People v. Martinez CA3

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 9, 2016
DocketC077727
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Martinez CA3 (People v. Martinez CA3) 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. Martinez CA3, (Cal. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

Filed 3/9/16 P. v. Martinez CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 (Tehama) ----

THE PEOPLE, C077727

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. Nos. NCR89077, NCR89078, v. NCR89305, NCR89616)

FELIX MARTINEZ,

Defendant and Appellant.

A jury convicted defendant Felix Martinez of all charges in an information that consolidated the allegations of four complaints (apparently without consolidating the four cases) involving events in August, October, and December 2013, which included unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, an attack on a coworker on the street, a failure to appear, and an attack on a fellow jail inmate; defendant had previously admitted

1 the various special allegations that were attached to the nine counts. The trial court sentenced defendant to state prison for a term in excess of 34 years.1

To reorder his claims thematically, defendant contends the trial court erred in allowing an expert witness to offer an opinion on why various gang eyewitnesses testified as they did; in striking the response of a witness as irrelevant; in failing to instruct on the evaluation of expert testimony; in failing to fashion an instruction on the elements of failure to appear; in instructing on the use of defendant’s prior convictions in assessing his credibility; and in imposing multiple on-bail enhancements for a single period of “own recognizance” (OR) release. The People concede the latter point. We agree that the conviction for failure to appear (case No. NCR89616—count IX) must be reversed. We shall thus reverse in part and otherwise affirm the judgment as modified.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The facts underlying the offenses defendant committed in August and October are not material to his arguments on appeal, and we therefore omit them. Our factual focus is on the December 2013 assault in the jail (case No. NCR89078—count V).

Defendant’s cellmate (who was still in jail at the time of defendant’s trial) testified defendant was a member of a Los Angeles subset of an umbrella criminal gang;2 the cellmate was a member of a different local subset. Defendant negotiated to obtain the role of “shot caller” in the jail after its previous holder was released, a position to which

1 Defendant’s contentions on appeal do not for the most part require us to spell out the particulars of his convictions and enhancements or his sentence. We will incorporate the pertinent components in the Discussion. 2 The gang expert first became aware that defendant was living in Tehama County during a parole sweep of gang members in 2004 or 2005. Defendant owned property locally, and did not involve himself directly with the local subsets of the umbrella gang because this would have diminished his stature as a Los Angeles member.

2 inmate members of the various subsets of the umbrella gang owed obedience regardless of defendant’s out-of-town affiliation. Failure to heed his orders would result in discipline, which could be anything from a beating to a stabbing.

There was a power struggle occurring between defendant and a rival inmate, who had also claimed the role of shot caller but was falling out of favor with fellow gang members. On Christmas Day, defendant told his cellmate that they would be disciplining the victim. The victim had not heeded a directive to disregard the rival inmate, who was a friend of the victim. On the following morning, there was an announcement that there would be yard time. Defendant and his cellmate went to the victim’s cell. (As members of the same gang, the inmates were released to participate as a group in activities such as yard time.) At defendant’s direction, the cellmate entered the victim’s cell first and held him in a bear hug, rolling him to the floor. Defendant had said that he intended to stab the victim’s face and cut out his eyes. As the cellmate watched, defendant swung overhand about a dozen times, striking the victim’s face. The victim called defendant by his nickname and asked why he was doing this. As defendant was being taken away from the cell, he shouted to the nearby rival inmate that the rival would be next.

The cellmate acknowledged that his act of testifying would not be acceptable at all to his gang, which would “green light” him for violent retaliation. He had dropped out of the gang after the incident and was in protective custody.

A guard responded to the attack. He pulled the cellmate out of the victim’s cell and told him to get on the ground. The cellmate did not immediately comply with the order. The guard also ordered defendant to get on the ground; defendant complied, and the guard handcuffed him. The cellmate had blood on his hands; defendant was covered with blood but uninjured. The victim’s face was bleeding profusely; it appeared there was a cut on his right eyelid. At the hospital, the victim purported not to be able to identify his assailants; when the guard provided him with their names, the victim simply

3 said “Those fuckers.” A piece of a bloody pencil was retrieved from the toilet next to which defendant’s cellmate had been standing; other parts of it were on the floor and on a table next to the toilet. The victim suffered a one-centimeter cut to his right eyelid and corneal abrasions in both eyes.

Another inmate who was a former member of another East Los Angeles subset of the umbrella gang had received a message from defendant (with whom he was familiar “from the street” in Corning) directing him to join in an attack on the victim and the rival inmate. Because he considered himself a dropout from the gang since 2005, he did not comply. The former gang member’s cell was one level up and across from the victim’s cell. He could see the front half of it. On the morning of the attack, he saw defendant and his cellmate go into the victim’s cell, and could hear the victim screaming. He heard the victim calling defendant by his nickname and asking why he was attacking him. When the guards arrived, defendant’s cellmate came out of the cell and lay down on the floor, at which point other guards used a Taser on him. He thought he heard defendant warn the rival inmate that the rival would be next while the guards were taking defendant away. The former gang member also acknowledged he was at risk of retaliation both because he did not obey defendant, and because he was testifying against him.

The victim stonewalled. He denied knowing anyone with the name of defendant, defendant’s cellmate, the former gang member, the rival inmate, or the captain in charge of the jail who interviewed him in January 2014. He at first acknowledged recognizing defendant as someone he had seen in the jail, though later testified that he had never seen defendant before. He did not know anyone with defendant’s nickname. He did not have anything to say about his injury. He was not a member of a gang or familiar with any gang. He denied being afraid to testify.

The jail captain had testified multiple times as a gang expert. He confirmed that the former gang member had been documented as a gang dropout, and that one could see

4 the front portion of the victim’s cell from the vantage point of the former gang member’s cell. He recalled being told of defendant threatening the rival inmate while being taken away (a threat that the jail staff took seriously enough to transfer the rival to a jail in another county), even if this was not reflected in the written reports.

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People v. Martinez CA3, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-martinez-ca3-calctapp-2016.