People v. Braslaw

233 Cal. App. 4th 1239, 183 Cal. Rptr. 3d 575, 2015 Cal. App. LEXIS 94
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 30, 2015
DocketA138325
StatusPublished
Cited by39 cases

This text of 233 Cal. App. 4th 1239 (People v. Braslaw) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Braslaw, 233 Cal. App. 4th 1239, 183 Cal. Rptr. 3d 575, 2015 Cal. App. LEXIS 94 (Cal. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

Opinion

BANKE, J.

— Defendant Steven M. Braslaw, following a jury trial, was found guilty of raping an intoxicated person (Pen. Code, § 261, subd. (a)(3)). 1 On appeal, he contends the trial court should have given further jury instructions on a defendant’s belief in the victim’s capacity to consent and should have instructed on attempted rape. He also claims his counsel was ineffective in failing to object to alleged prosecutorial misconduct. In the published portion of this decision, we conclude there was no instructional error. In the unpublished portion, we reject the claim of ineffective assistance. We therefore affirm the judgment.

I. Background

Defendant and Jane Doe 2 were classmates at a vocational school in St. Helena. Doe lived in a school dormitory. Defendant lived off campus in a house notorious for wild parties.

In January 2012, Doe and her former roommate, M.H., attended a party at defendant’s house. Doe became “really drunk.” One moment she was hanging out with friends; the next thing she recalled was being unclothed in a shower.

M.H. testified Doe, while playing a drinking game, “hit a wall,” sat down, and stopped talking. M.H.’s boyfriend took Doe upstairs so she could sleep. Doe then vomited, and M.H., the boyfriend, and defendant assisted with cleanup. M.H. and her boyfriend got Doe undressed and into the shower. Doe, according to M.H. was “completely gone”- — just dead weight, not really aware of anything. Defendant was also drunk, but his level of intoxication was not comparable to Doe’s, as defendant was coherent and functional.

*1243 While in the shower, Doe saw M.H. and the boyfriend leave the bathroom, and saw defendant had entered. Defendant, also unclothed, came into the shower and asked if it was “gonna be awkward.” Doe recalled saying “no” and being confused about what defendant intended to do, but thought he might help her bathe. She remembered nothing else in detail about what happened in the shower. Afterwards, M.H. dressed Doe in a sweater, nothing more, and placed her in a spare trundle bed in the boyfriend’s bedroom. Doe had no recollection of being dressed in the sweater or placed in the bed.

M.H. and her boyfriend then retired to his bed. Although the lights in the bedroom were out, M.H. saw defendant enter the bedroom and “collapse” or “flop” (not crawl) onto Doe’s bed. M.H. asked her boyfriend to get a condom. Overhearing, defendant asked, in what M.H. perceived as a joking tone, if he could have one too. The boyfriend got out of bed, asked if Doe and defendant were okay, and returned to bed with a condom. M.H. and her boyfriend began having sex when, “[a] short amount of time” later, M.H. heard Doe scream “no, no, no.” M.H. got up and saw defendant “jump” back, heard him say something like “okay, okay, I’ll stop,” and saw him run out of the room.

Doe had no recollection of anything going on in the bedroom until “looking up” and seeing defendant “on top of me.” He was “moving back and forth,” and she felt his penis inside her vagina. She recalls “crying and just like — he left.”

Doe did not, immediately following the encounter with defendant, discuss being penetrated — for example, penetration did not come up when she subsequently spoke to M.H., or when she phoned her then fiancée, who is now her domestic partner. But the next day, when Doe visited a sexual assault nurse examiner for a sexual assault response team (SART) exam, she told the nurse she had been penetrated. The nurse found evidence of abrasions in Doe’s posterior fourchette that were consistent with a “mounting injury,” but also consistent with Doe having certain types of intercourse with her fiancée. The nurse also noted Doe was experiencing pain from urination.

In September 2012, the district attorney filed an information charging defendant with rape of an intoxicated person (§261, subd. (a)(3)) and attempted rape of an unconscious person (§ 261, subd. (a)(4)). On the district attorney’s motion, the trial court dismissed the attempted rape charge, and the remaining charge went to the jury. Defendant was convicted, and the trial court sentenced him to three years in state prison.

*1244 II. Discussion

Defendant raises three contentions on appeal: (1) the trial court should have instructed the jury a defendant is not guilty of rape of an intoxicated person if he reasonably believed the person had the capacity to consent; (2) the trial court should have instructed the jury on attempted rape of an intoxicated person; (3) and defendant’s counsel should have objected to the prosecutor’s assertion in closing argument that defendant was no longer presumed innocent.

A. Reasonable Belief in Capacity to Consent

The trial court instructed the jury with a version of CALCRIM No. 1002, which sets forth the elements of rape of an intoxicated person.

In reading the instruction, the trial court told the jury such rape has the following elements: (1) defendant had sexual intercourse with a person; (2) defendant and the person were not married; (3) the effects of intoxicants prevented the person from resisting; and (4) “defendant knew or reasonably should have known that the effect of an intoxicating substance prevented [his alleged victim] from resisting.” (See § 261, subd. (a)(3) [“Rape is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a person not the spouse of the perpetrator [¶]... [][] (3) [w]here [the] person is prevented from resisting by any intoxicating or anesthetic substance, or any controlled substance, and this condition was known, or reasonably should have been known by the accused.”].) The court further instructed that an intoxicating substance prevents resistance when it prevents the giving of legal consent — that is, “consent given freely and voluntarily by someone who knows the nature of the act involved.”

Over defendant’s objection, the trial court omitted a bracketed, optional portion of CALCRIM No. 1002, which reads: The defendant is not guilty of this crime if he actually and reasonably believed that the [alleged victim] was capable of consenting to sexual intercourse, even if that belief was wrong. The People have the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not actually and reasonably believe that the [alleged victim] was capable of consenting. If the People have not met this burden, you must find the defendant not guilty. (CALCRIM No. 1002.) The trial court found the evidence insufficient to support instructing the jury on defendant’s reasonable belief in the capacity to consent theory.

We generally review a trial court’s denial of a requested instruction as a matter of law. (People v. Larsen (2012) 205 Cal.App.4th 810, 824 [140 Cal.Rptr.3d 762].)

*1245 The trial court did not err in refusing to give the optional language of the instruction. The key evidence defendant marshals in support of his reasonable belief in the capacity to consent theory does not show a reasonable belief in Doe’s capacity to consent.

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

Related

People v. Garcia CA4/1
California Court of Appeal, 2026
People v. Hampton CA4/1
California Court of Appeal, 2025
People v. Demacedo
California Court of Appeal, 2025
People v. Flores CA2/6
California Court of Appeal, 2025
People v. Nguyen CA4/2
California Court of Appeal, 2025
People v. McKinney CA3
California Court of Appeal, 2025
People v. Prudnikov CA3
California Court of Appeal, 2024
People v. Wyman CA3
California Court of Appeal, 2024
People v. Edwards CA6
California Court of Appeal, 2024
People v. Perez-Robles
California Court of Appeal, 2023
People v. High CA5
California Court of Appeal, 2023
People v. Fonseca CA1/2
California Court of Appeal, 2022
People v. Perez CA4/1
California Court of Appeal, 2022
People v. Paniague CA1/4
California Court of Appeal, 2022
People v. Spence CA2/3
California Court of Appeal, 2021
People v. Chamale CA4/1
California Court of Appeal, 2021
People v. Coleman CA3
California Court of Appeal, 2021
People v. Blackman CA6
California Court of Appeal, 2021
(HC) Oquita v. Diaz
E.D. California, 2019
People v. Fontenot
447 P.3d 252 (California Supreme Court, 2019)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
233 Cal. App. 4th 1239, 183 Cal. Rptr. 3d 575, 2015 Cal. App. LEXIS 94, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-braslaw-calctapp-2015.