People v. Ingram CA4/1

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 11, 2025
DocketD084640
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Ingram CA4/1 (People v. Ingram CA4/1) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Ingram CA4/1, (Cal. Ct. App. 2025).

Opinion

Filed 12/11/25 P. v. Ingram CA4/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

THE PEOPLE, D084640

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v. (Super. Ct. No. SCN445480)

LAKEITH TRENTELL INGRAM,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Saba Sheibani, Judge. Affirmed. Stephanie L. Gunther, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Assistant Attorney General, Christopher Beesley and Daniel Rogers, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. According to Lakeith Trentell Ingram, in July 2023 he agreed to help a friend who was allegedly moving but in actuality burglarized one residence and tried to burglarize another. The two men were apprehended later the same day. A jury convicted Ingram of one count of burglary (Pen. Code, § 459; count 1) and one count of attempted burglary (§§ 664, 459; count 2) and found true the allegation as to both counts that the properties were inhabited dwellings (§ 460, subd. (a)). The court sentenced Ingram to two years of formal probation. Ingram raises three issues on appeal. First, Ingram claims the trial court’s mistake of fact instruction as to count 1 was prejudicially erroneous because it required him to disprove two mental states, one of which was inapplicable to burglary. We conclude that regardless of any error, Ingram was not prejudiced because, based on the record evidence, the two beliefs the instruction required the jury to find Ingram possessed were inextricably intertwined. Second, Ingram contends the trial court prejudicially erred in failing to instruct on mistake of fact as to count 2. We conclude Ingram forfeited this challenge by failing to request the instruction. In the alternative, Ingram claims his trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance in failing to request such instruction. We disagree. Because instruction on mistake of fact as to count 2 was not supported by substantial evidence, defense counsel’s performance did not “f[a]ll below an objective standard of reasonableness . . . [¶] under prevailing professional norms.” (Strickland v. Washington (1984) 466 U.S. 668, 688.) Finally, Ingram argues the trial court erroneously delegated its judicial authority in ordering him to complete a program of residential drug treatment and aftercare “if directed by the probation officer.” We conclude that because the trial court authorized a residential treatment program, it determined any limitations on Ingram’s liberty interests were appropriate, and accordingly the court did not improperly delegate that authority. We thus affirm.

2 I. A. According to Ingram, he met his codefendant while playing basketball around January 2023, and they became friends. In July 2023, Ingram was homeless, without an income, and living at a motel. Ingram’s friend asked him to help him move and offered to pay him. The morning of July 10, Ingram picked his friend up from his father’s house. The friend gave Ingram directions to Crest Drive in Carlsbad, where Ingram parked his car. Ingram’s friend told Ingram he “would be right back,” and Ingram saw him walk down the street and turn onto Buena Vista Way. Ingram may have gotten out of the car to stretch and have a cigarette but otherwise sat in his car, watching videos on his phone, for about 20 minutes until his friend returned emptyhanded. Ingram denied going to Buena Vista Way himself or knowing why his friend asked to stop there. Ingram’s friend got back into the car and gave Ingram directions to the house he claimed to be moving out of, which was located “like, .1, .2 miles away” on Sausalito Drive. Ingram parked, his friend entered the house through the front door, and Ingram sat and waited. After 10 to 15 minutes, Ingram saw “a lady walking her dog” who stopped and looked at him. Ingram approached her to ask if everything was okay, but she just looked at Ingram “awkward[ly].” The woman “just kind of walked off.” Ingram entered the house to tell his friend about the neighbor and ask if he was ready to go, and the friend told him to grab a bag by the staircase. Because “[t]here was stuff thrown everywhere,” Ingram did not want his friend “to think [he] was stealing anything in the house,” so he recorded himself carrying the bag downstairs.

3 After Ingram set the bag by the front door and walked out of the house, he saw a man walking toward him while recording a video on his cell phone. After a brief interaction with the man, Ingram saw his friend exit the house and put “stuff” in the car. Ingram and his friend got into the car. Ingram’s friend told him to “‘leave,’” so Ingram drove off and took his friend back to his father’s house. The night before, Ingram took a screenshot of an Internet search for “‘how does weight factor in gold price,’” purportedly because his friend had asked him “‘how do you calculate gold?’” B. In July 2023, John S. lived on Buena Vista Way. Shortly before 8:00 a.m. on July 10, he was driving back to his house when he saw a man he identified as Ingram standing in front of his driveway. When Ingram saw John turning into the driveway, he walked down Buena Vista Way toward Crest Drive. John entered his house and went to the kitchen, where he saw a man— later identified as Ingram’s codefendant—“trying to jam the door open” from the outside. John went over to where the man was behind the glass and asked, “‘What are you doing?’” After a brief dialogue, John grabbed his cell phone off the kitchen island and called the police. John’s doorbell camera recorded Ingram’s codefendant walking away. Several hours later, law enforcement took John to a location to identify two suspects. He identified the first man, Ingram’s codefendant, as the one who tried to break into his house. He identified the second man, Ingram, as the man standing in front of his house “kind of looking out if someone came home.”

4 C. At the relevant time, Cheryl S. and her husband, William C., lived on Sausalito Avenue. At about 9:00 a.m. on July 10, Cheryl was watering the plants in the front yard when she saw a car “pulled up into the lawn of” the house next door. She identified Ingram as the man standing next to the car. Cheryl “dropped [her] hose and ran over there and asked him what he was doing.” Ingram yelled to someone inside the house, who came out. Cheryl asked the man who exited the house “what he was doing” and told him “he wasn’t supposed to be there.” She then yelled to William, who was working in the backyard, “to get his phone” while she retrieved hers from inside the house. Cheryl called the police and told her husband to take photographs of the car. When William came into the front yard, he saw a man he identified as Ingram standing by the driver’s door of the car and another man standing on the other side of the car. William began taking photographs of the car and men. Both Cheryl and William saw Ingram enter the driver’s side of the car and the other man enter the passenger’s side and drive off. About thirty minutes to an hour later, law enforcement took Cheryl and William to identify two suspects. Both identified the first man as Ingram and the second man, Ingram’s codefendant, as the man who exited the house. They noted that other than now being shirtless, both men were wearing the same clothes as at the time of the burglary. D.

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People v. Ingram CA4/1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-ingram-ca41-calctapp-2025.