People v. Ysiano CA4/2

California Court of Appeal·Decided June 11, 2014·No. E053550·Unpublished

Opinion

Filed 6/11/14 P. v. Ysiano CA4/2

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, E053550 v. (Super.Ct.No. INF061442) LEONARD YSIANO, Jr., OPINION Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Ronald Johnson and Graham Anderson Cribbs, Judges.1 Affirmed.

Stephen M. Lathrop, under appointment by the Court of Appeal for Defendant and Appellant.

1 The Honorable Ronald Johnson (retired judge of the San Diego Super. Ct.

assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to art. VI, § 6 of the Cal. Const.) presided over the first trial and the Honorable Graham Anderson Cribbs over the second trial.

Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Mestman and Steve Oetting, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

A jury convicted defendant Leonard Ysiano, Jr., of possession of a firearm by an ex-felon (Pen. Code, § 12021, subd. (a)(1))2 following the first trial in this case, but hung on charges of murder (§ 187, subd. (a)) and attempted murder (§§ 664/187, subd. (a)). The first jury also found true the allegation that defendant had suffered a strike prior (§ 667, subds. (c) & (e)). During a second trial of the murder and attempted murder charges, a second jury convicted defendant of both crimes, the former of the first degree and the latter willfully and with premeditation and deliberation, and made true findings that he had discharged a firearm proximately causing death (§ 12022.53, subd. (d)) during the murder and discharged a firearm proximately causing great bodily injury (§ 12022.53, subd. (d)) and inflicted great bodily injury(§ 12022.7, subd. (a)) during the attempted murder. The second jury also found true the allegation that defendant had suffered a prior conviction for a serious felony. He was sentenced to prison for 50 years to life, two consecutive terms of 25 years to life, and a consecutive term of 14 years to life. He appeals, claiming a juror’s request to be dismissed during the first trial should not have been granted and the prohibition on double jeopardy requires reversal of all his convictions and true findings, his conviction for possessing a firearm should be reversed

2 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.

due to instructional error, and the trial court erroneously admitted evidence during the second trial, requiring reversal of the convictions and true findings made during it. We reject his contentions and affirm.

FACTS

Facts adduced at the first trial related to defendant’s conviction of being an ex-

felon in possession of a firearm will be discussed elsewhere in this opinion. During the second trial, it was established that defendant had pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter in 1990, and the murder victim had identified him to police as the killer in that case. Defendant owned a white GMC Sierra pickup truck. During the afternoon of March 28, 2008, he was at a casino.

On the night of March 28, 2008, the murder victim and the attempted murder victim, who were brothers, parked their car in the driveway of their Coachella home. After they got out of their car, the attempted murder victim saw a man pull up in a white truck, get out and fire several shots at the murder victim, killing him. The gunman then fired several shots at the attempted murder victim, wounding him. The attempted murder victim told a responding police officer at the scene that defendant was the shooter. Also at the scene, he told another officer the same thing. Later that night at the hospital where the attempted murder victim had been taken for treatment, he picked defendant’s picture out of a photographic lineup as the shooter. The attempted murder victim repeated his identification of defendant to a detective on March 31 and April 1, 2008, explaining that he had seen defendant earlier that day at a casino. However, the attempted murder victim

said on March 31 that he would not testify against defendant or he would get shot. He also said that defendant had a beef with the murder victim for the latter “[p]utting [defendant] away . . . [¶] . . . [¶] . . . a long time ago.”

The attempted murder victim testified at the preliminary hearing that he remembered nothing about March 28, 2008. Thereafter, he went to Missouri where he was eventually arrested by two investigators from the District Attorney’s Office and forcibly returned to Riverside County to testify as a material witness. One of the investigators recorded a conversation that they, the prosecutor during the first trial and the attempted murder victim had. In the conversation, the attempted murder victim said that he saw defendant shoot the murder victim and himself, but he would not testify to this because he was afraid for his life and the lives of those in his family. He also said that he lied at the preliminary hearing, and when he saw the defendant at the casino the afternoon before the shooting, defendant had asked him about the murder victim and the attempted murder victim told defendant that the former was at home.

At trial, the attempted murder victim said he did not remember anything about March 28, 2008, he had used methamphetamine that day, he did not know defendant, he did not remember anyone in California outside members of his family and he did not remember making statements to the police or people from the prosecutor’s office implicating defendant in the shooting or asserting that he would not testify. He said he did not want to testify, he had been arrested in Missouri on a material witness warrant

and brought to court and he had been kept in jail. He said he did not think the person who shot him should be held accountable, adding, “His day will come.”

A female who testified at trial had given three recorded interviews in which she said that she drove near the home of the victims on March 28, 2008, and was cut off by a white Chevy Silverado king cab truck. She said the driver of the truck got out and started shooting at the victims until he emptied his gun. Although she had known defendant all her life and identified him in a photographic lineup, she said she did not see the face of the shooter. However, when she tried to help the attempted murder victim at the scene, he told her that defendant was the shooter. At the preliminary hearing and at trial, she claimed to have no memory of the events of March 28th, 2008, saying she was drunk.

Defendant and his wife checked into a Palm Desert motel shortly before 11:00 p.m. on the night of the shooting, even though they lived nearby in La Quinta and the wife was not feeling well.

It was likely that the bullets that killed and injured the victims, .40 calibers, had been fired from a Glock semiautomatic handgun. Ammunition of that caliber was found in a bag in defendant’s house with his name on it. Gunshot residue was found on defendant’s right hand and the left side of his face following his arrest the morning after the shooting.

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