Opinion ID: 2632418
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether the upper terms were supported by the multiple victim factor

Text: In sentencing Waller, the trial court stated, [A]s to Counts Three and Four, [the] vehicular manslaughter charges, the Court will impose an upper term of six years. In selecting the upper term, the Court has to weigh circumstances in mitigation as provided by the sentencing rules, as against those in aggravation. And I think the mitiga[ting], in Mr. Waller's case, have already [been] talked about, in some respect, his lack of significant criminal record. And his background[.] [I]n aggravation, the Court would cite that this defendant was convicted of other crimes for which consecutive sentences could have been imposed, and there are separate victims of the crime involving violence. I am using that aggravating factor as a basis for imposing the aggravated term. I think it outweighs all of the mitigation referred to by counsel and by the probation department. I am ordering terms to run concurrently. The trial court's statement is ambiguous as to whether it is relying on both the fact that there were multiple victims and the fact that consecutive sentences could have been but were not imposed. Waller assumes, as did the Court of Appeal, that the trial court was relying on both, and that imposition of the upper term as to both counts would have been proper had the trial court instead relied solely on the fact that consecutive sentences could have been but were not imposed. He contends that the trial court's reliance on the multiple victim factor was improper because that factor does not apply when the victims are each named in a separate count. We reject that argument. To the extent the trial court relied on the multiple victim factor, that reliance was proper. California Rules of Court, [3] rule 4.421 provides, Circumstances in aggravation include facts relating to the crime, whether or not charged or chargeable as enhancements. Before 1991, rule 421(a)(4) provided that one of these facts was that [t]he crime involved multiple victims. Effective January 1991, this factor was deleted from the rule. The Advisory Committee Comment noted, Former subdivision (a)(4), concerning multiple victims, was deleted to avoid confusion; cases in which that possible circumstance in aggravation was relied on were frequently reversed on appeal because there was only a single victim in a particular count. Defendant does not argue that deletion of the factor precludes the trial court's reliance on it. [4] Rule 4.408(a) provides, The enumeration in these rules of some criteria for the making of discretionary sentencing decisions does not prohibit the application of additional criteria reasonably related to the decision being made. Any such additional criteria must be stated on the record by the sentencing judge. In Cunningham v. California (Jan. 22, 2007, No 05-6551) 549 U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 856, ___ L.Ed.2d ___, [2007 WL 135687] ( Cunningham, ) the high court held that California's Determinate Sentencing Law violates a defendant's Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment right to a jury trial to the extent it permits a trial court to impose an upper term based on facts found by the court rather than by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. This case does not implicate Cunningham because in convicting Waller of two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter, and two counts of reckless driving causing bodily injury, the jury necessarily found there were multiple victims. Waller contends that the fact of multiple victims is properly relied on by the trial court when the charges identifying other victims have been dismissed or the crimes are uncharged. He asserts, however, that the factor is improperly relied on when each count of which the defendant was convicted names only one victim. There is no persuasive argument to support this distinction. We first consider the cases involving dismissed charges. In People v. Harvey (1979) 25 Cal.3d 754, 757, 159 Cal.Rptr. 696, 602 P.2d 396 ( Harvey, ) the defendant pled guilty to two robbery counts. We held that the trial court improperly considered and relied on the facts underlying an unrelated and dismissed third robbery count to impose the upper term. ( Id. at pp. 757-759, 159 Cal.Rptr. 696, 602 P.2d 396.) We observed that although People v. Guevara (1979) 88 Cal.App.3d 86, 92-94, 151 Cal.Rptr. 511 ( Guevara, ) upheld the authority of the sentencing court to take into account certain facts underlying charges dismissed pursuant to a plea bargain, those facts were also transactionally related to the offense to which defendant pleaded guilty. As the Guevara court carefully explained, `The plea bargain does not, expressly or by implication, preclude the sentencing court from reviewing all the circumstances relating to Guevara's admitted offenses to the legislatively mandated end that a term, lower, middle or upper, be imposed on Guevara commensurate with the gravity of his crime.' ( Harvey, at p. 758, 159 Cal.Rptr. 696, 602 P.2d 396.) By contrast, in sentencing Harvey, the court relied on a dismissed robbery count unrelated to, and wholly separate from, the crimes Harvey admitted as part of the plea bargain. [5] ( Harvey, at pp. 758-759, 159 Cal.Rptr. 696, 602 P.2d 396.) In Guevara, supra, 88 Cal.App.3d at page 89, 151 Cal.Rptr. 511, the defendant ordered a mother and her son into a car at gunpoint, then forced her to drive to a different location. After Guevara pleaded guilty to kidnapping the son, the allegation of the mother's kidnapping was dismissed. ( Id. at pp. 88, 93, 151 Cal.Rptr. 511.) The trial court relied on the existence of multiple victims to impose the upper term. The Court of Appeal affirmed, noting both the mother and the son were abducted. No amount of sophistry will make this fact anything but a `circumstance'an aggravating `circumstance' of the kidnaping of [the son]. It has long been the law that the sentencing court must consider all of the attendant circumstances of the crime of which the defendant has been convicted. ( Id. at p. 93, 151 Cal.Rptr. 511.) Similarly, in People v. Klaess (1982) 129 Cal.App.3d 820, 821-823, 181 Cal.Rptr. 355, the court held that the trial court properly considered two dismissed murder counts in imposing the upper term for conviction of accessory after the fact, stating the murders were inseparably and integrally a part of defendant's admitted offense. (See People v. Blade (1991) 229 Cal.App.3d 1541, 1543-1545, 1547, 281 Cal. Rptr. 161; People v. Cortez (1980) 103 Cal.App.3d 491, 494-96, 163 Cal.Rptr. 1.) Two cases, both from the Fifth District Court of Appeal, have addressed the situation presented here, reliance on a multiple victim factor when each victim is named in a separate count. Neither case provides extended analysis. In People v. Burney (1981) 115 Cal.App.3d 497, 502, 171 Cal. Rptr. 329, the defendant fired shots in a bar, killing one person, and wounding another. She was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon. ( Ibid. ) The Court of Appeal held the trial court had properly relied on the multiple victim factor in imposing the upper term because the crimes were transactionally related. ( Id at p. 505, 171 CaLRptr. 329.) In People v. McNiece (1986) 181 Cal.App.3d 1048, 1053-1054, 226 Cal.Rptr. 733, defendant caused a motoring accident, killing one person and severely injuring another. The court held that because the gross vehicular manslaughter count involved only one victim, it was improper to rely on the multiple victim circumstance as a possible aggravating factor. [6] ( McNiece, at p. 1061, 226 Cal.Rptr. 733.) Here, of course, the jury convicted Waller of multiple counts involving different victims, making this case even stronger than Harvey, supra, 25 Cal.3d 754, 159 Cal.Rptr. 696, 602 P.2d 396. Regardless of whether Harvey and its progeny survive Cunningham, because the jury here found beyond a reasonable doubt that Waller committed crimes against four separate victims, and hence that the crimes involved multiple victims, Waller was not deprived of his jury trial right. Waller contends that unlike a case in which charges are dismissed, each of the victims here is listed in a separate count, and hence was necessarily considered at the time of sentencing. Thus, he asserts, the sentence for each offense will already be proportionate to the seriousness of that offense. (Pen.Code § 1170, subd. (a)(1).) However, Waller's single act of violence caused either the death or serious injury of four people. The; gravity of and his culpability for this offense is increased by the number of those he harmed. `A defendant who commits an act of violence ... by a means likely to cause harm to several persons is more culpable than a defendant who harms only one person.' ( People v. Oates (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1048, 1063, 12 Cal. Rptr.3d 325, 88 P.3d 56.) He is therefore properly subject to increased punishment for each gross vehicular manslaughter count. Nor should the trial court's sentencing discretion be limited, as Waller suggests, to imposing consecutive sentences. There is no persuasive reason why the trial court should not be allowed to consider the fact of multiple victims as a basis for imposing either the upper term or a consecutive sentence, although it cannot do both. (Rule 4.425(b)(1).)