People v. Coleman CA1/5

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 9, 2014
DocketA137910
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Coleman CA1/5 (People v. Coleman CA1/5) 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. Coleman CA1/5, (Cal. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

Filed 7/9/14 P. v. Coleman CA1/5 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FIVE

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, A137910 v. MANDALE JAMES COLEMAN, (Contra Costa County Super. Ct. No. 110690-5) Defendant and Appellant.

Defendant Mandale Coleman challenges his robbery and burglary convictions based on alleged instructional error. He contends, inter alia, that the court erred in denying his request for an instruction on the mistake of fact defense with respect to the robbery charge, requiring reversal of both convictions. We disagree and affirm. Both parties agree the calculation of Coleman’s presentence custody credits must be corrected, and we remand for that limited purpose. I. BACKGROUND In May 2011, Coleman was charged by information with first degree residential robbery (Pen. Code, §§ 211, 212.5, subd. (a)1; count 1); first degree residential burglary (§§ 459, 460, subd. (a); count 2); assault with a firearm (§ 245, subd. (a)(2); count 3); grand theft of a firearm (§ 487, subd. (d); count 4); and receipt of stolen property (§ 496, subd. (a); count 5). As to counts 1, 2 and 3, it was alleged that he personally used a firearm in committing the offense. (§§ 12022.53, subd. (b), 12022.5, subd. (a).) As to

1 All further undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

1 count 2, it was further alleged that the offense qualified as a violent felony because a nonparticipant in the burglary was present in the residence during the commission of the burglary. (§ 667.5, subd. (c)(21).) A. Trial Evidence Julian Cooks testified that on November 26, 2010, at about 3:45 a.m., he was in his second-floor apartment in Richmond getting ready for work. His girlfriend Leah Trevillion was asleep in the apartment. Cooks grabbed his keys and cell phone, and unlocked and opened his front door and a metal security door. As he opened the security door, somebody dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt and dark blue jeans jumped up, grabbed the door, and pointed a gun at Cooks’s face. At trial, Cooks identified the intruder as Coleman. At trial, Cooks testified that the intruder was carrying a backpack.2 Coleman angrily made demands like: “Give me everything. Where is the money? I know you got some money in here.” Cooks retreated to the kitchen area of the apartment and said, “There’s nothing in here.” Coleman, who was much larger than Cooks, raised his gun over his head and swung it down at Cooks. Cooks ducked, the gun “kind of hit [him] in the shoulder,” and he stumbled but did not fall. After making more demands, Coleman again raised the gun and swung it at Cooks, and this time the gun caught Cooks “hard” somewhere close to his neck or shoulder. Cooks at some point realized that the gun in Coleman’s hand was a gun that had been stolen (along with a television, video game console, $100 and other property) from Cooks’s apartment three weeks previously. Cooks testified that he had reported the burglary to the police, including the theft of the gun. The gun was a .22 caliber Ruger with a wooden handle and as far as Cooks knew it was loaded. Cooks told Coleman, “You broke in my house already. You think there’s something here?” Coleman then pointed the gun to the ground and started to pull back the slide. Because Cooks knew the slide was difficult to move, which would cause a

2 At the preliminary hearing, when Cooks was asked if the intruder came in with a backpack he responded, “I didn’t notice what he had but the gun.”

2 delay, he rushed Coleman. “We had a short tussle. I was able to get him off of me, and I believe he fell to the ground. I got out of the door.” Cooks left his cell phone and the gun behind. Cooks testified that he did not know what happened to the gun or cell phone during the tussle. Cooks ran to a gas station around the corner and called the police. A recording of his 911 call was played for the jury. Cooks said, “Somebody just pushed me in my house with a gun. . . . [He] already broke in my house like, like maybe a month ago.” Cooks said the intruder was wearing black pants and a black hood, and “I know who he is. I know exactly what he looks like.” When asked how he knew him, Cooks said, “I mean, uh, I seen him around here before” in the neighborhood. When asked if he had a gun in his apartment, he said, “No. Look like he had the one that they stole from me the last one.” The recording reflects that Cooks then shouted, “That’s him right there!” and he started addressing a police officer on the street. Cooks testified that he had started to return to his apartment when he saw a police car approach and saw Coleman descend the stairs of his apartment building. Cooks waved at the officer to indicate that Coleman was the suspect. Coleman ran up Barrett Avenue and the officer chased after him. Coleman then changed direction and started running toward Cooks. As he passed Cooks, Cooks grabbed him and pulled him to the ground and the police then handcuffed him. Cooks testified that his cell phone was found on Barrett Avenue under a car or on a curb. The gun was found on Barrett Avenue near the cell phone. When Cooks returned to his apartment, he found the backpack that Coleman had been carrying: it was on the living room floor along with a suitcase that had been taken from Cooks’s hall closet. The apartment was ransacked. Trevillion testified that on November 26, 2010, at about 3:45 a.m., Cooks kissed her goodbye as he was leaving for work. He was exiting the front door when Trevillion heard someone say loudly and angrily, “Put your hands up. Give me everything.” Cooks responded that he did not have anything. Then Trevillion heard, “boom, boom, boom”— “they’re fighting. They’re . . . wrestling. They’re tussling”—and then it became quiet. She crawled into the space between the bed and the wall and pulled covers over her

3 because she was scared. She then heard another “boom” that sounded like the security door slamming, and the sound of cabinets being opened and closed and things falling over. She heard a man’s voice in the hallway, sounding as if he was looking for things and getting frustrated. She heard him dial a phone and make the following statements: “ ‘I’m looking around. I can’t find anything. [¶] . . . [¶] . . . I looked everywhere. I’m going through stuff. I don’t see a bowl. [¶] . . . [¶] Aw, shit.’ ” Trevillion understood “bowl” to refer to a bowl containing marijuana. While still on the phone, he entered the bedroom, searching, and inadvertently pushed the mattress over Trevillion, further hiding her. He then ran off. She never saw the intruder and did not recognize Coleman at trial. Trevillion recognized the voice on the other end of the intruder’s phone conversation as that of D.C. Garrison, someone she had known for many years. Right after the burglary, at about 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. that same morning, Garrison came by the apartment. Garrison was Coleman’s half-brother and both Trevillion and Cooks testified that Garrison was a good friend of Cooks who came by Cooks’s apartment almost every day. According to Cooks, Garrison had never brought anyone with him to Cooks’s apartment, and Coleman had never been inside Cooks’s apartment. Cooks denied that he sold marijuana to either Garrison or Coleman. Cooks testified that he had never sold marijuana to anyone from that apartment and said that he had no more than an eighth of an ounce of marijuana in the apartment for personal use. Trevillion testified that Cooks smoked a lot of marijuana and often had a one- or two-week supply in his apartment.

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People v. Coleman CA1/5, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-coleman-ca15-calctapp-2014.