Opinion ID: 2575903
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Stealing From Doris Dantes

Text: In the pretrial notice to defendant of the aggravating evidence it planned to introduce, the district attorney's office included [t]he incident ... in which the defendant burglarized the apartment of Doris Dantes ... and violently resisted his apprehension immediately following that offense.... In moving to exclude the evidence, defendant cited the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution, section 190.3, factor (b), and People v. Boyd (1985) 38 Cal.3d 762, 215 Cal.Rptr. 1, 700 P.2d 782, in which we held that only violent crimes against people, not property, may be introduced in aggravation as evidence of prior violent criminal activity. ( Id. at pp. 776-777, 215 Cal.Rptr. 1, 700 P.2d 782.) Defendant argued in the court below that there was insufficient evidence for a rational trier of fact to find true beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed any crimes against any person during the Dantes episode. Denying the motion, the trial court reasoned that, based on its reading of prior testimony, the incident involved a battery and the jury could hear evidence of it under section 190.3, factor (b). As described more fully in the factual background, ante, Doris Dantes testified that she awoke to find defendant standing on a stepladder and shining a flashlight through her first floor apartment window in San Francisco. The two of them were looking at each other through the window, separated by only a couple of feet. She was unable to scream, but told him to go away. After unsuccessfully trying to grab a telephone to call police, she fled. As she ran for the front door, defendant hurled a brick through the window, almost striking her, and she was injured by flying shards of glass. Then she began to scream, left the apartment, and sought help from a neighbor. When she returned later, she saw that her purse was missing. A neighbor who pursued defendant also testified. In trying to escape, defendant threw his flashlight at him. Defendant also threatened to take revenge on the neighbor, who was holding defendant on the ground, while they awaited the police. Defendant maintains that under People v. Boyd, supra, 38 Cal.3d 762, 776-777, 215 Cal.Rptr. 1, 700 P.2d 782, evidence of the incident was inadmissible because the episode involved only violence against property, namely an effort to obtain Dantes's purse by breaking a window with a brick. He discerns violations of the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as error under Boyd. We do not agree. [18] First, from Dantes's testimony, a rational jury could have decided that defendant committed robbery when he threw the brick at Dantes to force her to abandon her purse, and then entered the apartment and stole the purse. Robbery may be accomplished when fear prevents a victim from retaining possession of property within her reach that she could have retained absent the robber's intercession. ( People v. Frye, supra, 18 Cal.4th 894, 955, 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 25, 959 P.2d 183.) Second, he threw his flashlight at a neighbor in pursuit of him. That is assault. (ї 240.) The incident fell squarely within factor (b) of section 190.3, and evidence of it was properly admitted.