People v. DeJourney

192 Cal. App. 4th 1091, 121 Cal. Rptr. 3d 787, 2011 Cal. App. LEXIS 185
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 17, 2011
DocketNo. D055585
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 192 Cal. App. 4th 1091 (People v. DeJourney) 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. DeJourney, 192 Cal. App. 4th 1091, 121 Cal. Rptr. 3d 787, 2011 Cal. App. LEXIS 185 (Cal. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

Opinion

HUFFMAN, Acting P. J.

A jury convicted Stacey Rudell Dejoumey of forcible rape (Pen. Code,1 § 261, subd. (a)(2); count 1) and kidnapping (§ 207, subd. (a); count 3).2 In a bifurcated proceeding, the trial court found true that Dejoumey had previously been convicted of a prior serious felony, which also constituted a strike under the “Three Strikes” law and for which he also had served a prior prison term. (§§ 667, subds. (a) & (b)-(i), 667.5, subd. (b), 1170.12.) The court sentenced Dejoumey to prison for a total term of 21 years.3

Dejoumey appeals, contending the trial court prejudicially abused its discretion and violated his due process rights in admitting evidence of uncharged sexual acts under Evidence Code section 1108 and also in admitting expert testimony regarding a complaining witness’s cognitive disability. He also asserts there was no substantial evidence to support his count 3 kidnapping conviction. We affirm the judgment as modified.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On August 7, 2008, with the help of strangers, 20-year-old Krystina C. called 911 to report that she had just been raped in a dumpster area near some [1095]*1095businesses by Balboa Avenue and Genesee Avenue in the Clairemont area of San Diego. When San Diego Police Officer Scott Shively responded to the call and contacted her, he noted that Krystina was extremely upset, had dirt on her knees and the back of her shirt, and wanted to call her husband, who she said worked at a nearby Albertson’s. After taking her initial statement of what had happened that night, Shively transported Krystina to a facility for a SART (sexual assault response team) examination. While waiting for the exam, Krystina became withdrawn, started rocking in her chair, yelled out that she was “an ugly duckling,” urinated all over herself as she sat there and was inconsolable.

A SART nurse examined Krystina, finding small abrasions on her knees, dirt and debris on her external genitalia, and a large area of redness and swelling at the sides of the external genitalia, indicative of an abrasion, and determined that the results of her tests were consistent with the sexual assault history Krystina had provided. Shively then talked further with Krystina to piece together a report that he forwarded to a sex crimes detective. Shively, accompanied by Krystina, then went back and examined the dumpster area to gather additional evidence. Shively found the dumpster area very dirty and he estimated it was approximately 270 feet from the Boston Market where Krystina said she had originally asked for help to call 911 before the man allegedly directed her to the dumpster area and raped her. The next day, San Diego Police Detective Gregory Flood interviewed Krystina again.

Essentially, Krystina, who had recently moved to San Diego from Arizona with her husband, told the 911 operator, Shively and Flood that on August 7, 2008, while she was traveling on the trolley to downtown San Diego for a doctor’s appointment, she learned that she needed a disabled person’s ID card with her bus pass. Consequently, after her doctor’s appointment, she walked to the transit store on 1st Avenue and Broadway to obtain the necessary card. However, when she arrived at the transit store it was closed, and a man sitting on a nearby bus bench began talking to her. At some point she asked him about hailing a taxicab and approached an occupied one that had stopped nearby to obtain a card with a telephone number to call them later. She then went across the street to an ATM to withdraw some money to add to the $30 she had, because she thought she would need it for a cab.4

After Krystina obtained the money, she began walking toward some stores she wanted to shop in before heading home. She told the 911 operator that the next thing she knew, the man came up behind her “and he just started dragging me around the downtown and he tried taking me in little dark spaces and touching me and kissing on me and stuff and he had some kind of drugs with him that he was smoking; and . . . once people kept seeing us he [1096]*1096just took us on the trolley. He took all of my money and he took us on the trolley and then took us on a bus and got off at Balboa at my request [because] my husband works ... at the Albertson’s on Balboa and Mt. Abernathy, and I was gonna try and run to the Albertson’s but I couldn’t see it anywhere’s and he didn’t wanna wait on me so ah, he just drug me into this little trash can area and he just took off our clothes and he raped me. And I. . . asked him several times to please stop, I did, and he asked me why and I told him I didn’t like it.” In response to questions, Krystina said the man who had done this to her was African-American, about 40 years old, had his hair in a ponytail, was carrying a leather jacket with fur, had on dark clothing, and looked homeless.

When Shively arrived to assist Krystina, she filled in other details concerning her ordeal that day, including the fact that she had gone into the Boston Market near Balboa Avenue to find out where the Albertson’s was located so she could find her husband and also the fact she had asked the cashier there to call 911 before the man entered the restaurant and she left with him. A videotape was obtained from the Boston Market that showed what Krystina had described. As already noted, Krystina also provided more details regarding the incidents to Flood. Additionally the next day, Dale Chock, who had read a news story online about the incident, called the police to report his observations of Krystina and the man he had seen on the bus with her from Fashion Valley to the Clairemont area on the evening of August 7, 2008. Chock told the police that he had been facing the couple who sat together on the bus near him, that the man had glared at him, and that the man had his arm around Krystina, who had no facial expressions while the man rubbed her arm and pulled her close to him.

When Dejoumey was arrested on August 9, 2008, in Oceanside, California, the police found that he was wearing the same jacket described by Krystina and viewed in the Boston Market video and that he was in possession of a glass smoking pipe consistent with a device used to smoke crack cocaine and with the pipe described by Krystina as having been used by the man who had raped her. When Chock was asked to view a live lineup, he selected Dejoumey as the man he had seen on the bus with Krystina. Krystina was also separately shown the lineup.

Dejoumey was subsequently charged with various crimes, including rape and kidnapping, stemming from the events involving Krystina on August 7, 2008. After various pretrial motions, he proceeded to jury trial on the rape, kidnapping and a rape by foreign object charge.

[1097]*1097 The Prosecution Case

In addition to the above evidence, which was introduced through the testimony of Shively, Flood, the SART examiner and Chock, and the playing of the 911 taped call by Krystina and the video from Boston Market, Krystina testified, providing further details of her ordeal as well as her disabilities. Krystina explained that because she suffers from cerebral palsy, a physical, developmental, and cognitive or mental disability, she often uses a wheelchair, but can walk on her own on some days even though her legs will stiffen and become jerky and painful. Cognitively, she has difficulty with mathematics and following directions.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
192 Cal. App. 4th 1091, 121 Cal. Rptr. 3d 787, 2011 Cal. App. LEXIS 185, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-dejourney-calctapp-2011.