Filed 10/23/23 P. v. Morales CA2/8

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 EIGHT

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

MARLON MORALES,

Defendant and Appellant.

 B318146

 Los Angeles County

Super. Ct. No. TA153061

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County, Teresa P. Magno, Judge. Affirmed.

 Susan Morrow Maxwell, 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, Senior 

Assistant Attorney General, Scott A. Taryle, Supervising Deputy 

Attorney General, and Viet H. Nguyen, Deputy Attorney General, 

for Plaintiff and Respondent.

____________________
2

Marlon Morales appeals his torture conviction and seeks 

resentencing. He claims insufficient evidence supports his 

conviction and the trial court was unaware of its new discretion 

to dismiss sentencing enhancements. We affirm. Neither claim 

has merit. Statutory references are to the Penal Code.

I

Morales’s victim testified at trial. She and Morales had 

dated on and off for more than a year. Morales told her to come 

to his house early in the morning on November 7, 2020. They 

were intimate and then fell asleep. 

After a phone call woke him later that afternoon, Morales 

noticed notifications on the victim’s phone and a call from a man. 

Morales looked through the phone. He beat her with his hands 

and other objects over the next 20 hours or so every time he saw 

something on the phone he did not like. 

We provide more details of the victim’s captivity later when 

reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence. For now, we sketch 

some of Morales’s acts over that 20-hour period and some of the 

victim’s injuries. 

According to the victim, Morales kicked and punched her, 

choked her, pulled her by her hair, and slammed her into a wall. 

He hit her face with a gun and made her left eye bleed. He hit 

her with a stick so hard the stick broke. He hit her thigh with a 

brick after trying to hit her in the head with it. He stabbed her 

thigh with scissors. He kicked her in the back and fractured her 

vertebrae. He made it seem as if he would set her on fire with 

gasoline using the gas can he had on hand. 

The victim blacked out at one point and later pretended to 

lose consciousness so Morales would leave her alone. She did not 

try to leave because she feared he would kill her. 
3

Late in the morning of November 8, 2020, the victim’s 

sister went to Morales’s home. She banged on the door and 

windows, called out for her sister, and “did everything that [she] 

could to get [her] sister out . . . .” The victim did not say 

anything, for Morales threatened he would kill her and himself if 

she did. Morales had two guns on him. The victim eventually 

managed to text her sister to call the police when Morales left the 

room to get a rag to clean the blood off her face. 

When police arrived, Morales refused to respond or to come 

out for almost a half hour. Eventually he came out with his 

hands up. The victim followed. 

Video showed their exit from the home. In the video, 

Morales refers to the victim as his “girlfriend.” A clinical social 

worker who saw the victim at a hospital shortly after the incident 

testified the victim similarly referred to Morales as her 

“significant other” and said he was the one who caused her 

injuries. 

Police documented these injuries with photographs and 

video, which the jury saw. The victim’s left eye was purple and 

swollen shut. Blood was dripping down her face from her eye. 

She had bruising and marks all over her body. 

One of the responding officers testified at the July 2021 

trial. Police had searched Morales’s home and determined no one 

besides Morales and the victim was there. They found two loaded 

guns hidden in a couch cushion. 

The jury heard from the victim’s sister, her treating doctor, 

and a detective who interviewed the victim the day after the 

incident. The jury also heard the recorded interview. The victim 

described the ordeal similarly in this interview and at trial. The 
4

doctor opined the victim’s injuries appeared to be acute: 

generally speaking, they happened within the past 24 hours. 

Morales testified in his defense. He admitted he had 

firearms at his house and he violated a criminal protective order 

by communicating with the victim from jail. He also admitted a 

prior domestic violence conviction. But he denied the bulk of the 

crimes here. He denied taking the victim’s phone. He 

maintained he never hit or threatened the victim; rather, she had 

come to his home in her injured state and had refused his 

requests to go to the hospital. Morales said they were broken up 

at the time of the incident. He testified he was asleep when the 

victim’s sister knocked on his windows and door, the noise did not 

wake him, and he had slept from Saturday morning after the 

victim came over until Sunday midday when the police arrived. 

Morales called no other witnesses. He introduced a letter 

the victim sent him while he was in custody. Among other 

things, the letter professed her love for him and told him to stop 

letting his anger get the best of him. 

The jury convicted Morales of torture, injuring a girlfriend, 

criminal threats, and two counts of possession of a firearm by a 

felon. It found true firearm, deadly weapon, and great bodily 

injury allegations. The jury found Morales not guilty of 

attempted murder. 

On January 28, 2022, the trial court sentenced Morales to a 

term of seven years to life for the torture count, plus a 

consecutive ten years for the firearm enhancement. The court 

stayed a deadly weapon enhancement on this count. It imposed 

but then stayed an aggregate 11-year sentence for the domestic 

abuse count, which included multiple enhancements. It imposed 

concurrent terms of two years for each of the gun possession 
5

counts and six years for the criminal threats count with a firearm 

enhancement. 

Morales appealed.

II

We affirm.

A

Morales contends insufficient evidence supports his torture 

conviction, so the trial court should have granted his motion for 

acquittal and we should reverse his conviction. In particular, he 

urges there was insufficient evidence to support an inference he 

inflicted extreme pain for purposes of revenge or persuasion. 

Morales’s insufficiency challenge comes with a heavy 

burden he cannot meet. 

In reviewing claims of insufficiency of evidence, we 

examine the whole record in the light most favorable to the

prosecution. We discern whether there is substantial evidence 

from which any rational trier of fact could find the elements of 

the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. We presume in support of 

the judgment the existence of every fact the jury reasonably could 

deduce from the evidence. (People v. Zamudio (2008) 43 Cal.4th 

327, 357.) Morales notes the same standard applies when 

reviewing the sufficiency of evidence for purposes of acquittal 

motions. (See id. at p. 360, fn. 17.) 

We focus on the challenged element of torture. (See § 206; 

People v. Pre (2004) 117 Cal.App.4th 413, 419 (Pre) [listing the 

elements].) Sufficient evidence shows revenge motivated Morales 

to hurt this victim. As Morales acknowledges, circumstantial 

evidence suffices. (See id. at p. 420.) 

The trial showed the following.
6

In September 2019, more than a year before the incident, 

Morales became enraged when the victim refused to let him look 

through her phone. He slapped her. Then he drove her to an 

alley where he choked, kicked, and punched her. He “socked” her 

everywhere. The victim begged him to take her home, but 

Morales kept her in the alley for hours. 

In October 2019, Morales again asked to see the victim’s 

phone. She complied this time, and he went through her social 

media. Then he punched and choked her for about 20 minutes in 

front of his friends. 

As for the incident, Morales had been upset because the 

victim planned to go to Detroit. He brought up “old stuff” about 

the victim “messing with his friends and stuff like that. So that 

kind of triggered him or whatever and got him mad.” Morales 

and the victim argued. Then he told her to come over. When the 

victim got to Morales’s home, he told her he loved her and wanted 

her “to be all his.” He said, “you’re going to stay in the house. . . . 

you’re not going to go nowhere. You’re going to be mine.” They 

were intimate and fell asleep. 

When Morales awoke later that afternoon, he noticed the 

victim had several notifications on her phone. He asked for the 

phone. The victim gave it to him even though she feared he 

would hit her. Morales went through her call log and saw she 

had received a call from jail. He slapped the victim in the face. 

Then he made a video call to a man named Manny who was the 

victim’s family friend. Morales asked if Manny had been 

“messing around” with the victim. Manny denied it. Morales did 

not believe him and grew angry. He displayed the victim, who 

was naked, and taunted, “ ‘Oh, this is your girlfriend[.]’ ” Manny 

denied this and asked what was happening. Morales said not to 
7

worry and hung up. After Manny called back, Morales told him

not to call anymore or this was going to go from bad to worse. 

After the call, Morales grabbed his gun and hit the victim 

in the face with it multiple times. He threatened to kill her. At 

one point, he held the loaded gun to her throat. 

Morales went back to looking through the victim’s phone. 

He looked at her messages, contacts, and social media accounts 

throughout the day and night. Whenever he saw something he 

did not like, he attacked the victim. He ignored her pleas to stop. 

Morales kept control of the victim’s phone. As he hit her, 

he would say, “ ‘Oh, you’re out there being a ho’ ” and threaten to 

kill her. 

Morales’s attacks often targeted the victim’s face. He hit 

her multiple times in the face with his fist and with his gun; he 

kicked her in the face; later he threw a brick at her face. The 

victim had a shoe print on the side of her face “consistent with . . . 

getting stepped on.” 

Morales also focused on the victim’s genitals: He tried to 

stab her with scissors and threatened to shove them in her 

vagina. 

This evidence showed Morales acted for revenge. A 

reasonable jury could conclude Morales wanted to make the 

victim pay for seeing and speaking with other men.

Morales concedes it is possible he acted out of revenge or a 

desire to persuade this victim “not to get with other guys” but 

argues a possibility is just speculation, not evidence. The correct 

noun is inference, not speculation. The inference was reasonable. 

(See People v. Massie (2006) 142 Cal.App.4th 365, 369 (Massie) 

[“If the trier of fact’s conclusion reasonably and logically follows 

from the proof of the preliminary facts, an appellate court will not 
8

interfere with the conclusion, even if the appellate court believes 

that a contrary conclusion would have been reasonable”].)

Morales argues the evidence simply shows he reacted out of 

anger, and “an emotional angry reaction is not torture.” The 

evidence does show anger, but anger does not negate torture. 

(See Massie, supra, 142 Cal.App.4th at pp. 371–372 [evidence of 

anger does not preclude a torture conviction, and premeditation 

is not required].) 

Morales maintains this case is distinguishable from cases 

the prosecution cites. When the evidence satisfied the elements, 

as it did, this argument is logically insufficient to establish the 

conviction was invalid. (See Pre, supra, 117 Cal.App.4th at p. 423 

[comparing the facts in other torture cases is of little value in 

assessing the sufficiency of evidence of torture in a particular 

case].)

Sufficient evidence supported Morales’s conviction. 

B

Morales contends his case must be remanded for 

resentencing because there is no sign the trial court was aware of 

Senate Bill No. 81 (2021-2022 Reg. Sess.) (Senate Bill 81) and the 

court’s new discretion regarding enhancements. This contention 

is incorrect. 

Senate Bill 81 fine-tuned how a trial court exercises its 

discretion to dismiss sentencing enhancements. (People v. Walker

(2022) 86 Cal.App.5th 386, 395, review granted March 22, 2023, 

S278309.) It applies to sentencings after January 1, 2022, and 

therefore applied to Morales’s sentencing. It adds a new 

subdivision to section 1385 that enables trial courts to strike 

enhancements in the interest of justice, and it provides a list of 

mitigating circumstances the courts must consider. (Stats. 2021, 
9

ch. 721, § 1; People v. Sek (2022) 74 Cal.App.5th 657, 674.) The 

amended statute specifies these circumstances weigh greatly in 

favor of dismissing an enhancement unless dismissal would 

endanger public safety. (§ 1385, subd. (c)(2).) 

Morales incorrectly argues no one alerted the court to this 

new law. The defense sentencing memorandum performed this 

duty. Under the heading “RELEVANT 2022 FELONY 

SENTENCING LAWS” the memorandum said: “SB 81 amended 

1385 which makes it clear that the Court can dismiss an 

enhancement if in furtherance of justice to do so. The Court also 

has to give great weight to the evidence offered by the defendant 

to prove that specified mitigating factors are present. Proof of 

the presence of one or more specified mitigating circumstances 

weigh greatly in favor of dismissing an enhancement.”

The defense memorandum thus addressed Senate Bill 81 

head on. It also addressed various mitigating factors. 

At the sentencing hearing, defense counsel again referred 

to the requirement of the “2022 laws” to consider mitigating 

factors. The trial court announced it had read and considered the 

defense sentencing memorandum and letters supporting Morales, 

among other things. The court then found Morales continued “to 

be a serious danger to society” and discussed the many 

aggravating circumstances present. 

The trial court considered the new law. Remand is 

unwarranted.

///
10

DISPOSITION

We affirm the judgment.

WILEY, J.

We concur: 

GRIMES, Acting P. J. 

VIRAMONTES, J.