People v. Franklin CA3

California Court of Appeal·Decided July 27, 2021·No. C089644·Unpublished

Opinion

Filed 7/27/21 P. v. Franklin CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (Sacramento) ----

THE PEOPLE, C089644

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. 15F06717)

v.

CHRISTOPHER M. FRANKLIN,

Defendant and Appellant.

A jury found defendant Christopher M. Franklin guilty of the first degree murder of Anna, the attempted murder of Dennis, an assault on Douglas by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, and three counts of carrying a concealed firearm on his person during the commission of each of these offenses. (People v. Franklin (Sept. 6, 2018, C083294) [nonpub. opn.].) Defendant previously appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence on some counts and claiming instructional error with respect to others. (Ibid.) We reversed the first degree murder and attempted murder convictions, and associated convictions for carrying a concealed firearm. (Ibid.)

1 On retrial, a jury again found defendant guilty of the first degree murder of Anna (count one), the attempted murder of Dennis (count two), and carrying a concealed firearm on his person in the commission of the last offense (count three). The jury also found true gun enhancements on counts one and two. The trial court sentenced defendant to a total determinate term of 10 years eight months, plus an indeterminate term of 75 years to life. The trial court also ordered defendant to pay various fines and fees. Defendant appeals, arguing: (1) the trial court prejudicially erred by failing to instruct, sua sponte, on voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense to murder; (2) the trial court abused its discretion in failing to consider his service-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a mitigating factor at sentencing under Penal Code section 1170.91;1 (3) the trial court erroneously calculated the court operations assessment (§ 1465.8) and court facilities fee (Gov. Code, § 70737); and (4) the abstract of judgment bears the wrong conviction date for two offenses that were adjudicated in the first trial, but were neither reversed nor retried. We reject defendant’s first contention and accept his second. We will remand for resentencing to allow the trial court to fulfill its statutory duty under section 1170.91. Because we are remanding, we need not reach defendant’s remaining contentions. I. BACKGROUND A. Attempted Murder of Dennis Dennis was homeless. On July 10, 2015, he went to sleep around 9:00 p.m. inside a dimly lit tunnel underneath some railroad tracks in Sacramento County. He awoke to someone standing at the opening of the tunnel about 10 feet away. Dennis could not tell whether the person was a man or a woman, but he could see that the person was about six

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

2 feet tall with an athletic build. Dennis rolled over. He asked, “What do you want?” The person shot Dennis several times and then took off. B. Murder of Anna Anna was also homeless. In October 2015, she lived in a tent near some railroad tracks in Sacramento. Anna’s brother, Lance, lived nearby, in a campsite he shared with his girlfriend and another sister, Chris. On October 11, 2015, Anna brought dinner for the group and left the campsite sometime later. Sometime after nightfall, Lance heard an argument between a man and a woman that seemed to come from a nearby house. The argument went on for a couple of minutes. Lance did not pay close attention, as he was dozing off to sleep. Nevertheless, he thought the man and woman were a couple. Lance did not recognize either of their voices. Lance then heard a gunshot, followed by a voice saying, “oh my God.” He then heard two more shots, followed by silence. He then went to sleep. It was not unusual to hear arguing, gunshots, or fireworks near the railroad tracks. Chris was sleeping in a tent near Lance and his girlfriend. She was awakened by a helicopter passing around 9:00 p.m. or 9:30 p.m. Shortly thereafter, she heard a shot, followed by a woman saying, “oh, my God. What are you doing?” She then heard two more shots. She did not recognize the woman’s voice as that of her sister. The next morning Chris went to Anna’s camp and found her on the ground, dead. Anna had been shot multiple times. Law enforcement found two spent .40 caliber shell casings near her body. C. Assault on Douglas Douglas worked for Sacramento County as a field surveyor. He was wearing an orange reflective vest and working near some railroad tracks on the morning of October 13, 2015. Defendant approached Douglas and asked for some water. Douglas responded that there was plenty of ice-cold water in his truck, but his partner had taken the truck to

3 another location. Douglas told defendant he could have some water as soon as his partner returned with the truck. Douglas then went back to his work. Douglas entered a nearby telephone yard and saw two men working there. He approached the telephone workers to introduce himself. Before Douglas could say anything, defendant came up from behind and put him in a choke hold. Douglas began to lose consciousness. One of the telephone workers, Jason, saw defendant with his arm around Douglas’s neck. Jason yelled, “Stop. Get out of here.” Defendant let go of Douglas, who fell to the ground. Defendant said, “[S]orry. I thought you were somebody else.” He then walked away, muttering something about Douglas being on someone else’s property. Jason called 911 and followed defendant in his truck. Douglas’s partner returned with their truck, and Douglas followed defendant as well. Police arrived, and Douglas pointed defendant out. Defendant was detained and searched. The search uncovered a black .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol with a live round in the chamber. D. Investigation Police interviewed defendant. He denied assaulting Douglas or having a gun. He said that he ran almost every day, usually around 6:00 p.m. He sometimes ran on a greenbelt near the railroad tracks, but he denied running on October 11, 2015, the day Anna was killed. Police searched defendant’s home, which was approximately 500 yards from the spot where Anna was murdered and 600 yards from the spot where Dennis was shot. They found an empty handgun case with the same serial number as the gun found in defendant’s possession. A records check with the California Department of Justice established that the gun was not registered to anyone. A firearms trace through the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms disclosed that the gun had been sold to a man in Olympia, Washington. Ballistics tests showed that the casings recovered from the crime scenes had been fired from the same gun.

4 E. First Trial Defendant was arrested, tried by jury, and convicted of first-degree murder, attempted murder, assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, and three counts of carrying a concealed firearm. (People v. Franklin, supra, C083294.) The jury also found true that defendant personally and intentionally discharged a firearm and proximately caused great bodily injury or death in the commission of the murder and attempted murder. (Ibid.) We reversed the murder and attempted murder convictions, and associated convictions for carrying a concealed firearm, giving the prosecution the option to retry defendant on the same counts. (Ibid.) F. Second Trial Defendant was tried a second time over the course of four days in April 2019. The prosecution’s witnesses testified substantially as described ante. The prosecution also presented the testimony of defendant’s sister.

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

People v. Franklin CA3, (Cal. Ct. App. 2021).

People v. Franklin CA3 (People v. Franklin CA3) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Chapman v. California
386 U.S. 18 (Supreme Court, 1967)
People v. Berry
556 P.2d 777 (California Supreme Court, 1976)
People v. Wharton
809 P.2d 290 (California Supreme Court, 1991)
People v. Breverman
960 P.2d 1094 (California Supreme Court, 1998)
People v. Sakarias
995 P.2d 152 (California Supreme Court, 2000)
People v. Manriquez
123 P.3d 614 (California Supreme Court, 2005)
People v. Peau
236 Cal. App. 4th 823 (California Court of Appeal, 2015)
People v. Ramirez
189 Cal. App. 4th 1483 (California Court of Appeal, 2010)
People v. Franklin
230 Cal. Rptr. 3d 647 (California Court of Appeals, 5th District, 2018)