People v. Matute

127 Cal. Rptr. 2d 472, 103 Cal. App. 4th 1437, 2002 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 11748, 2002 Daily Journal DAR 13709, 2002 Cal. App. LEXIS 5085
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 5, 2002
DocketB155099
StatusPublished
Cited by43 cases

This text of 127 Cal. Rptr. 2d 472 (People v. Matute) 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. Matute, 127 Cal. Rptr. 2d 472, 103 Cal. App. 4th 1437, 2002 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 11748, 2002 Daily Journal DAR 13709, 2002 Cal. App. LEXIS 5085 (Cal. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

Opinion

VOGEL (C. S.), P. J

Introduction

Defendant Franklin Matute challenges the judgment of conviction by which he was convicted of 15 counts of forcible rape. He contends that his due process rights were violated because the victim, his 15-year-old daughter, failed to give specific details regarding the time and circumstances of each count for which he was charged, and that the lack of due process was exacerbated by the trial court’s failure to give the jury a unanimity instruction. We find no reversible error and accordingly affirm the judgment of conviction.

*1440 Procedural Background

Appellant was charged by information with 15 counts of rape in violation of Penal Code section 261, subdivision (a)(2). 1 It was alleged as to each count that the act of sexual intercourse took place between August 1, 1999 and November 1, 2000, and the victim in each instance was J. M.

Appellant pleaded not guilty to each count.

A jury found appellant guilty of all charges. Appellant was sentenced to a state prison term of 120 years, representing the upper term of imprisonment, to run consecutively, for each of the 15 counts.

This appeal was taken from the judgment of conviction.

Factual Background

I. Prosecution’s Evidence

J. M., bom in July 1984, is appellant’s daughter. Appellant began touching her breasts, vagina, and buttocks in a sexual way when she was about six years old. He began having sexual intercourse with her when she was about 12 years old. This occurred a couple of times a month, when her brother, Franklin, Jr., and appellant’s girlfriend were not home. She sometimes resisted, and appellant would beat her or threaten to beat her and force her to have sexual intercourse. He told her not to tell anyone and that, “I’m your father and I can do whatever I want.” She often did not resist out of fear of being beaten.

Appellant, J. M., and Franklin, Jr., moved from Florida to Los Angeles in August 1999 when J. M. was 15 years old. Appellant’s girlfriend did not move with them, and the brother lived with them only occasionally. After the move, the frequency of the acts of sexual intercourse increased to “a couple of times a week.” She sometimes resisted, and appellant would beat her and also have sexual intercourse with her. Sometimes she did not resist.

In June 2000, a month before her 16th birthday, J. M. missed her period. She told appellant, and he took her to an abortion clinic and she had a pregnancy test done; the results were positive. J. M. had an abortion on June *1441 29, 2000. Appellant directed J. M. to take birth control pills and resumed having sexual intercourse a week later, after the bleeding from the abortion stopped. He continued to have sexual intercourse with her about twice a week; she occasionally resisted and was beaten, and then would not resist for awhile.

On her birthday in mid-July 2000, appellant took J. M. and her friend to a restaurant for dinner. After taking her friend home, he took J. M. to a Holiday Inn where he got drunk, threw her on the floor, beat her, and forced her to have sexual intercourse.

J. M. testified unequivocally that since moving to California a week never went by without appellant forcing sexual intercourse upon her.

J. M. began dating a young man named Michael in March 2000. In late October 2000, J. M. and Michael began talking about sex and virginity. J. M. was concerned because her virginity “had been taken away” from her by her father. She spoke to her teacher, Cynthia Vega, asking for advice whether she should tell her boyfriend about something that had happened that she thought was important. Eventually and reluctantly, J. M. told Ms. Vega that she had been sexually abused by her father and he had impregnated her. Ms. Vega said she would have to report it, and J. M. lied and said that it had happened in the past but had stopped once she had the abortion. The next day Ms. Vega told J. M. she would have to report it, and J. M. “asked her immediately to please not report it.” In Ms. Vega’s words, J. M. continually “begged” her not to tell anyone. J. M. testified she was scared because she did not know if appellant would find out she had told, and if she still had to live with him he would hit her even more.

The following day, November 1, 2000, J. M. was called out of class by a social worker, Rachel Ball. J. M. told Ms. Ball that appellant had forced her to engage in sexual intercourse that morning before school. The police were called and J. M. was taken to a hospital. A pelvic examination was performed, swabs were taken from J. M.’s vaginal and anal areas, and a blood sample was drawn. The vaginal and anal swab samples contained spermatozoa. Lewis Maddox, Ph.D., a technical reviewer at Cellmark Diagnostics, testified that DNA extracted from J. M.’s vaginal swab contained a sperm source and a nonsperm source. The nonsperm source matched J. M.’s DNA profile. The DNA from the sperm source of the vaginal sample matched the DNA profile obtained from appellant’s blood sample. Maddox testified that the frequency “in the Hispanic population of the DNA profile, from the sperm fraction of the combined vaginal swab sample and the blood [from appellant] is approximately one in 15 billion unrelated individuals.”

*1442 II. Defense Evidence

Appellant testified in his own defense. He said that after he moved to California with Franklin, Jr., and J. M., he began working nights. This became a problem when he found out that Franklin, Jr., would have his girlfriend over and J. M. would have her boyfriend over. He confronted J. M. and when she did not tell him what was going on, he hit her. He said this was the only time he ever hit her.

Appellant denied ever having sexual intercourse with J. M. When asked by the prosecutor how his sperm was found inside J. M.’s vagina, he replied, “That’s what you should be investigating.”

The defense called Reverend Ruth Morales of the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles, which appellant and J. M. attended together at least twice a week before appellant’s arrest. Morales testified that, after appellant’s arrest, on numerous occasions J. M. said she intended to come to church and wanted to talk to Morales, but then failed to come to church except for two or three times. Asked to describe their relationship, Morales said, “They seemed like a close father and daughter relationship, very close.” She stated further, “The thing is they are an attractive couple. [J. M.] is a very mature looking young lady. Mr. Matute, a nice, handsome young man. And you could almost—if I hadn’t known that they were father and daughter, I could have said they were a couple.”

Reverend David Wheeler, also of the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles, testified that after appellant’s arrest J. M. did not continue to attend church regularly. He questioned her about why she was not regularly attending church and she did not respond, rather she deflected the question. From what he observed, appellant and J. M. had a very close, “harmonious” relationship.

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127 Cal. Rptr. 2d 472, 103 Cal. App. 4th 1437, 2002 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 11748, 2002 Daily Journal DAR 13709, 2002 Cal. App. LEXIS 5085, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-matute-calctapp-2002.