People v. Fernandez CA2/2

Opinion

Filed 8/31/26 P. v. Fernandez CA2/2 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

THE PEOPLE, B342691 Plaintiff and Respondent, Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. XSONA117216 v.

RICKY DELAROSA FERNANDEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Daniel J. Lowenthal, Judge. Affirmed.

Marilee Marshall, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, David E. Madeo and David A. Voet, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

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Defendant Ricky Delarosa Fernandez was convicted by a jury of second degree murder for the killing of Ricardo Guerrero (Pen. Code,1 §§ 187, 189, subd. (b)).

Fernandez now appeals on the sole basis that the trial court erred in permitting testimony identifying him by his moniker, or nickname, “Joker.”

We find no abuse of discretion in allowing the limited testimony, which was necessary to describe the process by which law enforcement identified Fernandez. Accordingly, we affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Fernandez fatally stabbed Guerrero early one evening in April 2021. The stabbing took place on a service road near a Target store in Long Beach. At the time, both men lived in homeless encampments nearby.

A trucker making a delivery to a neighboring store observed Fernandez chasing Guerrero while Guerrero walked backwards as the two screamed at one another. Guerrero, who the trucker believed was defending himself against Fernandez, backed into a pole and fell. When Guerrero got up, Fernandez repeatedly stabbed him with a knife. Guerrero fell again, but then got back up and ran towards the Target store. Fernandez turned and ran in the opposite direction while covering his face so the trucker could not identify him.

Guerrero approached a Target employee and then collapsed again. Another employee called 911 and paramedics and police responded. They found Guerrero unresponsive with multiple injuries, including a stab wound to the chest. Guerrero was transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

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Police investigating the scene immediately after the stabbing found no suspects in the area. However, Target employees provided them with store surveillance video which showed Guerrero falling and Fernandez running away. Police obtained surveillance videos from the neighboring business and a nearby waste disposal company. These showed interactions between Fernandez and Guerrero prior to the stabbing. Also present in some of the videos was a female associate of Fernandez’s named Reba H.

Detectives showed images from these videos to another homeless individual who identified Fernandez as “Joker.” A homicide detective then shared a photo of Fernandez and the nickname “Joker” with Sergeant2 Tera Frudakis of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. She recognized Fernandez and gave the homicide detective Fernandez’s legal name.

Based on this information, police located and apprehended Fernandez.

Fernandez was charged with a single count of murder. He pled not guilty.

His case was first tried to a jury in 2023. Before the trial began, defense counsel moved to exclude any evidence of Fernandez’s gang association and his use of the nickname “Joker.” The trial court granted the motion to the extent of his gang activity but allowed the prosecutor to refer to his moniker to establish how they identified him. When called as a witness, Reba identified or referred to Fernandez as “Joker” on numerous occasions.

2 Frudakis was a sheriff’s deputy at the time but has since been promoted to sergeant.

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Fernandez also testified at his first trial. He admitted to stabbing Guerrero but claimed it was in self-defense after Guerrero became aggressive towards Fernandez and Reba. He testified on direct that he did not report the incident to police because he was afraid of, among other things, police gangs. The court ruled this opened the door to questioning about Fernandez’s involvement with gangs. His counsel then elicited testimony from Fernandez that he had been a gang member in his teenage years but “grew out of that” when he was 20. The prosecutor then inquired further about his former gang affiliation, including the name of the gang, his gang-related tattoos, his gang moniker, “Joker,” a “joker face” tattoo visible on his forehead, and graffiti police documented around his encampment referencing his former gang and “Joker.”

The jury in the first trial deadlocked, with 10 voting guilty of second degree murder and two voting guilty of manslaughter. The trial court declared a mistrial and set the matter for retrial.

In advance of the retrial, defense counsel again moved to exclude evidence of Fernandez’s gang affiliation and his nickname “Joker.” The court agreed to the former, and encouraged the parties to reach a stipulation as to the latter. They did not, and the court ruled, based on the prosecutor’s representations as to how law enforcement identified Fernandez, that the People could make their identification based on the nickname “Joker.”

On the second day of the retrial, one of the jurors asked to be excused. Outside the presence of the other jurors, he explained seeing Fernandez’s tattoos led him to believe Fernandez was a gang member. Based on this, the prospective juror was afraid he could not be impartial due to his deep-seated antipathy towards

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gangs. This antipathy stemmed from being forced into a gang “when [he] was small.” That juror was excused.

Later that day, the People called Sergeant Frudakis to testify about how she identified Fernandez. The prosecutor asked her what material the homicide detective provided her, and she responded, “[t]hey provided me with a still picture and a moniker, or a nickname, of somebody.” After Sergeant Frudakis identified the photograph she received, the prosecutor asked, “What was the nickname that you were given by the homicide detective?” Sergeant Frudakis responded, “I was given the nickname Joker.” She further explained that she recognized the person in the photograph from “numerous” prior contacts and conversations with him, she knew he went by the nickname “Joker,” she knew his true name to be Ricky Fernandez, and he was the defendant present in the courtroom. There were no further references to “Joker” or Fernandez’s gang affiliation in the retrial.

Fernandez again testified in the retrial, again claiming he stabbed Guerrero in self-defense.

The jury in the retrial found Fernandez not guilty of first degree murder but convicted him of second degree murder. The trial court sentenced him to 15 years to life.

Fernandez timely appealed.

DISCUSSION

I. Law and Standard of Review “Except as otherwise provided by statute, all relevant evidence is admissible.” (Evid. Code, § 351.) Evidence is relevant if it tends to “prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action.” (Evid. Code, § 210.)

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Even if relevant, a trial court has broad discretion to “exclude evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the probability that its admission will (a) necessitate undue consumption of time or (b) create substantial danger of undue prejudice, of confusing the issues, or of misleading the jury.” (Evid. Code, § 352.)

“A trial court’s discretionary ruling under [Evidence Code section 352] ‘ “must not be disturbed on appeal except on a showing that the court exercised its discretion in an arbitrary, capricious or patently absurd manner that resulted in a manifest miscarriage of justice.” ’ ” (People v. Williams (2008) 43 Cal.4th 584, 634–635.) II. Analysis Fernandez argues “the admission of [his] ‘moniker’

especially combined with [Sergeant Frudakis’s] ‘numerous prior contacts’ comment virtually screamed gang member and since identity was not even in issue, there was no probative value in the fact [he] had a moniker much less that he had numerous law enforcement contacts.” We disagree.

Fernandez is incorrect that “identity was not . . . in issue.”

By entering a plea of not guilty to the charge of murder, he put every element of that offense into dispute “until it was resolved . . . by the jury’s adverse verdicts.” (People v. Waidla (2000) 22 Cal.4th 690, 723.) The People bore the burden of proving these elements, including identity, beyond a reasonable doubt. (Ibid., citing § 1096.) This burden was not affected by Fernandez’s defense strategy or even by his offer of a stipulation. (Waidla, at p. 723 & fn. 5.) As explained in Waidla, “[t]hat [an element of a crime] might have been proved other than by the [challenged testimony, including by stipulation], is . . . without effect. A fact’s

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relevance does not depend on the means of its proof.” (Id. at p. 723, fn. omitted.)

Evidence Code section 352 does provide an exception to the general rule that a criminal defendant cannot “stipulate away evidence by stipulating away issues” if it would “ ‘ “deprive the state’s case of its persuasiveness and forcefulness.” ’ ” (People v. Thornton (2000) 85 Cal.App.4th 44, 49.) But we see no abuse of discretion in allowing the testimony at issue here.

Sergeant Frudakis’s testimony was highly probative of Fernandez’s identity. She testified she knew he went by “Joker” and recognized his face based on numerous prior contacts and conversations with him. The nickname “Joker” was central to her connecting the information detectives had to his true name. And the extensiveness of her past interactions with Fernandez went to the reliability of her identification.

Beyond identification, the process by which law enforcement located Fernandez was relevant to rebut his claim he stabbed Guerrero in self-defense. Fernandez did not remain at the scene until police arrived. He did not contact authorities to report any assault by Guerrero or obtain aid for him. Instead, Fernandez covered his face and fled, forcing law enforcement to track him down. This suggests he acted with criminal intent incompatible with justifiable homicide. (See People v. Beltran (2013) 56 Cal.4th 935, 957 [“Defendant’s departure from the scene, disposal of the knife, and flight to a foreign country, where he was arrested six years later, all reflected consciousness of guilt”].)

Furthermore, we do not share Fernandez’s concern that admission of his “nickname” or “moniker” “Joker” created a

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substantial danger of undue prejudice, of confusing the issues, or misleading the jury.

Fernandez seems particularly concerned that Sergeant Frudakis used the word “moniker” at one point in her testimony, because he considers the word tantamount to a declaration of gang membership. The definition of “moniker” is a “name, nickname.” (<https://www.merriamwebster .com/dictionary/moniker> [as of Aug. 24, 2026], archived at <https://perma.cc/GHY7-L7YG>.) It does not necessarily mean a gang name. Moreover, Sergeant Frudakis only used the word once, and did so in conjunction with the word “nickname,” clarifying that the words meant the same thing. She did not testify that “Joker” was the “moniker” at that time. She only gave the name “Joker” in responses to questions about Fernandez’s “nickname.” Our Supreme Court upheld admission of the nickname “BamBam” to facilitate identification of the defendant in People v. Brown (2003) 31 Cal.4th 518, 551 (Brown) where the references “were brief, mild and factual” and therefore “could not have been prejudicial.”

Fernandez does not claim the nickname “Joker” implies a propensity for violence, gang membership, or other negative connotation. The Brown court observed in affirming admission of the “BamBam” nickname that it was “not particularly inflammatory.” (Brown, supra, 31 Cal.4th at p. 551, fn. 12.)

Fernandez discusses the California Racial Justice Act of 2020 (Stats. 2020, ch. 317, § 1) at length but does not claim any violation of that Act occurred here. The Act has no bearing on the admission of a racially neutral nickname or any implication of gang membership. As Fernandez observes, the purpose of the Act

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“is to eradicate racial bias in all forms in criminal proceedings.” (Italics added.)

Fernandez also cites cases warning of the risk of bias resulting from the admission of gang evidence. (Citing People v. Pineda (2022) 13 Cal.5th 186, 233–234 and cases cited therein.) The trial court was clearly sensitive to this risk when it forbade the People from inquiring into Fernandez’s gang affiliation unless raised by the defense. Allowing mention of his moniker or nickname without any mention of the word “gang” is a far cry from eliciting testimony about his gang association or activities.

Under these circumstances, we cannot say the trial court acted in an arbitrary, capricious or patently absurd manner in concluding Fernandez’s nickname or moniker was admissible notwithstanding Evidence Code section 352.

In any event, whatever the applicable standard for prejudicial error, there is no indication the outcome of the trial would have been any different if the challenged testimony had not been allowed. Fernandez had a “joker face” tattoo on his forehead. It would therefore come as little surprise to anyone that he might be known as “Joker.” His tattoos were also recognizable to people familiar with gang culture—such as the excused juror— as indicating gang association. Thus, to the extent any juror did have an understanding of gang culture, knowing that he had a “moniker” or “nickname” and prior contacts with law enforcement is at most cumulative of these visual cues. Indeed, Fernandez himself contends the challenged testimony “could only have reinforced any preexisting notions [jurors] may have formed from [his] appearance including viewing his tattoos.” (Italics added.)

Consistent with the conclusion that Fernandez was not prejudiced by the challenged testimony he claims implied gang

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involvement, we observe Fernandez actually fared better in his first trial where he admitted to being a former gang member. In spite of this, two jurors were persuaded by his claim of self- defense and refused to convict him of second degree murder. Though no similar gang testimony was elicited in the retrial, all jurors there agreed he was guilty of second degree murder.

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

RICHARDSON, J.

WE CONCUR:

CHAVEZ, Acting P. J.

GOORVITCH, J.