People v. Wooley CA2/4

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 11, 2020
DocketB303431
StatusUnpublished

This text of People v. Wooley CA2/4 (People v. Wooley CA2/4) 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. Wooley CA2/4, (Cal. Ct. App. 2020).

Opinion

Filed 12/11/20 P. v. Wooley CA2/4 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 FOUR

THE PEOPLE, B303431

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. TA144673) v.

GARY LAMAAR WOOLEY,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Tammy Chung Ryu, Judge. Affirmed. Sally Patrone Brajevich, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Michael R. Johnsen and Peggy Z. Huang, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. INTRODUCTION Defendant Gary Wooley was sitting in a vehicle in a drive- through lane of a Burger King when Jerry Whitaker walked up and punched him through the open car window. Whitaker then walked around the vehicle and apparently confronted the backseat passenger. Defendant got out of the car with a gun and shot Whitaker, then chased and shot Whitaker as he ran away. Whitaker sustained gunshot wounds to the front of his thigh and his lower back. In a recorded jailhouse call in which defendant discussed the incident with his brother, defendant stated, “My intention was trying to kill that fool.” A jury convicted defendant of attempted murder and possession of a firearm by a felon. On appeal, defendant asserts that that there was insufficient evidence to support the conviction for attempted murder, and the jury was compelled to find that the shooting was done in self-defense. He also argues that the trial court erred in admitting late-disclosed evidence, and in failing to instruct the jury with the corpus delicti rule. We find that the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict, and find no error or prejudice regarding the late-disclosed evidence. Although the court erred in failing to instruct on the corpus delicti rule, the error was harmless. We therefore affirm. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND In an amended information, the Los Angeles County District Attorney (the People) charged defendant with attempted murder (Pen. Code, §§ 667, 187, subd. (a), count 1),1 and possession of a firearm by a felon (§ 29800, subd. (a)(1), count 2). The information further alleged that as to count 1, defendant

1Allfurther statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.

2 personally and intentionally discharged a firearm (§ 12022.53, subd. (d)). In addition, the information alleged that with respect to count 1, defendant suffered a prior serious or violent felony conviction (§ 667, subd. (a)(1)), and a prior strike conviction under the Three Strikes Law (§§ 667, subds. (b)-(j), 1170.12). Defendant pled not guilty, and the case proceeded to a jury trial. The following evidence was presented at trial. The jury was shown surveillance video of the shooting that occurred at a Burger King restaurant on November 10, 2017, at about 2:00 p.m. The video showed cars waiting in line at the drive-through window. The victim, Jerry Whitaker, was sitting on a low wall near the drive-through lane. One of the cars in line was a white SUV driven by defendant. A woman exited the SUV from the front passenger door and walked into the restaurant. Whitaker got up, walked to the driver’s side of the SUV, and appeared to reach into the open window and punch defendant. The back right door of the SUV opened; the video does not clearly show whether someone got out. Whitaker walked around the rear of the car toward the open back door, where he was no longer visible to the camera. Defendant exited the car through the driver’s door as Whitaker walked back around the rear of the vehicle; defendant and Whitaker met near the rear left corner of the vehicle. Defendant appeared to shoot Whitaker. Whitaker turned and began running away; defendant followed, pointing the gun toward Whitaker. The video does not make clear when shots were fired. Whitaker ran around the corner of the restaurant and continued running along a walkway. In video from the inside the restaurant, Whitaker can be seen through the window running down the walkway with his arms raised. Defendant paused at the corner of the restaurant with the gun pointing toward

3 Whitaker. Defendant then returned to the SUV and got in, the back passenger door closed, and the SUV drove away. The female passenger remained inside the restaurant. Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) detective Erik Shear testified that he responded to the call at the Burger King. Shear found victim Whitaker in “very poor” condition; “He was laying on his back. He was bleeding . . . pretty heavily from a gunshot wound to his back. And he was nonresponsive.” Whitaker had been shot in the front of his thigh and in his lower back. Shear testified that he found four expended cartridge casings in the drive-through lane and walkway next to the Burger King. A vehicle in the parking lot had also been struck by one of the bullets. The vehicle was around the corner from the drive-through lane, indicating that at least one round had been fired after Whitaker rounded the corner of the restaurant. A trail of blood led to where Whitaker had collapsed on the walkway outside the restaurant. Whitaker had not been armed. Shear reviewed the surveillance video and got the license plate number of the white SUV. He determined that the registered owner of the vehicle was Renate Brumfield. Shear put a “want” out for the vehicle, alerting officers that if the vehicle were spotted, it should be stopped and the people inside detained. Shear learned that the vehicle had been stopped by police a few weeks earlier, on October 22, 2017. Defendant was driving the car during the stop, and Brumfield was in the car at the time. The jury was shown a portion of the officer’s body camera footage from the stop. In the early morning hours of November 11, 2017, police executed a search warrant for a residence near the restaurant, where they discovered a Hi-Point .380 caliber semiautomatic

4 pistol with a magazine in a trash can. Ballistics test results showed that this pistol fired the casings found at the Burger King. No fingerprints were found on the pistol. Witness Martina Felix testified that she lived at the residence where the pistol was found, and that on November 10, 2017 there was a barbecue at the home. Defendant was friends with Felix’s cousin, who also lived at the home. While officers were at the home executing the search warrant, Felix told them that defendant had been at the barbecue the previous evening. The same day, a search warrant was executed at another residence, where police detained defendant. Officers found .380 caliber ammunition in the room where defendant was detained. On November 14, 2017, sheriff’s deputies informed Detective Shear that they had located the white SUV. Brumfield, the registered owner, was with the vehicle. The vehicle was impounded and searched; Shear found that the radio could easily be pulled from the dashboard, revealing a space behind it. Shear testified that in the video of the incident, defendant’s movements inside the car after he had been punched were “consistent with maybe a firearm was hidden behind that radio,” but he “couldn’t see it definitively.” The People introduced audio recordings of several calls defendant made from jail. In one call on November 11, 2017, defendant was speaking with his brother, Marvin.

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Bluebook (online)
People v. Wooley CA2/4, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-wooley-ca24-calctapp-2020.