Case Name: THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JUAN RIOS, Defendant and Appellant
Court: Court of Appeal of the State of California
Jurisdiction: California
Decision Date: 1986-02-10
Citations: 177 Cal. App. 3d 445
Docket Number: No. A020984
Parties: THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JUAN RIOS, Defendant and Appellant.
Judges: 
Reporter: California Appellate Reports, Third Series
Volume: 177
Pages: 445–460

Head Matter:
[No. A020984.
First Dist., Div. Three.
Feb. 10, 1986.]
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JUAN RIOS, Defendant and Appellant.
[Opinion certified for partial publication, ]
Counsel
Frank O. Bell, Jr., State Public Defender, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, Monica Knox, Chief Assistant State Public Defender, and Jean R. Sternberg, Deputy State Public Defender, for Defendant and Appellant.
John K. Van de Kamp, Attorney General, Martin S. Kaye and John W. Runde, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Pursuant to California Rules of Court, rule 976.1, the portion of the opinion certified for publication follows.

Opinion:
Opinion
MERRILL, J.
Appellant Juan Rios was convicted by a jury of one count of concealment or detention of a child in violation of a custody order (Pen. Code, § 278.5) and one count of felonious false imprisonment (§§ 236, 237). He appeals from the judgment of conviction.
I
Appellant and Georgia Hilgeman (Hilgeman) first met as graduate students at San Jose State University. They were married in August 1971. Appellant was a Mexican citizen at the time and a native of Acambaro, Guanajuato, Mexico. Hilgeman was of Greek descent.
They remained married for approximately four years. During this time, they both completed their educations. Appellant joined the faculty of Laney and Vista Colleges and taught at the Oakland Street Academy. Hilgeman obtained a masters degree in counselor education and a B.A. in social services. They lived in Hayward.
Their marriage was a stormy one. The reasons for the turbulence are in dispute. According to Hilgeman, she was a battered wife throughout the marriage. Appellant denied beating or abusing her. According to appellant, the cause of the turmoil was Hilgeman's consumption of alcohol and marijuana.
In April of 1975, Hilgeman consulted an attorney about obtaining a dissolution of their marriage. Following the consultation, however, she relented for a time in her determination to end the marriage, knowing she was four months pregnant and hoping things would improve. Hilgeman testified that she told appellant about the consultation about a month after it had taken place and he responded: "If you try to screw me, I'll take the kid to Mexico and you'll never see it again." Shortly thereafter, Hilgeman left appellant and moved to San Jose. The couple's child, Monica Rios, was born on September 19, 1975.
Dissolution proceedings began in December 1975. According to both sides, these proceedings were unusually acrimonious. The couple fought heatedly over the settlement of their property and custody of Monica. Hilgeman requested legal custody of the child with reasonable visitation rights for appellant. Appellant, on the other hand, sought joint custody of the girl for bicultural reasons. Hilgeman testified that during these proceedings, appellant repeatedly told her that he "didn't want any Gringos raising his kid."
Custody hearings were held July 7 and 19, 1976. Thereafter, the court awarded physical custody of the child to Hilgeman and visitation rights to appellant.
Subsequent to the court's ruling, appellant exercised his visitation rights relative to Monica. It was on the occasion of one of his seemingly routine visits, however, that appellant, through his actions, set in motion a chain of events which would alter the lives of these individuals for years to come, and become the subject of the instant proceedings.
On Saturday, October 16, 1976, appellant arrived in his car at Hilgeman's residence as usual to pick up Monica for a weekend visit. Hilgeman brought the child out to the car. Before departing, appellant allegedly told Hilgeman he would return Monica the next day. In reality, however, it would be four years before Hilgeman would see her daughter again. For on this day, appellant formalized plans to secretly take Monica to Mexico.
As part of his plans to abduct the child, appellant engineered a cover-up. He first took Monica to Oakland, to a street fair. At the fair, he left the child in the car under the care of one Fidel Tores, a friend of his cousin. Next, he tracked down some police officers who were patrolling the fair and reported that Monica was missing. The officers later testified that appellant told them that a black woman in her mid-thirties had been playing with the child just prior to her alleged disappearance. After searching the area without success, the officers said they talked to appellant again. He told them that he was sure Monica was in good hands and would be returned.
At approximately 9:30 p.m. that evening, appellant filed a formal missing person's report with the Oakland Police Department. From here, the sequence of events is uncertain, but appellant gives the following account: appellant then returned to his car where Monica and Tores awaited him and proceeded to drive directly to Tijuana, Mexico. Once there, he placed the girl in the hands of his first cousin and his first cousin's wife, Miguel and Maria Rios. He then returned to Oakland.
In the days following the abduction, the police unsuccessfully continued their search for Monica. They viewed appellant as uncooperative and hostile. They testified that he became their prime suspect in the investigation.
For four years, however, there was no sign of Monica. During this time, Hilgeman made numerous trips to Mexico herself in search of her daughter. Finally, in January 1981, with the aid of private investigators and local authorities, Hilgeman located the little girl in the town of Capulhuac, Mexico. She was living in the home of Miguel and Maria Rios, whom she believed were her natural parents. Monica did not know the identity of her real parents. She had been told that appellant was her godfather.
On June 8, 1981, the district attorney for the County of Alameda filed an information accusing appellant of violating section 278.5 (concealment or detention of child in violation of a custody order). On June 9, 1981, appellant was arraigned on the charge and entered a plea of not guilty.
On September 18, 1981, the district attorney filed an amended information adding a second count for violation of section 236 (false imprisonment). On March 19, 1982, appellant was permitted to withdraw his plea of not guilty and he entered a plea of guilty to the violation of section 278.5 charged in count I. The district attorney's motion to dismiss count II was taken under submission. On June 30, 1982, the plea of guilty as to count I was set aside and appellant again entered a plea of not guilty to that offense.
Trial ran from October 21 to November 24, 1982. At trial, appellant admitted abducting Monica, but, in defense, claimed that it was necessary to do so for the child's welfare. He argued that Monica's physical well-being had been seriously neglected by Hilgeman; that the child was not bathed or dressed properly and was always hungry. He asserted at trial that he had expressed his concerns over Monica's health to Hilgeman, but that this was greeted with hostility and intransigence on her part. He also claimed that he did not know that in abducting Monica he was committing a crime and thus did not have the requisite mental state for conviction on count I.
On November 24, 1982, the jury returned verdicts finding appellant guilty as charged on both counts. At sentencing, the trial court imposed the aggravated term of three years in state prison as to the conviction in count II (§§ 236, 237) and ordered stayed the imposition of sentence as to count I (§ 278.5). This appeal followed.
II
In its amended information, the prosecution charged appellant with felony false imprisonment. Section 236 defines false imprisonment as "the unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another." Section 237 defines felony false imprisonment as that which is "effected by violence, menace, fraud, or deceit."
Appellant challenged this part of the information below both on a demurrer and on a motion for judgment of acquittal (§ 1118.1). Appellant argued that the crime of felony false imprisonment was not established by the evidence because there was no evidence of force, menace, fraud or deceit committed against Monica Rios, the victim of the alleged crime. Evidence of fraud and deceit against the police or Hilgeman, Monica's mother, he argued, was not sufficient for purposes of sections 236 and 237. Appellant's demurrer and motion were denied.
On appeal, appellant asserts that although the evidence is sufficient to sustain a misdemeanor conviction, it is insufficient to sustain a felony conviction. Appellant declares that he does not challenge the fact that Monica was falsely imprisoned. He argues only that the evidence does not sustain the greater crime.
We do not agree with appellant's position that the evidence is insufficient to support the conviction of felony false imprisonment.
This appears to be an issue of first impression for this court. Stated simply, the issue is this: for the purpose of a felony false imprisonment conviction under sections 236 and 237, when the victim is a child of tender years, is it sufficient if the crime is "effected" by "violence, menace, fraud, or deceit" directed to the custodial parent rather than to the child herself. We hold that it is.
First of all, nowhere in section 236 or 237 does it state that the "violence, menace, fraud, or deceit" must be committed against the victim herself. The statutes merely state in general terms that the crime of felony false imprisonment must be "effected" by one of those elements. Appellant's interpretation of that provision would have the effect of narrowing its applicability in a way the language itself does not warrant. As a rule, "[i]n construing the statutory provisions a court is not authorized to insert qualifying provisions not included and may not rewrite the statute to con form to an assumed intention which does not appear from its language. The court is limited to the intention expressed." (People v. One 1940 Ford V-8 Coupe (1950) 36 Cal.2d 471, 475 [224 P.2d 677].)
Next, our interpretation of the statute is more in keeping with the policy of the law in these kinds of cases. In People v. Oliver (1961) 55 Cal.2d 761 [12 Cal.Rptr. 865, 361 P.2d 593], our Supreme Court indicated that in kidnapping cases the requirement of force may be relaxed where the victim is a minor who is "too young to give his legal consent to being taken" and the kidnapping was done for an improper purpose. (Id., at pp. 764-766; see also Parnell v. Superior Court (1981) 119 Cal.App.3d 392, 402-403 [173 Cal.Rptr. 906], fn. 3.) And in People v. Campos (1982) 131 Cal.App.3d 894 [182 Cal.Rptr. 698], a case involving the abduction of an 11-month old child, the court upheld the propriety of dual charges against defendant for both child stealing (§ 278) and kidnapping (§ 207). The court said, "Child stealing has always been considered in California to be a crime against the parent, not the child. It is designed to protect parents against the anxiety and grief which necessarily follow from the taking of their children. [Citations.] But it belies common sense to suggest. . . that in forcibly stealing a baby from its mother, taking the baby to a foreign country and abandoning it there, appellant did not also commit a crime against the child, the crime of simple kidnapping. . . . That [defendant] found herself facing two charges instead of one is due to permissible prosecutorial discretion, because the circumstances in this case are particularly aggravated." (Id., at p. 899.)
In the instant case, appellant was convicted of child stealing and false imprisonment. The circumstances in this case are particularly aggravated as well: appellant admittedly lied to the police, lied to Monica's mother, then continued the deception for a period of four years. Under these circumstances, it is manifest that appellant committed a crime against the child and that the crime was "effected" through fraud and deceit.
Nor should the fact that appellant was the father of Monica and not a mere stranger alter this conclusion. As the court said in People v. Irwin (1984) 155 Cal.App.3d 891, 900 [202 Cal.Rptr. 475], "[T]here is no historical understanding that parents without custody are exempted from the scope of [the] language [of section 278]. Though parental misbehavior may entail a likelihood of less distress to the victimized custodian, this is not inevitably the case. Nor can we say such 'lesser' distress inherently demands a separate penal response."
Finally, we note that even under appellant's interpretation of the felony imprisonment statutes, there is more than ample evidence to support his conviction. Evidence adduced at trial indicated that the crime of false imprisonment in the instant case was "effected" through deceit of young Monica as well as her mother. As noted before, during the four years of concealment in Mexico, Monica was led to believe that Miguel and Maria Rios, with whom she resided, were her natural parents and appellant was her godfather.
III
VII
Judgment is affirmed.
Barry-Deal, J., concurred.
Unless otherwise indicated, all statutory references are to the Penal Code.
Section 278.5, which has since been amended, at that time provided as follows: "Every person who in violation of a custody decree takes, retains after the expiration of a visitation period, or conceals the child from his legal custodian, and every person who has custody of a child pursuant to an order, judgment or decree of any court which grants another person rights to custody or visitation of such child, and who detains or conceals such child with the intent to deprive the other person of such right to custody or visitation shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison . . . ."
Section 236 provides: "False imprisonment is the unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another."
Section 237 provides: "False imprisonment is punishable by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in the county jail not more than one year, or by both. If such false imprisonment be effected by violence, menace, fraud, or deceit, it shall be punishable by imprisonment in the state prison."
The Supreme Court has denied a hearing in the Irwin case.
Part III is not certified for publication. (See fn., ante, at p. 445.)