People v. Triggs CA2/3

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJanuary 26, 2022
DocketB307637
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Triggs CA2/3 (People v. Triggs CA2/3) 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. Triggs CA2/3, (Cal. Ct. App. 2022).

Opinion

Filed 1/26/22 P. v. Triggs CA2/3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 THREE

THE PEOPLE, B307637

Plaintiff and Respondent, Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BA468085 v.

JOYCE TRIGGS,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Craig Richman, Judge. Affirmed in part, sentence vacated, and remanded with directions.

Pilar M. Escontrias under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Blythe J. Leszkay and Theresa A. Patterson, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. _________________________ Joyce Triggs pleaded no contest to numerous offenses related to her theft of more than $182,000 from her employer. The trial court sentenced her to three years and eight months in prison, which included a one-year enhancement under Penal Code section 186.11.1 On appeal, Triggs argues the court erred by imposing the enhancement because section 186.11 references another statute that was repealed in 2018. She also contends the court erroneously believed it lacked authority to strike the enhancement, grant probation, or decline to impose a restitution fine. We agree with Triggs that the court erroneously believed it lacked authority to strike the enhancement and grant probation, but we reject her other arguments. Accordingly, we remand the case for resentencing and affirm the judgment in all other respects. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Triggs began working for TadiBrothers in 2012, and as part of her job she had access to its payroll system. In 2015, TadiBrothers hired Sara Conley to oversee the company’s finances. Conley audited the payroll system and discovered a little more than $182,000 in fraudulent payments between January 2013 and May 2015. The payments were made by TadiBrothers and a related company to a bank account belonging to Triggs. Conley contacted the police, and a detective began investigating the payments. Triggs later sent an email to the detective pretending to be Conley, claiming she discovered the payments were actually legitimate.

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

2 When Triggs’s employer confronted her about the payments, she said another employee was responsible and had threatened her. Triggs quit her job in May 2015, and she told her employer her husband had died. Triggs later admitted her husband was alive and she was responsible for the fraudulent payments. She promised to pay back the money she took. On January 2, 2018, the People filed an information charging Triggs with identity theft (§ 530.5, subd. (a); count 1), false personation for a written instrument (§ 529, subd. (a)(2); count 2), three counts of grand theft (§ 487, subd. (a); counts 3–5), and money laundering (§ 186.10, subd. (a); count 6). As to the grand theft charges, the People further alleged that Triggs engaged in a related pattern of felony conduct resulting in the loss of more than $100,000, within the meaning of section 186.11, subdivision (a)(3). On January 7, 2020, Triggs pleaded no contest to the charges and admitted the section 186.11 allegation. The court postponed sentencing because Triggs agreed to make scheduled restitution payments to her employer. Specifically, she agreed to make a $14,000 payment within a week, an $11,000 payment by June, and $2,000 payments each month beginning in February. The court noted if Triggs “fall[s] short on restitution, this is clearly a [state] prison case” and it would not “hesitate to send her to prison . . . .” Triggs had not made any payments to her employer as of early February 2020. On February 13, 2020, the employer received an envelope from Triggs, but it was empty. It appears Triggs claimed she mailed a check, but someone took it out of the envelope before it got to the employer. The prosecutor believed Triggs was lying.

3 The court held a sentencing hearing over the course of two days in September 2020. By that time, Triggs had paid her employer $16,000 in restitution. Triggs also presented evidence that she has a compromised immune system due to a skin condition. She asked the court to consider placing her on house arrest or granting her temporary release because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Triggs’s cousin told the court Triggs was raised by an aunt and had a traumatic childhood, but she declined to provide details. She also said there was an excuse for Triggs’s behavior and she needed help. The cousin suggested she would need more time to produce evidence proving Triggs’s problems. The probation report showed Triggs has an extensive criminal history. Between 1998 and 2016, she was convicted of petty theft (§ 484, subd. (a)), grand theft (§ 487, subd. (a)), check fraud (§ 476), burglary (§ 459), and embezzlement (§ 503). At the time of the sentencing hearing, she was on probation for the embezzlement offense. The trial court found the circumstances in aggravation included that the victims were vulnerable, Triggs interfered with the judicial process by committing frauds and lying, her crimes required planning, sophistication, and professionalism, she took advantage of a position of trust, her prior convictions were numerous and of increasing seriousness, and she served a prior prison term. In mitigation, the court found Triggs voluntarily acknowledged wrongdoing at an early stage in the proceedings and her prior performance on probation had been satisfactory. It noted there were many unanswered questions regarding other potential circumstances in mitigation.

4 The court sentenced Triggs to an aggregate term of three years and eight months in prison, consisting of the midterm of two years on count 3, eight months on count 1 (one-third the midterm), and one year for the section 186.11 enhancement. The court imposed the midterm of two years on counts 2, 4, and 5, which it ran concurrently with the sentence on count 3. On count 6, the court imposed the midterm of two years, which it stayed under section 654. The court ordered Triggs to pay $166,461.84 in victim restitution, and it imposed a $300 restitution fine (§ 1202.4, subd. (b)). DISCUSSION 1. The trial court properly imposed the section 186.11 enhancement Triggs argues the trial court lacked authority to impose a sentencing enhancement under section 186.11, subdivision (a)(3) because the statute references section 12022.6, which was repealed before her case was complete. The Attorney General responds that section 186.11, subdivision (a)(3) continues to be effective because the Legislature intended it to refer to the specific version of section 12022.6 in effect when it was enacted. We need not decide whether the repeal of section 12022.6 implicitly repealed section 186.11, subdivision (a)(3). Triggs committed her crimes while section 12022.6 was in effect, and, for the reasons discussed below, we conclude its repeal was not retroactive. Any implicit repeal of section 186.11, subdivision (a)(3), therefore, would also not be retroactive. Accordingly, even if section 186.11, subdivision (a)(3) was repealed before Triggs’s case was complete, the trial court could nevertheless impose the enhancement on her.

5 a.

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People v. Triggs CA2/3, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-triggs-ca23-calctapp-2022.