Filed 8/27/26 P. v. Harris CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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, C102145 Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. 22FE001458)
v.
KAILIN HARRIS, Defendant and Appellant.
Defendant Kailin Harris appeals a judgment entered after a jury found him guilty of several offenses including murder with special circumstances and a gun enhancement. He contends the trial court erred in: (1) denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained in violation of his constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures; and (2) failing to dismiss the firearm enhancement under Penal Code section 1385, subdivision (c)(2)(C). Having considered his arguments, we will affirm.
BACKGROUND
Given the issues on appeal, we limit the factual summary to the information relevant to the disposition of Harris’s arguments.
The People charged Harris with eight counts: murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a);
count one) with a burglary-murder special circumstance (Pen, Code, § 190.2, subd. (a)(17)) and firearm enhancement (Pen. Code, § 12022.53, subds. (a)-(d)); burglary of a vehicle (§ 459; count two); possession of a firearm by a felon (Pen. Code, § 29800, subd.
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(a)(1); count three); and misdemeanor tampering with a vehicle (Veh. Code, § 10852; counts four-eight). The information also alleged Harris had suffered a prior strike conviction (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 1170.12) for attempted first degree residential burglary (Pen. Code, §§ 664/459).
Harris filed a motion to suppress the observations made during the warrantless search of his apartment as well as any and all evidence seized therefrom. (Pen. Code, § 1538.5.) He alleged the deputies who responded to assist animal control with retrieving his dogs entered his home without a warrant, secured the dogs, and then remained inside after confirming no other dogs or people were present. Instead of leaving and securing the apartment as instructed by detectives, those deputies turned off their body cameras for approximately four minutes and then allegedly found incriminating clothing in plain sight within seconds after reactivating those cameras.
The People opposed the motion on multiple fronts including: (1) Harris had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the apartment he had abandoned, (2) the deputies lawfully entered that apartment pursuant to an exigency involving the dogs, and even if they overstayed the exigency, (3) the warrant for the search of that apartment was supported by independent evidence, and in any event, (4) the evidence would have been inevitably discovered. The People attached the search warrant and related materials to their opposition.
1. The Search Warrant and Related Materials Given the importance of the search warrant to this case, we discuss it at length.
The warrant issued on January 22, 2022, following the court’s review of Detective Robert Peters’s affidavit, authorizing a search of Harris’s apartment (herein referred to as Apartment No. 3) and its associated garage for specified items, including items related to firearms, specified items of clothing, and a Honda generator. The warrant stated that “there is probable cause to believe that the property described herein may be found at the
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location set forth herein and that it is lawfully seizable … in that: [¶] … [¶] It tends to show that a felony has been committed or that a particular person has committed a felony.”
Peters’s affidavit set forth his extensive training and experience followed by a 13-
page statement of investigative facts establishing probable cause. Peters’s probable case statement relayed the following:
Apartment No. 3 was located within Sacramento County and was “part of a twostory building/dwelling that contains four (4) apartments.” Peters attested to knowing the information set forth in the affidavit “either from personal observations, interviews and/or information which was related to [him] by other law enforcement officers based upon prior investigations and law enforcement reports.”
On January 17, 2022, at 5:29 a.m., the Sacramento County Communications Center received a ShotSpotter activation for an address on Greenlawn Way. The system indicated two gunshots had been fired and a 911 call from that address came in shortly thereafter. The caller reported someone shot the caller’s dad who lived next door. A duplicate 911 call relayed that “an unknown subject(s) broke into their mother-in-law’s residence and tried to steal guns out of the house, and shot the caller’s father in the head.”
Sheriff deputies responded and discovered the victim (identified as G.M.) lying on the ground behind the residence. G.M. had a gunshot wound to his head but was still breathing and was transported for emergency medical treatment.
Investigating deputies spoke with G.M.’s wife, E.M., who relayed that she had received a series of Ring camera security notifications, which her husband checked on. A Ring camera in her backyard showed a person exiting their office and her husband tried to intervene. A struggle ensued and E.M. heard two gunshots. E.M. found her husband near the backyard gate with a gunshot wound to the head. G.M. underwent surgery but subsequently died of his injuries.
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Deputies located two shell casings near the backyard gate, as well as a bicycle and several bags. They learned two vehicles west of G.M.’s home had also been burglarized. G.M.’s home had exterior surveillance cameras and another neighbor had potential “video footage of the suspect fleeing.” The detectives “authored and received a search warrant to process [G.M.’s] property for evidence, as well as collect the video footage from his DVR system.” Pursuant to that warrant, detectives reviewed surveillance footage from G.M.’s “surveillance system[’s] DVR, as well as the residence’s Ring camera footage.”
“While reviewing the Ring camera footage, detectives saw the suspect, who was wearing a black mask, a gray/white/black Aztec type zip-up jacket and black pants with red and green designs on the pant legs, carrying an orange Honda generator and a large duffle type bag away from [G.M.’s] property at 4:15:59AM.[1] … [¶] The large duffle type bag was later identified as a tent. The tent was staged in close proximity of the suspect’s bike in the pedestrian alley.”
At 5:28 a.m., the suspect tried to leave through G.M.’s gate holding at least two rifles but was interrupted by G.M., who began fighting with him. The suspect dropped the rifles, drew a handgun, and shot G.M. two times. G.M. collapsed and the suspect retrieved the guns and fled south. A still shot of this footage was included therein. Detectives spotted the suspect on G.M.’s “front yard Ring Camera,” and at “5:29:07 AM, the suspect ran across the roadway, northwest, to another yard of a duplex. The suspect was holding two rifles in his hands.”
“Based on the video footage from [G.M.’s] residence detectives began canvassing the neighborhood for video surveillance footage.” Through footage they obtained, detectives tracked the suspect’s movements along nine different addresses.
1 A photographic still of this footage was included with the affidavit.
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This footage showed “the suspect burglarizing a vehicle and checking the doors of several other vehicles at 2:58 AM. The suspect was wearing the same Aztec type design sweatshirt. The suspect rode off on a bicycle.” At another address, “[t]he homeowner had video footage of the suspect trying her side pedestrian gate at 3:38 AM. [¶] Based on the video footage, it appeared the suspect was burglarizing vehicles a couple hours before [G.M.’s] murder.”
Detectives located footage showing the suspect fleeing east at “5:30/5:31 AM.”
The suspect was still heading east at 5:37 a.m. and “had now removed the Aztec type design sweatshirt and was now wearing a black sweatshirt with a white design on the back of it.”2 Another homeowner reported that “his neighbor confronted the suspect in his front yard. His neighbor told him the suspect was not wearing his mask and identified him as a black male adult.”
Detectives tracked the suspect to another address whose “video surveillance camera captured the suspect walking onto his driveway and approaching his fence at 5:37:44 AM.”3 The suspect had changed his sweatshirt but was still wearing the same pants with “corresponding patches/designs that were seen on the video footage from [G.M.’s] Ring camera footage.” Another homeowner’s surveillance camera to the east “captured the suspect running eastbound across [H.] Boulevard at 5:39:45 AM. The suspect then hopped a wooden planked fence” to another residence.
Surveillance footage from yet another address showed the suspect leaving the backyard and walking toward P. Avenue at 5:44:11 a.m.; he then headed east on P. Avenue.4 “Again, the suspect was wearing the same pants with the corresponding
2 A still of this footage was included with the affidavit. 3 A still of this footage was included with the affidavit. 4 A still of this footage was included with the affidavit.
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patches/designs that were seen on the video footage from [G.M.’s] Ring camera footage. [¶] Based on the suspect’s path of travel, it appeared he likely lived and/or stayed in the immediate vicinity of [G.] Drive.”
“On January 21, 20211 [sic], an Intel Sergeant with the Sacramento Rio Consumnes Correction Center notified detectives that they had received a notification from LEO Technologies that an inmate was possibly talking about [G.M.’s] homicide on the jail’s Inmate Calling Solutions (ICS) phone system.” Detectives reviewed the call between an inmate and a cellular telephone registered to J.S.
“In the jail call, [J.S.] told [the inmate] that her daughter’s boyfriend was doing what he does and put a man down in North Highlands. [¶] Based on our collective training and experience, when someone says they put someone down, they are talking about killing someone.” Detectives determined that J.S. was the mother of S.S. whose address as of April 2021 was Apartment No. 3. Detectives learned S.S.’s next of kin was Kailin Harris whose address in April 2021 was also Apartment No. 3. This apartment “was approximately half a mile (929 yards) away from [G.M.’s] residence.”
“Based on the jail call, the path of travel of the suspect, and the proximity of HARRIS’s apartment to the homicide scene, detectives went to [P.] Avenue and [G.] Drive and canvassed the area for video surveillance cameras.” They “located exterior cameras on HARRIS’s building that were associated with Apartment #4” and viewed “the video footage for the morning of January 17, 2022.”
This footage showed the suspect walking toward Apartment No. 3 “at 5:46:45 AM. The suspect was wearing the same clothes seen in the video footage from” two earlier street addresses. “Additionally, the suspect’s pants had the same corresponding patches/designs that were seen on the video footage from [G.M.’s] Ring camera footage.”
Detectives also saw video of “the suspect pushing a stroller containing an orange Honda generator at 4:52:20 AM. Since detectives did not recover a generator at the scene
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of the homicide, the generator was likely [G.M.’s] generator. Then at 5:06 AM, the suspect walked back toward [P.] Avenue and the direction of [G.M.’s] residence.”
While reviewing the footage, detectives spoke with the homeowner K.F. who told them that Harris and S.S. lived in Apartment No. 3, although S.S. moved out several weeks ago. Harris was the only person living at the apartment, but “[K.F.] had not seen HARRIS since the afternoon of Monday, January 17, 2022. She said his dogs [had] been left unattended in the apartment and were causing issues, so she called the Sheriff’s Office and Animal Control to conduct a welfare check on the dogs.”
“Detectives showed [K.F.] a colored DMV photograph of HARRIS (Photo taken 6/07/2018). She positively identified the person in the photograph as Kailin HARRIS.
“Detectives subsequently spoke to the deputies who responded to perform the welfare check on the dogs (SSO Event # 22-20787). Detectives asked the deputies to look for any clothing that matched the suspect clothing, and/or an orange Honda generator in plain view as they conducted the sweep of the apartment for the animals.
“After conducting their protective sweep, the deputies said they saw a pair of black pants and a black sweatshirt that matched the suspect’s clothing. They said they saw clothing items in the kitchen on the floor.”
Peters attested that no one currently resided at “HARRIS’s apartment and Sheriff’s Deputies are holding the apartment in anticipation of a signed search warrant.”
Based upon the information set forth, Peters requested “the authority to search HARRIS’s apartment for clothing, as well as evidence related to [G.M.]’s murder” and stated his belief that “HARRIS is the suspect responsible for [G.M.’s] death” and that “there will be evidence in the apartment that will further establish his involvement in [G.M.’s] murder.”
Peters continued that “[b]ased on [his] training and experience, [he] believe[d] a murder, manslaughter, and/or assault was committed and the suspect fled to the above- described location.” Further, Peters believed “a search of the above-described location
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will reveal evidence of the identity and motive of the person(s) responsible for this crime; as well as, the means of perpetration and the circumstances surrounding the commission of the crime. …”
Accordingly, he requested a search warrant be issued authorizing the search of Apartment No. 3 “to include all rooms, garages, outbuildings, storage sheds, storage lockers and garbage-cans assigned for the use of the occupants of the suspected unit.”
A search pursuant to the warrant occurred on January 22, 2022, and yielded: “A black jacket, a black pair of pants, a black mask, two pair of black shoes, a price tag, and a cut gun cable lock.”
2. Evidence from the Suppression Hearing.
Sheriff’s Deputy Christian Lopez testified at the suppression hearing. Shortly before 11:00 a.m. on January 22, 2022, Lopez and his partner Deputy Pasalo responded to an animal welfare check on four dogs that had been left alone in Apartment No. 3 for days and had been heard crying in pain. The noise made by the dogs was increasing, and they were acting aggressively.
Before Lopez reached the apartment, L.D. spontaneously told him that Kailin lived at Apartment No. 3, she had previously lived with him, and she had heard he was the killer in the Greenlawn Way murder. She also confirmed there were four dogs at the apartment.
Lopez then spoke with K.F., who had called in the animal welfare check. K.F.
reported rescuing one of the injured dogs and putting it in a garage. K.F. also informed Lopez that homicide detectives were in her apartment upstairs collecting surveillance footage, and he went with her to her apartment to see the detective. The detective was investigating a homicide, and Lopez shared what L.D. had said and that he was there to do an animal welfare check. Lopez had previously seen the crime bulletin associated
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with the homicide case, and the detective asked him to lookout for an orange generator during the welfare check.
Lopez returned to Apartment No. 3 and saw through a broken window two malnourished pitbulls who appeared to be without food or water. Lopez saw a large mattress on the floor of the living room. The mattress had blood stains and there were large kitchen knives in the vicinity. The detached garage was open, and Lopez observed a dog with a cut ear that was actively bleeding. Lopez performed a sweep of the garage to look for any injured people or the fourth dog (a German Shepherd).
Animal control arrived to assist at approximately 11:45 a.m., and they tried to get the dogs to jump through the window. When their efforts failed, Lopez entered the apartment through the damaged window and unlocked the front door. Animal control took possession of the two pit bulls, and Lopez performed a protective sweep with his partner to look for the fourth dog but did not find another dog or any people. The apartment was a mess and easily accessible through the broken window. While clearing the apartment, Lopez saw “[b]lack jeans in plain view that were used in the homicide.” He saw the black leg with distinctive markings hanging out of a torn black plastic bag on the kitchen floor. Lopez removed the jeans to confirm they matched those depicted in the bulletin and noticed the bag also contained the matching jacket and a black ski mask. He took photos of the clothing and sent the pictures to the detectives.
It later became clear from the body camera footage that Lopez cleared the apartment first, then found clothes he thought might have been from the homicide, and later actually discovered clothes that matched the distinctive clothing used in the homicide. His body camera was off for four minutes before he located the latter distinctive clothing. Lopez denied opening or ripping the bag while the camera was off. Lopez then secured the apartment to protect the evidence therein given the broken window.
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The People also presented the testimony of Peters who had been investigating the murder for five days as of January 22, 2022, and had focused on Harris as a suspect. Peters went to K.F.’s apartment at approximately 10:30 a.m. to view her surveillance footage. That footage showed the suspect walking towards Apartment No. 3 wearing the same distinctive clothing as in other footage from the murder as well as on multiple other addresses’ security footage. More footage showed the suspect with a generator matching the one taken from the murder scene earlier that morning headed towards Apartment No. 3. The footage then showed that person headed back to the murder scene still in the distinctive clothing less than 30 minutes before the murder. Peters had collected surveillance footage essentially tracing the suspect’s movements from the murder scene to Apartment No. 3.
Peters connected Harris to Apartment No. 3 and confirmed Harris’s height and weight were consistent with the suspect from the video. Peters also suspected Harris because of a jail phone call by Harris’s girlfriend’s mother suggesting Harris had committed the murder. K.F. confirmed Harris lived at Apartment No. 3 and the last time she had seen him was the day of the murder.
Peters was not initially aware that Lopez was conducting a separate investigation.
Lopez told Peters that he had possibly located clothing in the kitchen worn by the suspect, and Peters left to draft a search warrant. He asked the deputies to secure the apartment pending the issuance of the warrant. Peters would have sought the search warrant even without the discovery of the clothing because they had already connected Harris to the apartment, the jail call suggested he committed the murder, and the video footage traced the suspect in the same clothing from the murder to the apartment. If Lopez had not been there, Peters would have asked patrol to secure the apartment pending the issuance of the warrant.
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3. The Trial Court’s Ruling The trial court denied Harris’s motion. The court started by determining that Harris had abandoned the apartment and therefore did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy therein. Alternatively, the court determined the deputies lawfully entered the apartment due to exigent circumstances as a result of the call for a welfare check on the dogs, poor appearance of the dogs, mattress with blood, and knives in plain view from the broken window. However, the trial court determined that the exigent circumstances ended when the deputies concluded their protective sweep and reported there were no more dogs or people inside the apartment. Accordingly, the deputies had no basis to remain inside the apartment without a warrant, although they had the right to secure the premises pending a warrant. Nevertheless, deputies remained in the apartment and found the clothes.
The court further concluded that after excising the information derived from the illicit search, there was sufficient probable cause to issue the warrant. Therefore, the court denied Harris’s motion under either the independent source or inevitable discovery doctrines.
4. The Jury’s Verdict and Harris’s Sentence The jury found Harris guilty of murder (count one) and found true the special circumstances. The jury also found Harris guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm (count three) and three of the misdemeanor tampering with a vehicle counts. The jury found Harris not guilty of the burglary (count two), and the trial court dismissed two of the misdemeanor counts on the People’s motion for insufficient evidence.
At a bifurcated court trial, the trial court found the prior strike allegation true. The court sentenced Harris to a term of life without the possibility of parole for count one plus 25 years to life for the firearm enhancement. The court imposed and stayed a four-year term on count three under Penal Code section 654 and declined to impose any additional time for Harris’s misdemeanor convictions. Harris declined the trial court’s express
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invitation “to be heard” prior to the pronouncement of sentence, and following that pronouncement, he did not object or otherwise argue that the trial court should have stayed the firearm enhancement pursuant to Penal Code section 1385.
Harris timely appealed.
DISCUSSION
1. Motion to Suppress Evidence Harris contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence by: (1) treating deputies’ postexigency sweep as “reasonable” and (2) admitting the evidence under either the inevitable discovery or independent source doctrines. While there may be merit to Harris’s first contention given that the trial court concluded the exigency justifying the warrantless entry expired prior to the discovery of the distinctive clothing, we conclude he has failed to demonstrate the trial court otherwise erred in denying his motion.
“In ruling on a motion to suppress, the trial court is charged with (1) finding the historical facts; (2) selecting the applicable rule of law; and (3) applying the latter to the former to determine whether or not the rule of law as applied to the established facts has been violated. [Citation.] On appeal, we review the trial court’s resolution of the first inquiry, which involves questions of fact, under the deferential substantial-evidence standard, but subject the second and third inquiries to independent review.” (People v. Parson (2008) 44 Cal.4th 332, 345.)
As a preliminary matter, we note Harris fails to challenge the trial court’s alternative basis for its ruling denying his motion to suppress evidence: that Harris lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the apartment because it had been abandoned. Harris’s failure to challenge this alternative basis alone justifies the denial of his claim of error. (See, e.g., People v. Parson, supra, 44 Cal.4th at p. 345 [individual who abandons property has no expectation of privacy therein for purposes of the 4th
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Amend.]; People v. Weiss (1999) 20 Cal.4th 1073, 1076-1077 (Weiss) [reviewing court accepts unchallenged determinations of the lower court].) Putting this failure aside, Harris has also failed to show the trial court erred in applying the independent source exception to this case.
“The Fourth Amendment provides ‘[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated … .’ (U.S. Const., 4th Amend.) This guarantee has been incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution and is applicable to the states. [Citation.] A similar guarantee against unreasonable government searches is set forth in the state Constitution (Cal. Const., art. I, § 13) but, since voter approval of Proposition 8 in June 1982, state and federal claims relating to exclusion of evidence on grounds of unreasonable search and seizure are measured by the same standard. [Citations.] ‘Our state Constitution thus forbids the courts to order the exclusion of evidence at trial as a remedy for an unreasonable search and seizure unless that remedy is required by the federal Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court.’ ” (People v. Camacho (2000) 23 Cal.4th 824, 829-830.)
Under the Fourth Amendment, warrantless searches of a home are presumptively unreasonable (People v. Superior Court (Corbett) (2017) 8 Cal.App.5th 670, 680), subject to certain exceptions. In this case, the trial court determined, and Harris does not challenge, that Lopez and his partner lawfully entered the apartment through a broken window due to exigent circumstances and in response to a neighbor’s call reporting the abandonment of four injured and distressed dogs. Finding only three dogs (two in the apartment and one in garage), the court determined that the deputies conducted a “protective sweep” of the apartment to look for the last dog and later informed animal control officers that they were “100 percent sure” there were no other animals; following this sweep, the trial court determined the exigency justifying the warrantless entry ended.
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(See, e.g., People v. Duncan (1986) 42 Cal.3d 91, 99 [justification for warrantless entry lasts only as long as the exigency necessitating it].)
Harris challenges the search that followed wherein the deputies discovered clothing consistent with those worn by the suspect in a black bag in the kitchen. However, as Harris acknowledges, “[i]t has long been established that even if a criminal investigation involved some illegal conduct, courts will admit evidence derived from an ‘independent source.’ ” (Weiss, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 1077.) In instances where a later obtained search warrant contains illegally obtained information, the appropriate “independent source” inquiry is to excise the illegally obtained information and determine whether the officers would have sought the warrant without it and whether the remaining information supplies probable cause. If all of these circumstances exist, the warrant is valid. (Id. at pp. 1074-1075, 1082.) We find that to be the case here.
In this case, at the same time that the deputies were resolving the exigency involving the dogs at Apartment No. 3, other detectives investigating the murder were at a neighbor’s apartment reviewing surveillance footage that showed a distinctively dressed individual consistent with Harris’s height and weight in front of Harris’s apartment carrying items consistent with those taken from the murder victim. Those detectives had previously tied Harris to Apartment No. 3, had a jail call suggesting he had committed the murder, and tracked the individual who murdered G.M. from the scene of the murder to the front of Apartment No. 3 through security footage. As set out at length, ante, Peters’s affidavit in support of the search warrant meticulously laid out this evidence, and we conclude that even without evidence of Lopez’s observation of the distinct clothing, the warrant amply establishes the probable cause to search the apartment. (See, e.g., People v. Gesner (1988) 202 Cal.App.3d 581, 590 [judging sufficiency of probable cause under a totality of the circumstances and asking whether the magistrate had information establishing “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place”].)
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Moreover, the testimony established that Peters would have sought the warrant to search Apartment No. 3 even if Lopez had not been investigating at the apartment that day or discovered the distinctive clothing in that apartment during the illicit search. Under these circumstances, the independent source exception has been established under Weiss, and the trial court rightfully denied Harris’s motion to suppress. (Weiss, supra, 20 Cal.4th at pp. 1074-1075, 1082.)
2. The Firearm Enhancement Harris complains the trial court erred by failing to dismiss his firearm enhancement (Pen. Code, § 12022.53, subd. (d)) pursuant to Penal Code section 1385, subdivision (c) given that his enhancement has resulted in a sentence that is over 20 years. Acknowledging this court has previously determined in People v. Torres (2025) 113 Cal.App.5th 88 that Penal Code section 1385, subdivision (c)(2)(C) does not apply if the base sentence is already over 20 years, Harris asks that we revisit this decision. Harris also asks that we forgive his failure to raise this issue in the trial court.
We agree with the People that Harris’s failure to raise this argument in the trial court has forfeited it on appeal. (People v. Carmony (2004) 33 Cal.4th 367, 375-376; People v. Torres, supra, 113 Cal.App.5th at p. 92.) Moreover, Harris has not shown the failure of his counsel to object was prejudicial as we see no reason to revisit our conclusion in Torres that the mitigating circumstance found in Penal Code section 1385, subdivision (c)(2)(C) does not apply to sentences with a base term already exceeding 20 years. (Torres, at p. 93.) Here, the trial court sentenced Harris to life without the possibility of parole for the murder, and as such, his sentence already exceeded 20 years. Accordingly, this claim fails.
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DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
/s/ EARL, P. J.
We concur:
/s/ HULL, J.
/s/ KRAUSE, J.