People v. Garcia CA2/7

California Court of Appeal·Decided February 1, 2016·No. B257247·Unpublished

Opinion

Filed 2/1/16 P. v. Garcia CA2/7 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 SEVEN

THE PEOPLE, B257247

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BA355012) v.

ARTHUR GARCIA,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Robert J. Perry, Judge. Affirmed as modified. Sylvia Whatley Beckham, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Paul M. Roadarmel, Jr., Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Nima Razfar, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. ______________________________ Arthur Garcia appeals from the judgment entered following his conviction by a jury of attempted murder and assault with a firearm with true findings he had personally discharged a firearm causing great bodily injury to Laveil Hunter. Garcia contends his counsel provided ineffective assistance because he failed to properly object to admission of testimony Garcia had been seen with a gun about a month before the incident and the court engaged in prejudicial misconduct by actively questioning witnesses. We affirm with a modification to reflect the People’s failure to prove a prior prison term enhancement. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 1. The Information Garcia was charged by amended information with attempted premeditated murder (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 664) and assault with a firearm (Pen. Code, § 245, subd. (a)(2)). It was specially alleged Garcia had personally discharged a firearm causing great bodily injury (Pen. Code, § 12022.53, subd. (d)), had suffered a prior serious felony conviction (robbery) within the meaning of Penal Code section 667, subdivision (a), and the three strikes law (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 1170.12) and had served a prior separate prison term for a felony conviction (felon in possession of a firearm) (Pen. Code, § 667.5, subd. (b)). Garcia pleaded not guilty and denied the special allegations. 2. Summary of the Evidence Presented at Trial a. Elizabeth Ramirez’s testimony Elizabeth Ramirez testified Laveil Hunter asked her if she had any change as she was entering a liquor store around 10 p.m. on March 29, 2009. She said no. After 1 Elizabeth left the store, Hunter again asked her for change. Elizabeth told him she did not have any; and Hunter began cursing at her, using racial slurs and threatening that he could kill her. Elizabeth, scared, drove home. When she arrived a few minutes later, her brother Raphael was there with Garcia and Pablo Renteria. Raphael got angry when

1 Because Elizabeth Ramirez and her brother Raphael Ramirez share a surname, we refer to them by their first names for convenience.

2 Elizabeth told him what had happened and asked her to drive him to the liquor store so he could talk to Hunter. Garcia and Renteria said they would also go. Raphael rode in the front passenger seat of the car. Elizabeth dropped the three men off across the street from the liquor store and drove home. Although Elizabeth initially testified she did not hear anything as she drove away, when she was asked whether she had told police detectives she heard gunshots, she explained she heard “some kind of pops,” but did not know if they were gunshots. Over defense counsel’s “speculation” objection, Elizabeth further testified she had seen Garcia with a gun about a month earlier at a party her brother and his friends were having; but 2 she was not able to identify whether it was a revolver or a semiautomatic handgun. The jury was shown surveillance footage from cameras recording the front of the liquor store and the street alongside it and was presented with still photographs taken from the video footage. The video footage showed Elizabeth’s car stop across the street from the liquor store. A man in a dark jacket walked quickly from the passenger side of the car around the rear of it, crossing the street toward Hunter, with another man following shortly behind him. Just as the first man reached the sidewalk with the second man at about the middle of the street, a third man, wearing a white shirt, left the car from the rear passenger door on the driver’s side. As the first two men got closer to Hunter, he began to run; the third man was in the middle of the street waiting for a car to pass. After the car passed, the third man ran across the street and shot in the direction Hunter had run. (A muzzle flash can be seen.) Elizabeth identified her brother as the first man in the dark jacket walking toward Hunter. She could not distinguish which of the other two men was Garcia or Renteria.

2 Although the record is not clear, it appears defense counsel’s objection may have been based on a statement Elizabeth made to detectives that she had “never really seen” Garcia with guns. In response to follow-up questions, however, Elizabeth told detectives she saw Garcia show a gun to Raphael at a party. The court, describing Elizabeth’s statement as “pretty specific,” permitted the prosecutor to ask her whether she had previously seen Garcia with a gun.

3 b. Hunter’s testimony Hunter acknowledged he had asked Elizabeth for change when she left the store, but testified he had never used racial slurs, threatened or cursed at her. When Elizabeth said she did not have any change, a man who had come out of the store with her said, “No and fuck you.” Hunter responded “fuck you” to the man, and Elizabeth told Hunter 3 “not to talk to her homeboy like that.” A few minutes later, according to Hunter, “Two dudes drove up on me, told me what I was doing messing with their homeboy, and I started running.” Although the surveillance video appears to show Hunter looking toward Elizabeth’s car when it drove up and as the men left it, he testified he did not see where the men had come from because “I had my back turned, when I turned around there was two of them coming from . . . a side street.” As Hunter ran, he heard seven or eight gunshots. One of the shots struck him in the back of the leg. Hunter testified he had seen the men before in the neighborhood. Additionally, during an interview when he was in the hospital, Hunter identified Garcia and Renteria from a photographic lineup. In the “photo identification report” Hunter wrote, “The picture 1B [Elizabeth] is the one that was driving the car when they shot me. Number 4B [Renteria] 3A [Garcia] were in the car when they shot me.” However, at trial Hunter was unable to identify Garcia as one of the men who had accosted him. He also testified he did not see the man who shot him because he was running away. c. Detective Rose’s testimony Los Angeles Police Detective Eric Rose, who investigated the shooting incident, testified he interviewed Renteria at the Newton Division station. During that interview Renteria told Rose that he and Raphael had chased Hunter and that it was Garcia who had shot him. Rose also testified Renteria did not claim he had been the shooter.

3 Elizabeth testified she did not know the man, but had seen him before around the liquor store.

4 d. Renteria’s testimony Renteria testified he shot Hunter. He contended he had been socializing with some friends, although he did not know their names, and went to the liquor store because “I got pound for whoever got shot, you know.” He testified he did not recognize anyone in the court room.

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