People v. Rosales CA2/2

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 26, 2016
DocketB260901
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Rosales CA2/2 (People v. Rosales CA2/2) 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. Rosales CA2/2, (Cal. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

Filed 5/26/16 P. v. Rosales CA2/2 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO

THE PEOPLE, B260901

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BA420460) v.

JOSE ARMANDO ROSALES,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Dennis J. Landin, Judge. Affirmed.

John Steinberg, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Assistant Attorney General, Stephanie A. Miyoshi and Nima Razfar, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. A jury convicted defendant and appellant Jose Armando Rosales (defendant) of second degree murder and attempted murder and found true allegations that the crimes were committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang and that a principal personally used and discharged a firearm causing death. The trial court imposed a sentence of 15 years to life for the murder, plus a consecutive term of 25 years to life under Penal Code section 12022.53, subdivision (d).1 For the attempted murder, the court imposed a term of seven years plus 25 years to life under section 12022.53, subdivision (d), to run concurrently with the sentence imposed for the murder conviction. The trial court stayed, pursuant to section 654, a 10-year sentence under section 186.22, subdivision (b)(1)(C) for the gang enhancement. Defendant contends his convictions must be reversed because the trial court failed to instruct the jury sua sponte that voluntary manslaughter and attempted voluntary manslaughter are lesser included offenses of murder and attempted murder and because the prosecutor committed misconduct during closing argument by misstating the law on aiding and abetting. Defendant further contends the imposition of a 25-year-to-life term for the firearm enhancement under section 12022.53 violated his federal constitutional rights to equal protection and due process. For reasons we discuss, we affirm the judgment and sentence. BACKGROUND Defendant and his co-defendant Miguel Ruiz were members of the Eastside Trece gang and were known by the monikers “Trigger” and “Malo,” respectively. Eastside Trece’s territory encompassed an area bordering Adams Boulevard to the north, 32nd Street to the south, Compton Avenue to the east, and Griffith Avenue to the West. Eastside Trece shared its northern border with the rival Loco Park gang. On February 22, 2012, at approximately 8:45 p.m., defendant and Ruiz were walking within Eastside Trece’s territory on 27th Street. Ruiz was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt. A Loco Park gang member known as “Puppet” drove by and threw a

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

2 bottle towards defendant that did not hit him. Puppet continued to drive and turned onto a nearby street. Defendant and Ruiz appeared angered by the incident and ran into another Eastside Trece member’s residence. They left in defendant’s Lincoln Town car. That same night, Alfred Moore, Salvador Quinones, Augustin Beltran, and Beltran’s younger brother Pedro, were standing in front of Moore’s house near the corner of 22nd and Hooper Streets (an area north of Eastside Trece’s territory). None of the four men were gang members. Just before 9:00 p.m., a man in a black-hooded sweatshirt stood at the corner where a liquor store was located and fired several gunshots at Moore and his friends. Moore was wounded in the leg and Quinones died from a gunshot wound in his chest and abdomen. Police officers recovered 10 expended shell casings on the street and two bullets lodged in the walls of Moore’s home and an adjacent home. The casings and bullets were fired from the same .40-caliber weapon. A bullet recovered from Quinones’s body was consistent with a .40-caliber bullet. Video surveillance footage recovered from nearby business establishments showed that at approximately 8:50 p.m. on February 22, 2012, a Lincoln Town car traveled north on Hooper Street with its headlights on and returned in the opposite direction a few minutes later with its headlights off. The Lincoln Town car in the surveillance video was registered to defendant. On March 6, 2012, defendant was driving his Lincoln Town car accompanied by George Barrera, an Eastside Trece gang member, as a passenger in the car. An officer stopped defendant after he failed to signal before making a turn. After the officer obtained defendant’s information and photographed the vehicle, he told defendant and Barrera they were free to go. Barrera told detectives in an April 4, 2012 interview that following the March 6 traffic stop, defendant said, “Damn fool. . . . I don’t think these fools know about it, about my car, you know, because they would have taken both of us in.” Defendant then told Barrera that he drove Ruiz to 22nd Street, parked his car, and remained inside as Ruiz walked towards a group of men in front of a house and started shooting at them.

3 Police arrested Ruiz on April 24, 2012, and recovered a black-hooded sweatshirt from his residence. Defendant was arrested shortly thereafter. Phone records indicated that both defendant and Ruiz used their cell phones in the vicinity of 22nd Street and Hooper near the time of the shooting. On the day defendant was pulled over by the police, he changed his phone number. Several days later, defendant sold his Lincoln Town car. At trial, Officer Jordan Ornelas testified as the prosecution’s gang expert and opined that the crimes were committed for the benefit of the Eastside Trece gang. Defendant did not present any evidence at trial. DISCUSSION I. Alleged instructional error Defendant contends the trial court erred by failing to instruct sua sponte on the lesser included offenses of voluntary manslaughter and attempted voluntary manslaughter based on heat of passion and that this error resulted in a denial of due process under the federal constitution. Attempted voluntary manslaughter is a lesser included offense of attempted murder. (People v. Millbrook (2014) 222 Cal.App.4th 1122, 1137.) “Manslaughter is a lesser included offense of murder. [Citations.] The mens rea element required for murder is a state of mind constituting either express or implied malice. A person who kills without malice does not commit murder. Heat of passion is a mental state that precludes the formation of malice and reduces an unlawful killing from murder to manslaughter.” (People v. Beltran (2013) 56 Cal.4th 935, 942, fn. omitted (Beltran).) In murder cases, the trial court must instruct the jury sua sponte as to heat of passion whenever the theory is supported by substantial evidence, and even when the defendant did not rely on the theory, failed to request the instruction, or objected to the instruction. (People v. Breverman (1998) 19 Cal.4th 142, 154-155 (Breverman).) An appellate court independently determines whether the instructions should have been given (People v. Manriquez (2005) 37 Cal.4th 547, 584), viewing the evidence in the light that

4 most favors a duty to give the instruction and without evaluating the credibility of witnesses. (See Breverman, at pp. 162-163.) Heat of passion “is a state of mind caused by legally sufficient provocation that causes a person to act, not out of rational thought but out of unconsidered reaction to the provocation.” (Beltran, supra, 56 Cal.4th at p.

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People v. Rosales CA2/2, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-rosales-ca22-calctapp-2016.