P. v. Hernandez
Defendant beat his girlfriend and cohabitant, Suzanna Stuckey, on the afternoon of July 5, 2006. Defendant elbowed Stuckey in the arm (raising a bruise), pushed her against a door, slapped her several times, and hit her in the nose with his closed fist, causing her nose to bleed and to remain cockeyed.
Defendant was charged with one count of corporal injury to a cohabitant, Penal Code section 273.5, subdivision (a). A jury found him guilty after he testified, in the alternative, that (1) he did not beat Stuckey or (2) he did not remember whether he beat her and did not notice if she was bleeding when she left the apartment.
In defendants presentence interview with the probation officer, defendant said Stuckey had a methamphetamine problem and he had kicked her out of his apartment. While not explicitly denying that he beat her, defendant said his trial was not done fairly and that his trial attorney was a dump truck. At the sentencing hearing, the court noted that Stuckey had testified defendant had changed after he had a stroke a few years before. The court found that this was a mitigating factor in terms of sentence, but was not sufficient to make probation appropriate. The court was concerned that defendants continued denial of responsibility for the incident, together with the fact that he had a prior prison term and the present crime was serious, made defendant an inappropriate candidate for probation. The court therefore denied probation and sentenced defendant to the lower term of two years in prison. Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal.
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