People v. Muhammad CA4/1

California Court of Appeal·Decided March 18, 2016·No. D066995·Unpublished

Opinion

Filed 3/18/16 P. v. Muhammad CA4/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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, D066995 Plaintiff and Respondent,

v. (Super. Ct. Nos. SCD250279 and SCD250095)

KAREEM MUHAMMAD,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, David M.

Gill, Judge. Affirmed as modified.

Donna L. Harris, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Barry Carlton and Heidi Salerno, Deputy Attorneys General, for Defendant and Appellant.

INTRODUCTION

A jury convicted Kareem Muhammad of attempted robbery (Pen. Code,1 §§ 211 & 664; count 1), pandering by procuring (§ 266i; count 2), and pimping (§ 266h, subd. (a); count 3).2 In a bifurcated proceeding, the court found true the allegation Muhammad had a first serious felony prior and a strike prior for an attempted robbery conviction. The court sentenced him to an aggregate term of 14 years and four months. The court used count 2 as the principal term and sentenced Muhammad to eight years (double the middle term) plus a consecutive term of one year and four months (one-third the middle term of eight months doubled) for count 1 and five years for the serious felony enhancement. The punishment for count 3 (the middle term of eight years) was stayed pursuant to section 654. The court ordered restitution and imposed various fines and fees, including a $39 theft fine and assessment pursuant to section 1202.5.

On appeal, Muhammad contends (1) the court erred in consolidating the attempted robbery case with the pimping, pandering, and procuring case resulting in a denial of his right to due process; (2) the court improperly denied his motion for self-representation; and (3) the theft fine and assessment should be stricken as unauthorized by law. We find no merit in the first two contentions. However, because the People concede the third

1 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise specified.

2 The court granted Muhammad's motion for judgment of acquittal pursuant to section 1118.1 as to the human trafficking charge (§ 236.1, subd. (b); count 4) at the close of the prosecution's case.

contention, we modify the judgment by striking the $39 fine under section 1202.5. In all other respects, we affirm the judgment.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

A

Attempted Robbery Evidence Around 8:45 p.m. on July 15, 2013, the manager at the Radio Shack store on Balboa Avenue in San Diego noticed a Dodge Magnum vehicle with no license plate, pull backwards into a parking space near the store. An African-American male came into the store with a white shirt over his head and face, approached a sales associate who was assisting a customer and said, "This is a robbery. Everyone to the back." Working phones or phones of value are kept in a locked room in the back of the store. As the customer struggled with the man, the man pointed something at the customer and said he was going to kill him. The sales associate put his hands in the air and walked to the back of the store where the store manager had the door open. The store manager and sales associate ran out the emergency exit to a nearby restaurant where they called 911. The customer jumped away from the man and ran out of the front door of the store as the man went to the back of the store where he tried to enter a back room. The jury was shown a store surveillance video of the incident.

A witness and his fiancée were walking out of a nearby store when the customer came riding a bicycle toward them saying the Radio Shack had been robbed. The witness said a tall, slender, "possibly a [B]lack male" with a shirt over his head and face got into a silver Chrysler or Dodge station wagon and sped away. The customer looked back and

also saw the Black male exit the store in a crouched position, jump into the silver car and take off. The witness called 911 and waited for the police. The witness and the customer reported the vehicle had been parked in front of the Radio Shack store and had no license plate. They did not see anyone else in the car.

San Diego Police Detective James Brown investigated the case. He collected video footage from a nearby jewelry store showing the strip mall parking lot as well as video footage from the Radio Shack store. He also spoke with the store employees and the two other witnesses. Detective Brown created a flier with the vehicle description, synopsis of the crime and some surveillance footage photographs. He distributed this flier to patrol officers and other law enforcement agencies.

A couple of weeks later, on August 8, 2013, San Diego Police Detective Kate Allison, who worked in the vice division, interviewed Akila Lyles. Lyles told Allison that Muhammad was involved in a robbery of a Radio Shack in Clairemont Mesa at Genesee and Balboa Avenues where he tried to obtain phones to sell. Lyles said an older White male with gray hair, who had a bicycle parked outside, was in the store purchasing something when Muhammad went into the store with a BB gun and a white T-shirt wrapped over his face. She said the customer wrestled with Muhammad in the store. Lyles said she was lying in the vehicle, a Dodge Magnum, which was parked across from the Radio Shack store with no license plate.

Around the same time, detectives in the vice division saw Detective Brown's flier and sent him an e-mail stating they had contacted a couple of brothers at the Premier Inn motel who owned that type of car and one of them may have been responsible for the

robbery. Detective Allison did a Facebook search and located photographs of the vehicle with Muhammad. After comparing the Facebook photographs with those in the surveillance video, Detective Brown concluded they were the same vehicle. Detective Brown assisted Detective Allison in a vice operation on August 14, 2013, in which Lyles and Muhammad were arrested along with Teresa Willis and Muhammad's brother, Elijah.3

B

Pandering/Pimping Evidence

1

Eric Drilling, a vice detective with the San Diego Police Department, became aware of Willis when she was arrested for prostitution while she was underage. She has been arrested several times for prostitution.

Willis came to Detective Drilling's attention again in June 2013 when he learned she was posting advertisements online as an escort. She was apparently working for Elijah. Detective Drilling gave the information to Detective Allison because she handled vice operations involving adult victims. A detective located an online advertisement for Willis and, using a phone number associated with Elijah, arranged a date with her at the Premier Inns motel on June 5, 2013.

3 Because Muhammad and his brother share a surname, we refer to the brother by his first name. No disrespect is intended.

A clerk at the Premier Inns testified a woman came to the motel on June 5, 2013, and asked for two rooms. When the clerk advised her the motel required separate identification for each individual room, the women returned with Willis. They obtained two rooms.

Detective Allison talked with the motel clerk later that night. He gave her the two room numbers and indicated people were going in and out of the rooms. Police officers were stationed in the parking lot to watch the outside of the rooms while Detective Allison and another detective set up inside a room next to one of the target rooms. The officers observed two males, later identified as Muhammad and Elijah, going back and forth between the rooms. Muhammad left with another female in a Dodge Magnum station wagon.

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