People v. Leggett CA4/1

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 8, 2021
DocketD079060
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Leggett CA4/1 (People v. Leggett 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. Leggett CA4/1, (Cal. Ct. App. 2021).

Opinion

Filed 12/8/21 P. v. Leggett CA4/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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, D079060

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v. (Super. Ct. No. CC079620)

MIEKO MICHELLE LEGGETT,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, Arthur Bocanegra, Judge. Reversed and remanded with instructions. Jonathan Grossman, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Rob Bonta, Attorney Generals, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey M. Laurence, Assistant Attorney General, René A. Chacón and Masha A. Dabiza, Deputy Attorneys General for Plaintiff and Respondent. INTRODUCTION Mieko Michelle Leggett appeals from the summary denial of her petition to vacate a first degree murder conviction under Penal Code section

1170.95.1 The trial court found she was not entitled to relief because the record of conviction, including the jury’s true finding on a robbery-murder special circumstance and the appellate opinion from the direct appeal, established she was a major participant in the underlying felony who acted with reckless indifference to human life. Leggett asserts the jury’s special circumstance finding does not preclude relief and the court erred by relying on the previous appellate opinion and resolving factual disputes without issuing an order to show cause. She also contends her attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to object to the court’s consideration of the appellate court opinion. We follow this court’s recent decisions in People v. Wilson (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th 665 (Wilson) (Irion, J., O’Rourke, Acting P. J., Guerrero, J.) and People v. Arias (2021) 66 Cal.App.5th 987 (Arias) (McConnell, P. J., Dato, J., Guerrero, J.), and conclude the felony-murder special circumstance finding, which was made prior to People v. Banks (2015) 61 Cal.4th 788 (Banks) and People v. Clark (2016) 63 Cal.4th 522 (Clark), does not categorically bar

Leggett from relief under section 1170.95.2 Further, as the California Supreme Court recently clarified in People v. Lewis (2021) 11 Cal.5th 952, 959 (Lewis), it was permissible for the trial court to consider the previous

1 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code.

2 We acknowledge another panel of this court has previously reached the opposite conclusion. (People v. Gomez (2020) 52 Cal.App.5th 1 (Gomez) (O’Rourke, J., Benke, Acting P. J., Huffman, J.), review granted Oct. 14, 2020, S264033.)

2 appellate court opinion as part of the record of conviction, and Leggett’s counsel did not provide ineffective assistance of counsel by providing a copy of the opinion to the court. However, the previous appellate opinion in this case is not sufficient, on its own, to establish whether the special circumstance finding satisfied the standards set forth in Banks and Clark. We therefore reverse the trial court’s order denying the petition and remand the matter for resumption of proceedings. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY The following short summary of the facts is taken from this court’s opinion affirming the judgment in People v. Kibler (Dec. 4, 2003, H024455) 2003 WL 22872727 [nonpub. opn.]. Clarence Kibler shot and killed a gas station attendant in the early morning hours of July 25, 2000. A customer found the attendant lying face down on the floor in the bathroom surrounded in blood approximately an hour and a half later. The victim’s wrists were bound behind his back and his pants pockets were turned inside out. There was a significant amount of trauma to his face and a gunshot wound in his neck consistent with being shot at close range. There were two distinct sets of footprints in the blood on the floor and larger blood droplets near the toilet which indicated coagulation and that the assault occurred over a period of time. In addition, there was a partially smoked cigarette with mid-velocity blood spatter on top of the shoe prints which indicated someone had begun smoking and then tossed the cigarette onto the floor during the assault. There was toilet paper and a blood-soaked t-shirt near the victim’s head. The police also found a dog repellant similar to mace on two walls and the upper right shoulder of the victim’s shirt.

3 Leggett and Kibler used the victim’s credit card for gas later that same morning and were subsequently identified and arrested. The police searched their car and found a number of the victim’s belongings, shoes and clothing with medium velocity blood spatter stains, a disassembled .25 caliber semi- automatic handgun with five loose bullets, cigarettes, and a can of dog repellant spray consistent with the spray found on the walls and the victim’s body. Video footage from the store’s surveillance system showed the following: “The attendant . . . was inside the cashier area at various times. At 1:22 a.m., a female [later determined to be Leggett] walked up to the window and talked with the attendant. The woman left and walked towards the restroom. At 1:24 a.m., [the attendant] left the cashier area and passed in front of the window. Three minutes later, a person came back from the bathroom area and passed the front window. Within the next minute, the same person appears to walk back to the bathroom area. Five minutes later, a black male with a shaved head and ‘roundish’ face, weighing about 200 pounds [later determined to be Kibler], entered the cashier area. The man had a glove on his right hand. At 1:36 a.m., the same woman came up to the window and looked at the male. The male was trying to open the cash register. He turned and peered out the window, and held up his left hand with his thumb and index finger together as if holding something towards the window. Two minutes later, the female reappeared outside the cashier window; moved back and forth; peered through the window watching the activity of the male; looked back towards the bathroom; and gestured with her arm towards the bathroom. The male passed by the window back towards the bathroom.”

4 The cash register was locked when the police arrived, and the cash remained inside. A latent fingerprint lifted from the pass-through drawer inside the cashier’s booth was a match for Leggett. A witness told police he saw a car stop at a fast-food restaurant next to the gas station at around 1:13 a.m. A six-foot tall “ ‘African-American or Hispanic’ ” male got out of the passenger side of the car. The man paced around as if looking for something and then bent down and picked up an item from the bushes. The car drove off and the man walked to the corner of the fast-food restaurant and then towards the gas station. Leggett testified in her own defense at trial and admitted being present at the scene of the murder. According to Leggett, she and Kibler were selling drugs together around the time of the murder. She was also using cocaine and methamphetamine but she hid her habit from Kibler, who did not use drugs. She prostituted herself to pay for the drugs and, the night before the murder, she agreed to orally copulate the gas station attendant for money. The attendant asked her to come back around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, when business was slow. Leggett testified she told Kibler she was going to sell drugs, but he thought she was actually going to meet someone and insisted on going with her. They argued and Leggett eventually agreed Kibler could come as long as he waited out of sight while she made the deal.

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Related

People v. Avanessian
90 Cal. Rptr. 2d 367 (California Court of Appeal, 1999)
People v. Smith
124 P.3d 730 (California Supreme Court, 2005)
People v. Banks
351 P.3d 330 (California Supreme Court, 2015)
People v. Clark
372 P.3d 811 (California Supreme Court, 2016)

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Bluebook (online)
People v. Leggett CA4/1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-leggett-ca41-calctapp-2021.