People v. Hernandez CA4/3

California Court of Appeal·Decided August 31, 2021·No. G059283·Unpublished

Opinion

Filed 8/31/21 P. v. Hernandez CA4/3

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION THREE

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent, G059283

v. (Super. Ct. No. 17WF1927)

CHRISTIAN ROBERT HERNANDEZ, OPINION

Defendant and Appellant.

Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, Lance Jensen, Judge. Affirmed. John L. Staley, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Michael Pulos and Nora S. Weyl, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. Christian Robert Hernandez appeals from the judgment after a jury convicted him of first degree burglary and robbery and found he personally used a firearm in the commission of the robbery. The jury was instructed with CALCRIM No. 315, which listed 13 factors for it to consider when evaluating the accuracy of the witness’s testimony identifying Hernandez as the perpetrator. One factor was how certain the witness was when he made the identification (the witness certainty factor or certainty of identification factor). Hernandez contends the trial court’s failure to excise this factor from CALCRIM No. 315 violated his state and federal rights to due process. While this appeal was pending, our Supreme Court rejected a due process challenge to the witness certainty factor in CALCRIM No. 315. (People v. Lemcke (2021) 11 Cal.5th 644 (Lemcke).) We obtained supplemental briefing from the parties addressing Lemcke’s impact on Hernandez’s claim. In his supplemental brief, Hernandez maintains inclusion of the witness certainty factor in the instruction violated his right to due process and he asserts that even if it “did not rise to the level of a due process violation” it was nonetheless prejudicial error. We disagree and affirm the judgment. FACTS A. The Burglary and Robbery Around noon on August 31, 2017, Ryan E. (Ryan) was in his garage, where he had two couches and a chair. He was standing with his back to the garage door, which was open about two feet from the floor, when a man, later identified as Hernandez, suddenly pushed the door up another foot and ducked underneath it. Hernandez shoved Ryan forward. Ryan landed with his back against the chair in the rear of his garage. Hernandez was wearing a blue painter’s mask covering his face from the bridge of his nose to under his bottom lip. Pointing a black handgun with a silver tip at Ryan, Hernandez first demanded “the weed” and then “the money.” Ryan pointed to $40 on the couch and told

2 Hernandez to take it. Hernandez grabbed the cash and a jar of marijuana that was on the counter. Hernandez looked around the garage, opened a cabinet under the counter, and pulled out a small safe Ryan had inside, which contained his high school class ring and other personal mementos. Before leaving, Hernandez put the gun to Ryan’s head and threatened to kill him. Holding the gun in one hand and the jar of marijuana in the other, Hernandez kicked the safe out the partially open garage door and left. Ryan heard a car door close and a car speed away. He walked out of his garage and saw a silver car driving away, down the alley. Ryan called the police. Officer Eric Tittle was the first to arrive. Ryan recounted what happened and described his assailant as a Hispanic male, about 20 years old, with a heavy build, weighing about 225 pounds, and approximately five feet nine or 10 inches in height. Ryan told the police he suspected his friend C.L., a minor, was involved but that C.L. was not the man who robbed him. B. Investigation and Identification Officer Jacob Sansenbach canvassed the area for video surveillance footage and located a nearby camera that recorded a vehicle leaving the alleyway after the robbery. Although he was unable to see the car’s driver in the video, he was able to capture the car’s license plate. A records check revealed the car was registered to either Anthony Mesta or Hilda G. in Los Angeles. The day after the robbery, one of Ryan’s friends contacted him and told him to look up “Bhristian” on Instragram and watch his “story.” When he did, Ryan saw photographs of C.L. and another man with his stolen property and the gun used in the robbery. Ryan immediately recognized the man in the Instragram photographs and video as the man who robbed him. Some of the photographs had captions. One photograph had the caption “took a N* safe,” and another was captioned “just jugged a f* boy,” which Ryan understood to mean just robbed someone. One photograph of the man wearing Ryan’s class ring was captioned, “Con mi champ.” Ryan noted the photographs

3 had been posted the day of the robbery. He recorded the video, took screenshots of the photographs, and then sent Sansenbach an e-mail containing the video of Bhristian’s Instagram story. Ryan checked C.L.’s Twitter feed and saw that the day before the robbery, C.L. had been communicating with a person using the handle “B Christian” 1 about setting up a robbery for the day Ryan was robbed. Using his cell phone, Ryan captured this Twitter thread with a screenshot. After getting Ryan’s e-mail, Sansenbach brought Ryan to the police station, where an analyst extracted the videos and screenshots from Ryan’s phone. Sansenbach determined the Bhristian social media accounts belonged to Hernandez. He obtained Hernandez’s driver’s license photograph and compared it to the video, confirming Hernandez was the person in the video. Two days after the robbery, Sansenbach showed Ryan a sixpack photographic lineup containing Hernandez’s photograph. After viewing the photographic lineup for about 10 seconds, Ryan identified Hernandez as the person that robbed him, mentioning the protrusion of his checks and the upper portion of Hernandez’s face and eyes were similar to the robber’s. About five days after the robbery, Sansenbach executed a search warrant at Hernandez’s home but did not find a gun or Ryan’s property. C. Trial Proceedings Hernandez was charged with first degree residential burglary (Pen. Code, 2 §§ 459, 460, subd. (a); count 1) and first degree robbery (§§ 211, 212.5, subd. (a); count 2). As to the burglary, it was alleged that a nonaccomplice was present in the residence during the commission of the offense (§ 667.5, subd. (c)(21)), and as to the

1 A Twitter handle is the username unique to your account and appears in your profile URL. 2 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code.

4 robbery, it was alleged Hernandez personally used a firearm in the commission of the offense (§ 12022.53, subd. (b)). Hernandez’s first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a verdict. The prosecution filed an amended information prior to the second jury trial, adding an allegation that Hernandez was ineligible for probation due to use of a firearm (§ 1203.06, subd. (a)(1)). 1. The Prosecution’s Case At the second trial, Ryan described the incident in the garage and his discovery of the photographs and video posted on Hernandez’s Instragram account and the Twitter thread between C.L. and Hernandez. In court, Ryan identified Hernandez as the individual who robbed him and the person he saw with his stolen property in the Instagram video. Ryan described his ability to see Hernandez’s face during the robbery, explaining Hernandez was about two feet away from him during the robbery and the lighting was adequate enough to see Hernandez’s face.

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