People v. Summers CA3

California Court of Appeal·Decided June 23, 2014·No. C073289·Unpublished

Opinion

Filed 6/23/14 P. v. Summers CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 (Yuba) ----

THE PEOPLE, C073289

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. CRF12-548)

v.

DWIGHT ANTHONY SUMMERS,

Defendant and Appellant.

A jury convicted defendant Dwight Anthony Summers of forcible sodomy of a minor 14 years of age or older (Pen. Code, § 286, subd. (c)(2)(C))1 and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor who is at least four years younger than defendant (Health & Saf. Code, §§ 11353, 11353.1, subd. (a)(3)), with two prior prison terms (§ 667.5, subd. (b)). The trial court sentenced defendant to 25 years in state prison.

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

1 On appeal, defendant contends there is insufficient evidence to support a finding that the sodomy was forcible, the matter must be remanded to the trial court to list the statutory source of fines and fees, and an error in the abstract. We affirm the judgment, remand for the trial court to state the statutory source of certain assessments, and order a correction to the abstract of judgment. BACKGROUND The Prosecution Case D.S. was 17 years old in April 2011. He is one of seven brothers. He lived with his mother, R.S. (hereafter mother), who was in a relationship with defendant for 10 years, and engaged to him for eight of those years. Defendant was a father figure to D.S. and his brothers, all of whom called him “Dad.” At the age of 13, D.S. was molested by defendant’s brother, Daylon Summers. As a result, Daylon was sent to prison. When D.S. was 16, defendant took him to a Knights Inn, a motel in Yuba City, showed him how to smoke crack cocaine, and sodomized him after D.S. smoked crack. D.S. did not report the sexual assault because he did not want to be teased about it. When D.S. was 15 or 16, mother noticed that her son began spending more time with defendant. D.S. would go away with defendant for two or three days and return home “high.” Mother confronted defendant about drug use after D.S. twice tested positive for methamphetamine. Defendant said D.S. “had started on his own and they were smoking together because he didn’t want him to smoke with somebody else because if something went wrong, there’d be no safeguard.” Drug use was a source of tension between mother and defendant, being one of the problems which led her to order him out of the house in April 2011. Defendant moved out, but returned to visit the family a couple of times.

2 On April 9, 2011, defendant came to the house and asked D.S. about going out to eat. Mother told D.S. he could not go. D.S. and defendant left, telling mother they were going to walk to the corner to talk. D.S. and defendant went to a Budget Inn, a motel in Marysville, where defendant said he would get a change of clothes. D.S. entered the room but did not see a change of clothes. Defendant offered him some crack, which they both smoked. Defendant then put his hand on D.S.’s back, pushed him onto the bed, and pulled down D.S.’s pants and underwear. D.S. tried to turn back but he could turn his head only so far. D.S. weighed about 150 pounds and defendant weighed about 270 pounds,2 D.S. tried to push defendant off with his left arm but defendant pushed his arm away. He heard a zipper; defendant then penetrated D.S.’s anus with his penis and had anal intercourse with the boy for 10 to 15 minutes. D.S. knew what was going to happen, as defendant did it to him once before. He did not try to fight off defendant because “[h]e’s like three or four times my size.” As defendant raped him, D.S. “[j]ust laid there lifeless.” He did not attempt further resistance because there was “[n]othing I could do. I already tried to push him back.” D.S. was embarrassed and did not scream or shout at defendant to stop. Towards the end of the assault, defendant took a hit from a crack pipe. After defendant finished, he told D.S., “You’re not going to do me like my brother [Daylon].” Defendant gave D.S. some more crack to smoke after the attack. Later, a man came to the door; defendant gave the man some methamphetamine, which he injected. D.S. left the motel and walked home. He did not tell his mother about the attack because he did not think she would believe him. He did not report the matter to the authorities

2 D.S. testified that defendant had the same build at the time of the incident as he did at trial. The probation report, which was prepared one month after the trial, listed defendant’s weight at 272 pounds.

3 because he did not want to go through what happened when he reported that defendant’s brother molested him. D.S. felt angry, sad, confused, and upset. The attack was painful and D.S.’s anus bled for three days. D.S. told a family friend, Patricia Acevedo, about the incident approximately two days after it happened.3 Acevedo told mother, who expressed anger at defendant and D.S. Mother did not call the police. D.S. also called his girlfriend between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m. and insisted on talking to her in person. A family friend picked her up and drove her to the house. D.S., who was under the influence of alcohol, told his girlfriend that he had been raped by defendant. On April 18, 2011, D.S. told his high school counselor that he had been raped by his mother’s boyfriend. The counselor immediately reported the matter to law enforcement. The Defense Hasu Patel, the owner of the Budget Inn in Marysville, testified that a person must have identification to rent a room. Defendant’s name was not on any of the identification cards for the time in question, and Patel did not recognize him. Patel testified that there were times that rooms had been rented without identification. Testifying on his own behalf, defendant denied sexually assaulting D.S. or giving him crack cocaine. He never rented a room at the Budget Inn at the time of the alleged incident and had never been there. He was living in Sacramento at the time, and neither called D.S. nor asked him to dinner. The last time he came over to the house was April 4, 2011, when he went over to get some of his belongings. He got blamed for money

3 D.S. and Acevedo, an adult, were drinking at the time D.S. told her.

4 missing from D.S.’s older brother Earl; D.S. told defendant, “You fuck with my family, we’re going to get you.” DISCUSSION I Defendant contends there is insufficient evidence of force to support his conviction for forcible sodomy of a minor who is 14 years of age or older. In determining the sufficiency of the evidence, our role is limited. Under the state and federal constitutional due process clauses, “the test of whether evidence is sufficient to support a conviction is ‘whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’ [Citations.]” (People v. Holt (1997) 15 Cal.4th 619, 667, original italics.) Section 286, subdivision (c)(2)(C) states: “Any person who commits an act of sodomy with another person who is a minor 14 years of age or older when the act is accomplished against the victim’s will by means of force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury on the victim or another person shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for 7, 9, or 11 years.” Because the terms "force" and "duress” are in the disjunctive, the prosecution need only show that force or duress was used to accomplish the sexual act. (See People v.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

People v. Summers CA3, (Cal. Ct. App. 2014).

People v. Summers CA3 (People v. Summers CA3) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

People v. Cicero
157 Cal. App. 3d 465 (California Court of Appeal, 1984)
People v. Pitmon
170 Cal. App. 3d 38 (California Court of Appeal, 1985)
People v. High
15 Cal. Rptr. 3d 148 (California Court of Appeal, 2004)
People v. Holt
937 P.2d 213 (California Supreme Court, 1997)
People v. Hale
204 Cal. App. 4th 961 (California Court of Appeal, 2012)