In re Nyesha M
Filed 3/23/06 In re Nyesha M. CA2/8
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 977(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 977(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 977.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION EIGHT
| In re NYESHA M., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. | B181240 (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. NJ19318) |
| THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. NYESHA M., Defendant and Appellant. |
Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Gibson Lee, Judge. Affirmed.
Gerald Peters, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Herbert S. Tetef and Noah P. Hill, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
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Nyesha M. appeals from the juvenile court's order imposing a maximum period of physical confinement after it sustained a Welfare and Institutions Code section 602 petition against her. We affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
In August 2004, then 15-year-old appellant Nyesha M. hit a woman in the back of the head or neck with a baseball bat. To everyone's good fortune, the woman suffered no serious or lasting injuries. Following the attack, the People filed a petition under Welfare and Institutions Code section 602 against appellant, alleging she committed assault with a deadly weapon by means likely to produce great bodily injury. The juvenile court sustained the petition and declared appellant a ward of the court. The court placed appellant home on probation with her mother, and ordered her period of physical confinement was not to exceed four years. This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
Under Welfare and Institutions Code section 726, subdivision (c), the juvenile court must set a juvenile offender's maximum term of physical confinement. That subdivision provides that the maximum term shall be the longest sentence which could be imposed on an adult for the offense.[1] (In re Carlos E. (2005) 127 Cal.App.4th 1529, 1538.) The maximum term for assault with a deadly weapon by means likely to produce great bodily injury is four years. (Pen. Code, § 245, subd. (a)(1).) Accordingly, the juvenile court ordered appellant's physical confinement could not exceed four years.
When the court placed appellant at home on probation, a then recent amendment to Welfare and Institutions Code section 731 gave the juvenile court discretion to impose a maximum period of physical confinement to the California Youth Authority which was less than the adult maximum for the offense. (See, e.g., In re Carlos E., supra, 127 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1538-1539.) Appellant contends the court erred here because it did not exercise what appellant asserts was its discretion under section 731 to set her maximum term as less than four years. Her contention is unavailing, however, because section 731's grant of discretion applies only to confinement with the Youth Authority. We so hold based on the wording of the amendment itself, which states, â€
