People v. Bascomb

California Court of Appeal·Decided October 16, 2020·No. E073545·Published

Opinion

Filed 10/16/20 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, E073545 v. (Super.Ct.No. FWV028738) GERALDO CROLL BASCOMB II, OPINION Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Elia V. Pirozzi, Judge. Affirmed.

Elisa A. Brandes, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, A. Natasha Cortina and Lynne G. McGinnis, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

In 2000, appellant Geraldo Bascomb and another man committed a home invasion robbery during which the second man shot and killed one of the residents. In 2005, a jury found Bascomb guilty of first degree felony murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and the trial court sentenced him to a prison term of 27 years to life.

In 2018, the Legislature enacted Senate Bill No. 1437 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.) (SB 1437), which, among other things, amended the definition of felony murder so that an accomplice to an underlying felony who was not the actual killer can’t be convicted of felony murder unless they aided in the murder with the intent to kill or were “a major participant in the underlying felony and acted with reckless indifference to human life, as described in subdivision (d) of [Penal Code] section 190.2.” (Pen. Code, § 189, subd. (e).) SB 1437 also added Penal Code section 1170.95, which establishes a procedure for vacating murder convictions predating the amendment that could not be sustained under the new definition of felony murder. (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 4.)

Bascomb challenges the trial judge’s denial of his Penal Code section 1170.95 petition to vacate his murder conviction, arguing there was insufficient evidence he acted with reckless indifference to human life. We conclude the trial judge’s finding is amply supported by the record and therefore affirm the order denying his petition.

I

FACTS

A. The Offense and Conviction We take the facts from the unpublished opinion we issued in 2007, affirming

Bascomb’s convictions in case No. E039784. (People v. Lewis (2020) 43 Cal.App.5th 1128, 1134, 1138, review granted Mar. 18, 2020, S260598 [in determining the sufficiency of a section 1170.95 petition, the court may review the record of conviction, which includes the opinion in a defendant’s direct appeal].)

On the afternoon of January 28, 2000, marijuana salesman James Moser and his girlfriend Hoover were in the bedroom of his apartment getting ready to go shopping. Moser’s roommates Lind and Flores were also in the apartment. Lind was asleep in the bedroom he and Flores shared and Flores was in the living room watching T.V. At about 2:00 p.m., Flores answered a knock at the front door and two men armed with guns, Bascomb and a man called Blue, pushed their way into the apartment. Bascomb and Blue forced Flores to lie face down on the living room floor and Bascomb held a gun on him from a distance of about five or six feet for the next several minutes. Blue entered Moser’s bedroom and, after a brief struggle, shot him. Hoover was in the bathroom during the shooting but was able to observe some of what was going on through the partially opened door. After the shooting, Blue and Bascomb quickly left together. Flores, who thought he was going to be shot and was afraid the entire time, raised his hands and said, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.” Moser died about 30 minutes later as a result of the gunshot wound.

1 We take judicial notice of the appellate record of Bascomb’s criminal trial, case No. E039784. (Evid. Code, § 452, subd. (d).) We refer to appellant as Bascomb and make a few minor clarifying edits, but the facts about the robbery recounted here are identical to the facts recounted in our prior opinion.

Meanwhile, Garcia, one of Moser’s customers, saw Bascomb and another man running away from the apartment complex. As they passed, Bascomb nodded and Garcia recognized him as a member of his high school football team. Garcia checked his Upland High School yearbook, found Bascomb’s picture in a team photograph, and gave the yearbook page to police investigating the scene. Neither Flores nor Hoover was able to identify Bascomb from a photographic line up containing a more current picture.

The day after the killing, Bascomb called his girlfriend Davis and asked her to pick him up in Upland. During the drive from Upland to Moreno Valley, where Davis lived, Bascomb appeared to be upset; he told Davis he had gone with a friend “to jack somebody and it went bad.” Davis understood “jack” to mean “rob.” At various times over the next three years, Bascomb told Davis details of the shooting incident: that he and his friend had gone to the victim’s house to get “weed,” that he stayed in the living room while his colleague went to the bedroom to do the robbery, and that someone he knew from high school recognized him as he was leaving. Bascomb also told Davis that after the incident a person named “Tree” was going to get him some new identification papers. Bascomb received mail in the name of “John Marshall” during the time he lived with Davis.

On July 16, 2003, Bascomb and Davis broke up. After she locked him out of her apartment, Bascomb called police to help him retrieve his clothes. Davis, who knew Bascomb only as “G,” was unsure of his real name. The following day, she contacted Detective Anthony Yoakum of the Upland Police Department and gave him information

about Bascomb’s possible involvement in the crime and how he might be found. Bascomb was arrested in Ontario on August 12, 2003.

Yoakum interviewed Bascomb at the Upland Police Department about three hours after his arrest. During his time at the police station, he was allowed to use the bathroom and was offered water, sodas, and food. After Yoakum read Bascomb his Miranda rights (Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436), Bascomb indicated he was willing to talk. As the two-hour recorded interview got underway, Yoakum told Bascomb that being “honest and upfront about everything right from the beginning [¶] . . . [¶] is the best thing for you,” and “ . . . if you’re not truthful, then that makes you look more like . . . the one that’s got something to hide,” adding, “ . . . the more helpful you are now in getting to the bottom of this, the better it will be for you in the – in the future when all this stuff’s going through.” The detective urged Bascomb to reveal the identity of his accomplice partly by explaining what he would do if he were in Bascomb’s shoes: “[I]f there was anything that I can do to help myself out, I would do that and what that means is I would be telling what I knew . . .” In response Bascomb said, “Now I don’t want to . . . incriminate anyone else but me. . . . I know that if I cooperate a hundred percent, I’m sure I can get less time or something – some – I’m not even sure, but I might be able to or it could help my situation.” To this suggestion, Yoakum answered, “True. Yeah, I’m not sure either, but – [¶] . . . [¶] – that’s just from, you know, from past experience.”

Later, Bascomb explained he considered all his choices bad because if he betrayed his accomplice he would be considered a “rat,” while if he did not, he would “ . . . do someone else’s time and then I’ll be considered a fool. [¶] [¶] Fool, rat; fool – look over your shoulder either way.” To which Yoakum replied, “In jail the rest of my life or – or being out here . . . still having some freedom, still being able to have a girlfriend and have a life, maybe get a job. Still looking over my shoulder, but still being able to see my family, seeing any kids or future kids I might have.” Still later, when Bascomb again refused to divulge information about Blue, saying, “It really might not even help me to give him up . . . ,” Yoakum replied, “I disagree. I think it would help.”

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

People v. Bascomb, (Cal. Ct. App. 2020).

People v. Bascomb (People v. Bascomb) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Miranda v. Arizona
384 U.S. 436 (Supreme Court, 1966)
Enmund v. Florida
458 U.S. 782 (Supreme Court, 1982)
Tison v. Arizona
481 U.S. 137 (Supreme Court, 1987)
People v. Hatch
991 P.2d 165 (California Supreme Court, 2000)
People v. Chun
203 P.3d 425 (California Supreme Court, 2009)
People v. Banks
351 P.3d 330 (California Supreme Court, 2015)
People v. Clark
372 P.3d 811 (California Supreme Court, 2016)
Cal. Building Industry Assn. v. State Water Resources Control Bd.
416 P.3d 53 (California Supreme Court, 2018)
People v. Gregerson
202 Cal. App. 4th 306 (California Court of Appeal, 2011)
In re Tyrone A. Miller On Habeas Corpus
222 Cal. Rptr. 3d 691 (California Court of Appeals, 5th District, 2017)
In re Bennett
237 Cal. Rptr. 3d 610 (California Court of Appeals, 5th District, 2018)
In re Taylor
246 Cal. Rptr. 3d 342 (California Court of Appeals, 5th District, 2019)