People v. Lopez

168 Cal. App. 4th 801, 85 Cal. Rptr. 3d 675, 2008 Cal. App. LEXIS 2345
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 24, 2008
DocketF053389
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 168 Cal. App. 4th 801 (People v. Lopez) 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. Lopez, 168 Cal. App. 4th 801, 85 Cal. Rptr. 3d 675, 2008 Cal. App. LEXIS 2345 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008).

Opinion

Opinion

GOMES, J.

On the evening of August 24, 2003, a car carrying two Sureños criminal street gang members—Victor Lopez, the driver, and Antonio Barajas, the passenger—stopped inside a gang-infested alley in a high-crime Modesto neighborhood. Eric Adorno, standing next to a van with a red bandanna on the steering column and wearing a red jersey, blue jeans, and red and white shoes, walked up to the car. A bullet fired from the passenger side of the car struck Adorno between the eyebrows and killed him. Police observed a red baseball cap on the ground near his head. Red is the color commonly associated with the Norteños criminal street gang.

A jury found Barajas and Lopez guilty of first degree murder, found ' criminal street gang allegations true as to both, and found true as to Barajas an allegation of personal and intentional discharge of a firearm causing death. (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 186.22, subd. (b)(1), 12022.53, subd. (d).) 1 The trial court sentenced Barajas to 50 years to life (25 years to life for first *804 degree murder and 25 years to life consecutively for the firearm enhancement) and sentenced Lopez to 25 years to life for first degree murder.

ISSUES ON APPEAL

Nine issues arise on appeal. Two are evidentiary. Barajas and Lopez (1) argue insufficiency of the evidence that the Sureños were a criminal street gang and (2) characterize as prejudicial error the trial court’s ruling that a university sociology professor could not testify that gang culture would have prevented premeditation and instead given rise to an actual belief in the need for self-defense.

Three issues challenge jury instructions. Lopez argues (3) the trial court’s instructing with CALCRIM No. 355 on a defendant’s right not to testify without modifying the instruction to reflect his testifying in his own defense impermissibly lowered the prosecution’s burden of proof. Barajas and Lopez argue (4) that CALCRIM No. 521 erroneously conflated the elements of first degree murder and impermissibly lowered the prosecution’s burden of proof by precluding the possibility of a second degree murder verdict and (5) that the trial court’s rereading of certain instructions was a prejudicially inadequate response to the jury’s request for clarification.

Additionally, Barajas and Lopez argue (6) that the section 1203.11 emergency medical services restitution fines which the statute authorizes solely “as a condition of probation,” must be stricken from the judgments since neither Barajas nor Lopez received a grant of probation and (7) that cumulative error requires reversal of the judgments. Finally, Lopez (8) argues that his deputy public defender’s representation of him after the disclosure of a prosecution witness’s prior representation by her office was a conflict of interest and (9) challenges the trial court’s denial of his midtrial Marsden 2 motion as “not timely.”

As to both judgments, we will remand with directions to the trial court to strike the section 1203.11 restitution fines. Otherwise we will affirm Barajas’s judgment. With reference to Lopez’s judgment, we will reverse and remand with directions to the trial court to conduct a posttrial Marsden hearing and to exercise judicial discretion to order a new trial, to reinstate the judgment, or to proceed otherwise as authorized by law.

*805 DISCUSSION

1.-7. *

8. Lopez: Conflict of Interest

Lopez argues that his deputy public defender’s representation of him after the disclosure of a prosecution witness’s prior representation by her office was a conflict of interest. The Attorney General argues the contrary.

On May 11, 2007, day 26 of the 42-day jury trial, Lopez’s attorney and one of her colleagues from the public defender’s office appeared in court. Her colleague said he had learned just days earlier that his office had represented prospective witness Carlos Chavez on an escape prior but that nowhere in the case management system that the district attorney’s office and the public defender’s office shared did Chavez “show up as a witness in this case.” As to “whether or not we have a conflict,” her colleague said that they “know nothing about that conviction other than that there is a conviction” and that neither he nor she had spoken about Lopez’s case with the former deputy public defender who had represented Chavez on the escape prior.

The trial court inquired whether the public defender’s office intended to declare a conflict if the prosecutor were to call Chavez as a witness. Lopez’s attorney and her colleague both requested a continuance to investigate and to confer with the county public defender. With the concurrence of the prosecutor and Chavez’s attorney, the trial court put the matter over to the following week.

On May 16, 2007, day 28 of the 42-day jury trial, the trial court and half a dozen attorneys—Lopez’s attorney, her colleague, the county public defender, the prosecutor, Barajas’s attorney, and Chavez’s attorney—discussed the circumstances under which Chavez might testify. Chavez’s attorney expressed his client’s willingness to waive any conflict of interest arising from his prior representation by the public defender’s office and to testify for the prosecution if he were to receive use immunity, transactional immunity, and a release from custody. The prosecutor agreed to all three conditions. Chavez’s attorney noted parenthetically that “obviously, there’s another side that has to waive also,” but the trial court replied, “I don’t know that. I’m just trying to find out what you want to do. Then we’ll talk to everybody else to see what they want to do.” After the trial court inquired, “So are there any other *806 conflict issues anybody wants to waive then before we proceed tomorrow?” Lopez’s attorney responded:

“[LOPEZ’S ATTORNEY]: Mr. Lopez has informed us that he does not intend to waive the conflict.
“THE COURT: Well, I haven’t heard that there’s a conflict.
“[LOPEZ’S ATTORNEY]: He believes that there is.
“THE COURT: Well, I need to hear that, though, from the attorney. I don’t generally take the client’s word that there’s a conflict, and if the attorney doesn’t tell me anything, I’m taking that at face value.
“[LOPEZ’S ATTORNEY]: He believes there’s a conflict because of our former representation of Mr. Chavez in both Juvenile Court and in the adult Superior Court and, apparently, we represented him and appeared with him as recently as April of this year.
“THE COURT: Do you want to put anything factually on the record about that?
“[LOPEZ’S ATTORNEY]: Well, I can’t. When this issue first arose, I contacted [the county public defender] wanting initially to set up an appointment for [my colleague] and I to speak to [the county public defender]. As it turns out, he was getting ready to leave the office; I was calling from the Court.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
168 Cal. App. 4th 801, 85 Cal. Rptr. 3d 675, 2008 Cal. App. LEXIS 2345, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-lopez-calctapp-2008.