People v. Titus CA1/3

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJune 2, 2023
DocketA164999
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Titus CA1/3 (People v. Titus CA1/3) 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. Titus CA1/3, (Cal. Ct. App. 2023).

Opinion

Filed 6/2/23 P. v. Titus CA1/3

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 THREE

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, A164999 v. BYRON DEAN TITUS, JR., (Humboldt County Super. Ct. No. CR2100262) Defendant and Appellant.

A jury convicted Byron Titus of multiple felonies, including attempted murder and aggravated mayhem. He was sentenced to an aggregate prison term of 50 years to life plus 32 years, 8 months. On appeal, Titus contends his mayhem conviction must be reversed because the trial court failed to instruct the jury regarding simple mayhem as a lesser included offense. He contends further that there were multiple sentencing errors, some of which the People concede on appeal. We affirm Titus’s convictions and remand for resentencing. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL SUMMARY I. The Trial Evidence A. The Prosecution Case The incidents that led to charges against Titus occurred on a parcel of property bordering Highway 96 in Hoopa, California, where Carmelita R. and her boyfriend Joshua S. lived in their RV. The landowner, Tom C., lived in a

1 house adjacent to where the RV was parked. Titus was in a romantic relationship with Tom’s daughter Chelsea, and they also lived on the property, in a mobile home located down the hill from the house. Prior to the incident, Titus, Carmelita, and Joshua were friends, who socialized on a regular basis. One day in late December 2020, Carmelita and Joshua went out for the morning, leaving their dogs locked inside the RV. When they returned, the door to the RV was open, the dogs were running “amok,” and Joshua’s gun was missing. Carmelita and Joshua suspected that someone they knew stole the gun because the dogs had allowed the person to get inside. They came to suspect Titus because they had only a small circle of friends who spent time with them at the RV, and Titus was their only friend who stopped interacting with them after the gun was stolen. Also, Titus had expressed an interest in Joshua’s gun and offered to buy it more than once, but was told it was not for sale as it was Joshua’s prized possession. On January 5, 2021, Carmelita and Joshua shared their suspicion about Titus with Tom C. because they really wanted to get the gun back. Later that night, Carmelita went to her aunt’s house while Joshua and some friends played cards in the RV. Carmelita returned at around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. on January 6, and after the card players left, she and Joshua decided to sleep on the couch at the front of the RV. Before they fell asleep, someone knocked on the door. When Carmelita answered, someone “pushed” a sawed- off shotgun in her face and tried to push his way up the steps into the RV. The assailant had partially covered his face with a bandana, but his eyes were angry, and his voice was familiar. At trial, Carmelita was unable to recall what the man said. She testified that when she realized he was trying to shoot Joshua, whose was lying on the couch with his back to the door, she

2 alerted Joshua. Then she grabbed the gun with both hands and struggled with the assailant, trying to keep him from getting further inside. She managed to push him out the door, and he fell over a propane tank. Carmelita also stumbled outside, and at that point she saw Titus’s face because his bandana had come off and Tom C.’s porch light was on. Titus still held the shotgun, so Carmelita headed for cover in her RV. When she was on the outside steps leading to the door, she turned and saw Titus pointing his gun at her kitchen window and tracking the figure of Joshua as he moved to the back of the vehicle. After Carmelita stepped through the door into the RV, a shot was fired, and Joshua screamed. He spun around and grabbed his face, covering his injury. Carmelita gave him a blanket to staunch the bleeding. Then she realized Titus was back in the RV, and she was temporarily too stunned to move as Titus said something to Joshua. Joshua spit out “a pretty big piece of just flesh and blood particles, pellets and everything” before saying something back. Then Titus fled, and Carmelita followed until he disappeared down the hill and the light went off in Chelsea’s mobile home. Carmelita returned to Joshua and called 911. Meanwhile, Tom C.’s next door neighbor, Ms. N., heard the gunshot and pleas for help. She was standing outside her house when a man approached her while carrying a shotgun. Ms. N. recognized Titus, who she knew well. He asked her for a ride, telling her something like “[t]hey want to call me a liar, I’ll shoot all of them over there.” Then they heard sirens, Titus asked for a way out, and Ms. N. told him how to get away. Officers from the Sheriff’s department arrived at Tom C.’s property at about 3:57 a.m. on the morning of January 6, where they were met by a

3 frantic Carmelita who reported that Titus shot Joshua.1 The officers obtained medical assistance for Joshua and arranged for a relative to pick up Carmelita, but they did not have the resources to conduct an immediate widespread search for Titus. Subsequently, officers obtained a warrant to access location data for Titus’s phone. On January 25, 2021, Titus was arrested at a Wal-Mart parking lot. Joshua spent nine days in the hospital, followed by several months of outpatient treatment from multiple doctors, including eye and brain specialists. His injuries include a scar that crosses his entire face, other scars on his face caused by pellets, a sunken eye, loss of vision in that eye, and seizures that affect cognition. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the seizures were frequent and severe. At the time of trial more than a year later, they occurred once every couple of weeks. B. The Defense Case Titus, the sole defense witness, confirmed that he was living with Chelsea C. in January 2021, but testified that he did not know Carmelita R. well, and that he did not spend much time with Joshua S., although he considered Joshua a friend. The two men had first met before Titus went to prison in 2011 for committing burglary and assault with a deadly weapon. Titus testified that he was released from prison in September 2020 and met Chelsea the following month. Titus recalled that on January 5, 2021, he spent the day working at a construction job, stopped at a store on the way home to purchase jewelry for Chelsea, and then went home and got engaged. Titus spent the remainder of that night with Chelsea’s family before they went to bed in Chelsea’s trailer

1 When Carmelita identified Titus as the assailant, she referred to him by his nickname, which is “Beans.”

4 at around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Later, on the morning of January 6, Titus was getting ready for work when his brother called to say that he had heard Titus shot someone in the yard the previous night and that the police were looking for him. This was “news” to Titus and he “panicked.” He called the tribal police and Sherriff’s office and waited for two days for somebody to come and find him at Chelsea’s home. Then he left to go stay with family because he did not want to get Chelsea in trouble and because he wanted to see an uncle who was dying. Titus denied shooting Joshua and testified that he was innocent of all charges against him. He also denied going up to Ms. N.’s house on the morning of the shooting. Titus testified that in January 2021, he was in compliance with a term of his parole that precluded him from possessing a firearm.

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People v. Titus CA1/3, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-titus-ca13-calctapp-2023.