People v. Miles CA1/1

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 4, 2016
DocketA140226
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Miles CA1/1 (People v. Miles CA1/1) 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. Miles CA1/1, (Cal. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

Filed 5/4/16 P. v. Miles CA1/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, A140226 v. CHRISTOPHER COLVIN MILES, (Alameda County Super. Ct. No. 165422) Defendant and Appellant.

Defendant Christopher Miles shot and killed Danny Jackson by firing a rifle from inside his house through a locked security screen door. The shooting was linked to an abusive relationship involving two completely different people: a woman named C.H. and one of her former boyfriends, Melvin Jones. On the night of the shooting, C.H. was staying with Miles as a house guest. Jones called on C.H. and aggressively pressed her to come outside to talk with him. She refused. Later, Jackson, an acquaintance of both Jones and C.H., continued to press C.H. to come outside and talk with Jones. Jackson became increasingly belligerent, and Miles then shot him from behind the security door. Miles was charged with murder, but his conviction was far from inevitable. Even though Jackson was unarmed and outside the security door when he was shot, the shooting could be viewed as an attempt by Miles to protect an abuse victim whom he had invited to stay in his home and who, in the words of his appellate counsel, “was taking refuge there.” The first trial resulted in a hung jury. Miles then reached a plea agreement under which, in front of one judge, he pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and admitted a firearm enhancement in exchange for a six-year prison term. But a different

1 judge later refused to impose that sentence, apparently being disinclined to accept anything less than a nine-year prison term. Miles filed a petition for a writ of mandate/prohibition in this court seeking an order requiring him to be sentenced by the judge who had taken the plea, but the petition was denied. Miles then withdrew his plea, and a second trial was held. This time, the jury convicted Miles of one count of second degree murder and found true an allegation that he personally and intentionally discharged a firearm causing death.1 He was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison, composed of the statutorily required terms of 15 years to life for the murder and 25 years to life for the firearm enhancement. (§§ 190, subd. (a), 12022.53, subd. (d).) This appeal followed. On appeal, Miles argues that (1) the trial court effectively forced him to testify in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights by refusing, after the defense initially rested, to give jury instructions on principles related to self-defense and on voluntary manslaughter based on a sudden quarrel or heat of passion (heat-of-passion voluntary manslaughter); (2) the court improperly denied his request for pinpoint instructions on the relevance of Jones’s prior threatening conduct; (3) the prosecutor committed misconduct in closing argument by suggesting, in contravention of People v. Beltran (2013) 56 Cal.4th 935, that Miles did not commit heat-of-passion voluntary manslaughter because Jackson’s conduct was insufficiently provocative to cause a reasonable person to kill; (4) cumulative error requires reversal; and (5) an error in the abstract of judgment requires modification.2 We agree that the abstract of judgment must be corrected, but we otherwise affirm.

1 Miles was convicted of murder under Penal Code section 187, subdivision (a), and the personal-discharge allegation was found true under Penal Code section 12022.53, subdivision (d). All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise noted. 2 We need not reach Miles’s claim that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to object to the prosecutor’s comments because we consider the prosecutorial- misconduct claim on the merits.

2 I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND In April 2010, Miles was 57 years old and lived by himself on 79th Avenue in Oakland, near the intersection with International Boulevard. The property included a front house facing the street and a rear cottage, in which Miles had lived for almost 20 years. The cottage was reached by a long driveway running along the right side of the property as viewed from the street. 1. The evidence introduced before Miles testified. C.H. was the prosecution’s primary witness. She testified that she was friends with Miles, whom she described as “a good friend, confidante, like a big brother.” She testified that she had dated Jones for about four months but had broken up with him sometime around late March 2010 because he was physically abusive. After she moved out of Jones’s home, Jackson invited her to stay with him. C.H. had once been involved in a three-year relationship with Jackson, and although the relationship ended in November 2009, she was still on good terms with him and he “protected [her] . . . from [Jones], often.” After C.H. left Jones, “he started stalking [her] everywhere [she] would go.” She testified that on April 8, 2010, Jones saw her while she was walking down the street, “tried to snatch [her],” and hit her in the face, cutting her nose and lip. A few days later, the apartment where she was staying with Jackson caught fire. C.H. testified that she had seen Jones looking around the apartment building earlier that day, and although she did not actually see him set the fire, she “kn[e]w” he had done so because “he was the type of person that would do something like that . . . to get [her] to come out and leave [Jackson] to be with him.” She was “absolutely scared to death of [Jones], ‘cause he was very abusive. He was just a lunatic.” Jackson lived across the street from Miles. The two men were not close friends, but they knew each other, and C.H. was not “aware of any bad blood or previous

3 disagreements between [them].” After the fire at Jackson’s apartment, Miles invited C.H. to stay in his home. C.H. stayed with Miles the night of April 11. The next day, she was still there when he arrived home from work sometime after 5:00 p.m. After eating dinner, she watched television in the bedroom. The bedroom was at the front of the cottage and had a window to the right of the front door as one faced the cottage. Miles remained in the living room, into which the front door opened. At some point, C.H. heard Jones knock on the front door and ask Miles if she was there. C.H. had told Miles about her relationship with Jones, and she heard the two men begin to argue after Miles told Jones that C.H. did not want to see him. She heard Jones “screaming and hollering, calling [her] all kinds of names, calling [Miles] all kinds of names,” threatening to “ ‘hurt her’ ” if she did not come outside, and threatening Miles. Miles did not “raise his voice very much” but repeatedly told Jones to leave. C.H. testified that she and Miles were both “scared.” About five minutes after the argument began, Jones broke the bedroom window. C.H., who was still in that room, could not see what broke the window because the curtain was closed, but she saw glass fall onto the floor.3 She heard Jones “going out the driveway and . . . talking crazy,” followed by a gunshot. Miles then entered the bedroom, said, “ ‘I missed him,’ ” “cover[ed] the window so . . . nothing else could come in,” and cleaned up the glass. C.H. believed Miles had fired the shot but did not ask him about it because she “was scared of everything that was going on, the conversations that [she] was hearing, the gunshot, the arguments, just fearing for [her] whole life.” After Miles finished covering the window, he returned to the living room and C.H. stayed in the bedroom.

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People v. Miles CA1/1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-miles-ca11-calctapp-2016.