pursuant to the arbitration provision in the parties’ medical billing services contract.

To obtain a reversal of a judgment, an appellant must affirmatively establish both error by the trial court and prejudice from that error. And to facilitate appellate review of rulings made in the trial court, an appellant must provide the courts of appeal with a record containing all material relevant to the orders or judgment challenged in the appeal.
Here, defendants and appellants Jeffrey M. and Taryn N. Hildreth (the Hildreths) challenge a judgment rendered in favor of the City of Sierra Madre (the City) after a 27-day bench trial. The Hildreths, however, failed to provide this court with a transcript of the trial or an appropriate substitute. The Hildreths claim the issues they present are issues of law that do not require us to consider any of the evidence presented at trial.