Filed 6/14/ 24 P. v. Young C A4/3

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.11 15.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION THREE

THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

NATHAN IVAN YOUNG,
Defendant and Appellant. G062008 , G 062017
(Super. Ct. No s

. 19HF1226 , 18H F 0581 )

O P I N I O N

Appeal from order s of the Superior Court of Orange County, Scott A. Steiner , Julian W. Bailey, and Michael F. Murray, Judge s

. Dismissed.
Motion to consolidate ; g ranted. Benoit motion; denied

. Request for judicial notice; granted.

Rudy Kraft, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Assistant Attorney General, A. Natasha Cortina and Stephanie A. Mitchell, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.2 In two separate criminal cases , Nathan Ivan Young was twice found not mentally competent to stand trial and ordered committed to the Department of State Hospitals (DSH) under Penal Code section 1370. 1 Young appeal s from the second set of commitment orders , arguing the court erred by failing to rule on his pending Marsden 2 motion s and by miscalculating custody credits to be applied to his second commitment term

. While the appeal s were pending, the charges against Young were dismissed in the interest of justice

. 3 Given these developments, we can not grant Young any effective relief

, and for that reason we dismiss the appeals as moot

.

FACTS We begin by summarizing the two cases from which the appeals
have been taken.

T he first case , Orange County Superior Court case no. 18HF0581, was filed o n April 23, 2018 (the 2018 case ; appeal no. G062017 )

. A 2022 felony information charged Young with identity theft with a prior conviction (§ 530.5, subd. ( c ) (2) ; count s 1 , 3 , 15, 17 ) ; identity theft (§ 530.5, subd. (a);

count s 2 , 4 , 7, 9

– 10 ) ; second degree burglary ( § § 459

– 460, subd. (b); count s 5 & 13 ); false personation (§ 529, subd. (a)(3); count 6 ); conspiracy to commit the crime of unauthorized use of personal identifying information ( § § 182,

1 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise stated.

2 People v. Marsden (1970) 2 Cal.3d 118 ( Marsden ).

3 This court denied the People’s motion to consolidate appeal no s

. G062008 and G062017 (collectively, the appeals ) for all purpose s but deferred the issue of consolidation for purposes of oral argument and opinion. The parties waived oral argument. We now consolidate the appeals for purposes of issuing this opinion

.3

subd. (a)(1), 530.5 ; count 8 ); non
- sufficient fund check (§ 476a, subd. (a); count 11); petty theft by false pretense ( § § 484, subd. (a), 485

– 488 ; count 12 ); possession of a forged instrument (§ 475, subd. (a); counts 14 & 16); and recording false and forged instrument s (§ 115, subd. (a); counts 18

– 24 )

. 4 T he information further alleged enhancements and factors in aggravation for several of the counts

.

The second case, Orange County Superior C ourt case

no. 19HF1226, was filed on September 6, 2019 (the 2019 case ; appeal

no. G062008 ). A 2022 amended felony information charged Young with second degree burglary (§ § 459

– 460, subd. (b); count 1); identity theft (§ 530.5, subd. (a); count 2); issuing a fictitious instrument (§ 476; count 3); and identity theft with a prior conviction (§ 530.5, subd. (c)(2); count 4), and alleged factors in aggravation. These charged offenses allegedly occurred while Young was released on bail in the 2018 case.

Hearings for the 20 18 case and the 2019 case (collectively, the underlying cases) , along with other companion cases, were regularly scheduled for the same day or around the same timeframe. 5

In the summer of 2020, appointed defense counsel David Medina
raised doubt about Young’s competence to stand trial in the underlying cases

. At the hearing for the 2019 case , Medina also informed the cour t that Young

4 C ounts 11 and 12 were charged as misdemeanors , and the remainder as felonies.

5 In fact, because the issues on appeal and the underlying facts are the same for the appeals , the Attorney General has request ed that for the appeal in the 2019 case, we take judicial notice of the appellate record in the 2018 case. The request is granted. (Evid. Code, §§ 452, subd. (d), 459, subd. (a).)4

was making a Marsden request

. The record does not reflect a similar request having been made at the hearing for the 2018 case. Without ruling on the
Marsden request in the 2019 case , the court set a competency hearing in the underlying cases

.

T he following events occurred in both the underlying cases

. On September 10, 2020, Judge Julian W. Bail ey found Young mentally incompetent to stand trial. The court later ordered Young to be placed with DSH. O n October 18, 2021, the court found Young had been
restored to competency and reinstated criminal proceedings.

On February 17, 2022, Young made a Marsden request to obtain
new counsel. At the time, he was being represented by appointed counsel Ernest Eady

. Eady was the sixth appoint ment in the 2018 case and the fifth
in the 2019 case ; all prior counsel had either immediately or eventually declared a conflict

.

At the Marsden hearing, Eady declared a doubt as to Young’s mental competence, and Judge Scott A. Steiner ordered criminal proceedings suspended. The court set a hearing to appoint doctors to evaluat e Young ; it concluded the hearing without ruling on the Marsden motions.

On July 8, 2022, after receiving the reports from the appointed doctors, Judge Bailey found Young mentally in competent to stand trial. On November 3, Judge Michael F. Murray ordered Young to again be placed with DSH for treatment. Young was credit ed with 362 days for his first competency treatment , against the applicable two

- year limit under
section 1370. Young filed a timely notice of appeal of the November 3 order.

In the fall of 2023, the trial court ordered the public guardian to
initiate conser vatorship proceedings and later granted the petition appointing the public guardian as the conservator of Young’s person.5 In January 2024 , the trial court granted Young ’s m otion to
dismiss the underlying case s , in the interest of justice pursuant to section 1385

. DISCUSSION
I. Jurisdiction to Consider the Appeal from the 201 9 Case

At the outset, we must resolve the parties’ dispute about whether
we have jurisdiction to review the commitment order in the 201 9 case

. The People contend we do not

. They point to the notice s of appeal included in the appellate record for the underlying cases : The same copy is included in both clerk’s transcripts . T hat copy bears a trial court file

- stamp date of November 16, 2022, is signed and dated by attorney Eady, and identifies the 2018 case

– but not the 2019

– as the matter from which the appeal is taken

. A cknowledging th e apparent deficiency in the notice of appeal , Young’s appellate counsel moved to file a belated notice of appeal for the 2019 case, under the doctrine of constructive filing. ( In re Benoit (1973) 10 Cal.3d 72,
81

– 82 ( Benoit ) .)

We deny the Benoit motion as unnecessary. As we will explain,
we conclude Young ’s trial defense counsel properly filed two different notices of appeal for each of the underlying cases. The appellate docket for the 2019
case contains a copy of a different notice of appeal (the appellate version) from the one in cluded the clerk’s transcript

. The appellate version was sent by the trial court clerk to the reviewing court clerk (Cal. Rules of Court,
rule 8.304 (c)(1), (3)) and is the document filed in the appellate docket for purposes of this court’s initial review of jurisdiction. T he appellate version , like the one included in the clerk’s transcript, bears a trial court file

- stamp date of November 16, 2022 , and is signed and dated by attorney Eady

. But
the salient difference is that t he appellate version correctly identifies the trial6

court case number as the 2019 case: “19HF1226.” While we do not know exactly how the wrong version of the notice of appeal wound up in the clerk’s transcript for the 2019 case, we can safely conclude trial defense counsel

prepa red two different , correct notices of appeal and timely filed them with
the trial court

. II. Mootness

Given the dismissal s of the underlying case s , Young concedes the
case is moot because this court cannot offer him any relief . Yet Young asks

us to reach the merits of his Marsden claim because the issue is likely to
recur and could evade review

. We decline to exercise our discretion here

.

Generally, we will dismiss an appeal as moot when “‘“without any fault of the [opposing party], an event occurs which renders it impossible for this court, if it should decide the case in favor of [defendant], to grant him [or her] any effectual relief whatever.”’” ( People v. DeLeon (2017) 3 Cal.5th 640, 645.) We nonetheless have the discretion to reach the merits of an appeal if it raises an important issue that is capable of repetition yet tends to evade review. ( People v. Cheek (2001) 25 Cal.4th 894, 897

– 898.)

Here, we are not convinced Young’s Marsd en claim meets the standard for this exception

. Young argues the trial court should have decided
his Marsden motion s before proceeding with the competency hearings. This
issue has already been address ed numerous times

. (See People v. Taylor (2010) 48 Cal.4th 574, 600 , fn. omitted [“trial court erred when it brushed aside [defendant’s] initial requests for substitution of counsel in the belief that the question of defendant’s competence to stand trial first had to be resolved”]; see , e.g. , In re M.P. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 441, 456; People v. Govea (2009) 175 Cal.App.4th 57, 61 ; People v. Solorzano (2005) 1267

Cal.App.4th 1063, 1069

– 1070.) While the issue raised by Young is certainly an important one , it is not a novel issue on which trial courts need guidance. DISPOSITION The People’s motion to consolidate appeal no. G062008 and appeal no. G062017 is granted only for purposes of issuing this opinion. Young’s Benoit motion is denied as unnecessary

. The People’s request for judicial notice is granted. The appeals are dismissed as moot

.

DELANEY, J.

WE CONCUR:

MOORE, ACTING P. J.

SANCHEZ, J.