Filed 2/17/22 P. v. Chami CA4/3

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION THREE

Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, Michael A. Leversen, Judge. Affirmed.

Michael C. Sampson, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.

* * *

Defendant Talal Chami appeals, pursuant to Penal Code section 1237, subdivision (a), from a judgment of conviction following a jury trial. We appointed counsel to represent him on appeal.

After reviewing the entire record and conducting his analysis of potential appellate issues, appointed counsel informed us in a declaration that he had consulted with a staff attorney at Appellate Defenders, Inc. Counsel then filed a brief pursuant to the procedures set forth in People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436 and Anders v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 738. While not arguing against his client, counsel’s brief set forth the facts of the case and advised us he was unable to find an issue to argue on defendant’s behalf. Chami was given the opportunity to file written argument on his own behalf, but he has not done so.

FACTS

In October of 2017, the Orange County District Attorney filed an information charging Chami with two counts of forcible lewd acts on a child under the age of 14 (Pen. Code,[1] § 288, subd. (b)(1); counts 1 and 2); three counts of forcible oral copulation upon a child 14 years of age or older (§ 288a, subd. (c)(2)(C); counts 3, 4 and 5); one count of sexual penetration of a child over the age of 14 (§ 289, subd. (a)(1)(C); count 6); two counts of sexual penetration upon a child under 10 years of age (§ 288.7, subd. (b); counts 7 and 9); two counts of lewd acts on a child under the age of 14 (§ 288, subd. (a); counts 8 and 10); one count of criminal threats (§ 422, subd. (a); count 11); and two counts of child abuse (§ 273, subd. (a); counts 12 and 13). The information also alleged Chami committed sex offenses against more than one victim (§ 667.61, subd. (c)), and that, as to the section 288, subdivision (a) violations alleged in counts 8 and 10, Chami engaged in substantial sexual conduct (§ 1203.066, subd. (a)(8)).

Chami entered not guilty pleas as to all counts. The People dismissed the child abuse counts before trial. Chami’s jury trial began on March 16, 2021. The jury retired on March 25. When it returned its verdicts on March 30, the jury found Chami not guilty on all counts except count 8 (lewd act on a child under 14) on which it was unable to reach a verdict and count 11 (criminal threats).

On April 15, 2021, after denying Chami’s motion to reduce his felony conviction on count 11 to a misdemeanor pursuant to section 17, subdivision (b), the trial court sentenced him to serve the midterm of two years in state prison on that count. Prior to sentencing, the People had moved to dismiss count 8. Since Chami had spent 1,455 days in custody as of April 15, 2021, the court effectively imposed a credit for time served sentence.

Chami filed a timely notice of appeal on April 22, 2021.

DISCUSSION

This is the rare case in which a jury trial involving many serious charges generated no arguable appellate issues. That is no doubt largely due to the fact that Chami was acquitted at trial of all but two of the counts he faced; and, after the jury hung on count 8, the People moved to dismiss that count as well. That left Chami to deal only with count 11, the criminal threats charge, at sentencing. He has had little to say at trial and on appeal about that count, and for good reason.

Chami’s defense was largely predicated on his own testimony, in which he vigorously denied all of the sexual misconduct that had been alleged against him. The jury apparently accepted and believed his testimony as evidenced by the fact that it acquitted him of all the sexual assault-related charges except for count 8, as to which it was unable to reach a verdict.

That the jury convicted him of making criminal threats to one of his alleged sexual assault victims is completely understandable in light of Chami’s trial testimony. In essence, he admitted threatening the alleged victim in count 11 because he was angry with her for making what he insisted were false accusations against him. Specifically, Chami’s testimony included the following statements.

“I could not take it. I told her I was going to take you to Turkey. I was going to take you to Syria. I was going to kill you. I told her a lot of stuff.”

“I wanted to go to the room and I wanted to beat her up and I wanted to—and I wanted to smack her.”

“A lot of words came out of me. I said I was going to kill you, I was going to slaughter you, I was going to send you to Turkey. I was going to do a lot of things . . . .”

“I was going to beat her up.”

“I wanted to beat her up.”

“I was very angry. I did threaten to kill her and to slaughter her, but I wouldn’t have done that. I would have just beat her up.”

In light of his own testimony, Chami has no legal basis for challenging his conviction on count 11.

In his brief, appellate counsel suggested one possible appellate issue to us: “Did the trial court properly deny appellant’s request to reduce his criminal threats conviction to a misdemeanor under Penal code section 17, subdivision (b)?”

We have reviewed the transcript of the sentencing proceeding. It was during that hearing that Chami asked the trial court to reduce his conviction from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The trial judge explained his thinking on the issue: “As you know, the court heard the trial, heard all the evidence. The court is not inclined to reduce count [11] to a misdemeanor. I don’t think the conduct was misdemeanor conduct. [¶] . . . [¶] I don’t believe it’s appropriate to threaten someone as he threatened his family and daughter, and so the court doesn’t feel that this is a 17(b) case.”

We find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s denial of the motion.

We have examined the entire record in this case; like counsel, we have found no other arguable issue on appeal.

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

GOETHALS, J.

WE CONCUR:

O’LEARY, ACTING P. J.

MOORE, J.

[1] All statutory references are to the Penal Code.