The People v. Villarreal CA6

CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedSeptember 24, 2013
DocketH037177
StatusUnpublished

This text of The People v. Villarreal CA6 (The People v. Villarreal CA6) 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
The People v. Villarreal CA6, (Cal. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

Filed 9/24/13 P. v. Villarreal CA6 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

THE PEOPLE, H037177 (San Benito County Plaintiff and Respondent, Super. Ct. No. CR0900317)

v.

JUVENTINO G. VILLARREAL,

Defendant and Appellant.

1. INTRODUCTION

Defendant Juventino G. Villarreal was charged in an amended information with five kinds of sexual offenses, some repeated, involving his stepdaughter, D.1 The charged offenses were continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 (Pen. Code, § 288.5; count 1) 2 between the spring of 1998 and the fall of 2005, lewd and lascivious touching of a child under 14 (§ 288, subd. (a); counts 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13), oral copulation with a child who was under 14 and more than 10 years younger than defendant (§ 288a, subd. (c)(1); counts 6, 10, 11, 12, 14), sexual penetration with a foreign object (§ 289, subd.

1 To protect the victim’s privacy, we will refer to her as “D” and will not give the names of her mother, uncle, or grandmother. 2 Unspecified section references are to the Penal Code. (a)(1); count 15); and aggravated sexual assault on a child who is under 14 and at least seven years younger than defendant by foreign object penetration (§ 269, subd. (a)(5); count 16). The amended information alleged that the offenses occurred in four different locations in Hollister and it alleged a season and year during which each of the 15 separate offenses (counts 2 through 16) occurred. The jury found defendant guilty as charged, except for finding him not guilty of alternative count 1 (continuous sexual abuse), as well as counts 4 (lewd touching in the winter of 2001), 8 (lewd touching in the winter of 2003), and 11 (oral copulation in the winter of 2003). The trial court sentenced defendant to an indeterminate term of 15 years to life on count 16 for the aggravated sexual assault, with 24 consecutive years for the remaining counts. On appeal, defendant raises the following claims: (1) jury misconduct; (2) insufficient evidence of force or duress to support counts 15 and 16; (3) that the trial court erred in omitting a unanimity instruction; (4) that the trial court erred in failing to give a lesser included offense instruction; and (5) that the trial court should not have imposed separate punishments on alternative counts 7, 9, and 13. We will conclude that the judgment must be reversed because the presumption of prejudice that arises from juror misconduct––in this case pre-deliberation discussions among two jurors who declared their belief that defendant was guilty prior to hearing the defense––has not been rebutted. To provide guidance if defendant is retried, we also will conclude that (1) there was substantial evidence to support counts 15 and 16, (2) count 15 was a necessarily included offense of count 16, and (3) there was no instructional error relating to count 15 as a lesser included offense of count 16.

2 2. THE TRIAL

A. PROSECUTION EVIDENCE

Although the jury was not instructed to find the locations of the different offenses, it will facilitate review of the evidence to group the charges chronologically by their four locations. (1). Defendant’s residence before cohabitation (count 2)

Count 2 (spring 1998) alleged lewd touching before D and her mother began living with defendant. The jury found defendant guilty of count 2. D’s mother remembered meeting defendant in 1997 or 1998. Defendant was born in 1955. D, who was born in 1992, recalled being five years old when her mother began dating defendant. One day in the early afternoon, while her mother was at work, D was sitting on defendant’s bed and watching TV in a room he was renting in Hollister. Defendant asked her to take her hand and rub his penis through his clothing. He took her hand and placed it on his groin area. She was confused and scared because she knew it was a private part that other people should not touch. She does not remember her age. She was about to finish kindergarten. “It felt like summer, because it was—it wasn’t hot, but it wasn’t cold.” It was in spring or summer. (2). First apartment where D lived with defendant (counts 3-6)

Counts 3 (fall 2000), 4 (winter 2001), and 5 (spring 2001) alleged lewd touching in the first apartment that defendant shared with D and her mother. Count 6 (fall 2000) alleged oral copulation in that apartment. The jury found defendant guilty of all of these counts, except count 4. According to D’s mother, she married defendant in July 2000. Defendant filed for divorce a month or two after they got married. They kept living together off and on for years. Defendant was very persistent in calling her and repeatedly told her that she

3 belonged to him. D recalled that her mother married defendant the summer after she was in fifth grade (which would have been in 2002). As D recalled, when she was in third grade, she and her mother moved into a Hollister apartment with defendant. In that apartment, one morning after D’s mother had gone to work, defendant was under the covers in bed watching TV. He asked D to bring him some coffee, so she did. Then he asked her to get in bed with him. She did. He was naked. He started touching and rubbing her and asked if it felt good. He undressed her. He touched her chest and vagina and rubbed his groin on her vagina. It ended with him ejaculating. He told her “that was supposed to happen.” She just went with it. She remembered it being in the spring or summer. D testified that this kind of encounter happened “a lot. If I were to give it a number, I’d say like, you know—like, ten times or even more.” One time when D was in the third grade, after defendant had finished showering, he asked D to come into the bathroom. He was still naked. He put his penis in her mouth and ejaculated. She “got really freaked out” and he told her, “ ‘don’t worry. That’s supposed to happen.’ ” That only happened once in that particular apartment. D testified that defendant did not do anything to make D feel uncomfortable around Thanksgiving or Christmas while living in that apartment. “[S]tuff like that would never happen around, you know, the holiday time, or even, like, around my birthday. Like not—not in November or December, or January or February.” D’s mother took vacation time and was home more during that time of year. D’s mother always had two jobs, as did defendant. He worked at a liquor store and a place called Couch. D recalled that defendant had a lot of weekends off and her mother did not.

4 (3). Second apartment where D lived with defendant (counts 7-12)

Counts 10 (fall 2002), 11 (winter 2003), and 12 (spring 2003) alleged oral copulation in the second apartment that defendant shared with D and her mother. Counts 7 (fall 2002), 8 (winter 2003), and 9 (spring 2003), as the prosecutor explained, charged lewd and lascivious touching as an alternative to the oral copulation charges 10 through 12. The jury found defendant guilty of all of these counts, except counts 8 and 11. When D was in the fifth grade, she, her mother, and defendant moved to another apartment on the same street as the first apartment they shared. “There was a lot more oral copulation that I remember happened at that apartment,” she testified. Her mother and defendant had their own bathroom in their bedroom. Defendant would come into D’s bathroom and “try to be romantic about it” and put his arm around her. He would be fully dressed at first and then he would drop his pants. Sometimes D was dressed.

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The People v. Villarreal CA6, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/the-people-v-villarreal-ca6-calctapp-2013.