Court Opinion

ID: 9899965
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-18 00:03:37.564669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:57.299040
License: Public Domain

Filed 11/17/23 P. v. Serpa CA2/2
    NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 TWO

THE PEOPLE,                                                    B329545

         Plaintiff and Respondent,                             (Los Angeles County
                                                               Super. Ct. No. A093412)
         v.

ALLAN EDMOND SERPA,

         Defendant and Appellant.

         THE COURT:

       Allan Edmond Serpa (defendant) appeals from the order of
the trial court denying his second petition for resentencing under
Penal Code1 section 1172.6 (former section 1170.95).2

1     All further statutory references are to the Penal Code
unless otherwise indicated.
Defendant’s attorney filed a brief raising no issues and asked this
court to independently review the record. Defendant submitted a
supplemental brief on his own behalf. Under the standard
articulated in People v. Delgadillo (2022) 14 Cal.5th
216 (Delgadillo), we decline counsel’s invitation to undertake an
independent review of the record. Instead, we evaluate the
arguments defendant raises in his letter brief. (Delgadillo,
supra, at pp. 231-232.) Finding none of his arguments
meritorious, we affirm.
       FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
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I.     Facts
       A.    The underlying crime
       One morning in the summer of 1985, a concerned neighbor
checked on Jean Wildish at her apartment in Santa Monica and
found Wildish’s body in the apartment’s bedroom. Wildish was
naked from the waist down and was positioned with her knees on
the floor and her head on the bed. There was blood all over the
floor. An autopsy confirmed that Wildish had died as a result of
blunt force trauma to the head.
       Defendant and a friend had planned to rob Wildish’s
apartment, but when she awoke, either defendant or his friend
hit Wildish over the head with a hammer.

2     Effective June 30, 2022, section 1170.95 was renumbered
section 1172.6, with no change in text. (Stats. 2022, ch. 58, § 10.)
For the sake of simplicity, we will refer to the section by its new
numbering only.

3     The following facts are drawn from this court’s unpublished
decision in defendant’s direct appeal from his conviction. (People
v. Serpa (June 1, 1988, B027704) [nonpub. opn.].)

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       B.     Conviction and appeal
       In April 1987, a jury found defendant guilty of first degree
murder based on a felony-murder theory, and found true the
special circumstance that Wildish was murdered during the
commission of a robbery and burglary. At that time, the jury was
instructed that it could find true the felony-murder special
circumstance only if a defendant “intended to kill a human being
or intended to aid another in the killing of a human being.” He
was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, and his
conviction was affirmed on appeal.
II.    Procedural Background
       A.     Defendant’s first petition for resentencing
       After the Legislature passed Senate Bill No. 1437 (2017-
2018 Reg. Sess.) (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015), which (among other
things) redefined felony murder, defendant in December 2020
filed a petition seeking resentencing pursuant to section 1172.6.
He had previously filed two unsuccessful habeas corpus petitions
arguing there was insufficient evidence presented at his jury trial
to show he was a major participant who acted with reckless
indifference to human life. The trial court “concur[red] with [the]
reasoning” in the orders denying those habeas corpus petitions
and summarily denied defendant’s petition.
       We affirmed the trial court ruling that defendant was not
entitled to relief under section 1172.6, but on a different ground.
(People v. Serpa (Feb. 24, 2022, B314661) [nonpub. opn.].)
Specifically, we concluded that—unlike a felony-murder special
circumstance finding today—the finding made by defendant’s jury
necessarily included a finding that defendant acted with the
intent to kill. (Accord, Carlos v. Superior Court (1983) 35 Cal.3d
131 (Carlos), overruled by People v. Anderson (1987) 43 Cal.3d

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1104.) Because the jury had found that defendant personally
acted with malice, he was ineligible for relief under section
1172.6 as a matter of law. On May 11, 2022, the California
Supreme Court denied defendant’s petition for review. (People v.
Serpa, supra, B314661, review den. May 11, 2022, S273424.)
      B.    Defendant’s second petition for resentencing
      In December 2022, defendant filed a second petition for
resentencing pursuant to section 1172.6. This time around,
defendant argued that (1) the evidence was insufficient to
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support his conviction under a “Banks/Clark analysis,” and (2)
this court’s application of Carlos was “misplaced.” On February
21, 2023, the trial court denied the petition, finding that it
“contained the exact same arguments [defendant] advanced in a
previous petition” and that defendant had “provided no authority
to revisit his prior litigation of these issues—other than the
assertion that the Court of Appeal[] erred in upholding the denial
of his prior petition.”
       Defendant filed this timely appeal.
                             DISCUSSION
I.     Pertinent Law
       In 2018, our Legislature amended the definition of
“murder” in our state to preclude a jury from “imput[ing]” the
“malice” element of that crime “based solely on [a defendant’s]
participation in a crime.” (§ 188, subd. (a)(3).) Our Legislature’s
purpose was to ensure that “[a] person’s culpability for murder
[is] premised upon that person’s own actions and subjective mens
rea.” (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 1(g).) As amended, liability for
murder is limited to persons (1) who are the actual killer; (2) who

4     (People v. Banks (2015) 61 Cal.4th 788 (Banks); People v.
Clark (2016) 63 Cal.4th 522 (Clark).)

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aided and abetted the actual killer in the murder (that is, who
acted with the intent to kill); or (3) who were a major participant
in the underlying felony that resulted in the killing, but only if
they also acted with reckless indifference to human life. (§§ 188,
subd. (a)(3), 189, subd. (e); e.g., People v. Johns (2020) 50
Cal.App.5th 46, 58-59.)
       Section 1172.6 is the procedural vehicle by which persons
convicted in now-final judgments can seek to vacate convictions
that do not satisfy the now-current definition of “murder.” A
petitioner may file a successive petition under section 1172.6 if it
is based on new legal authority. (People v. Farfan (2021) 71
Cal.App.5th 942, 946-947, 950-951 (Farfan).) But a petitioner is
ineligible for relief under section 1172.6 if the record of conviction
shows that he or she was convicted under a theory of liability
that remains valid after Senate Bill No. 1437’s amendments to
the law of murder. (People v. Estrada (2022) 77 Cal.App.5th 941,
945 [first degree murder conviction based on direct aiding and
abetting with intent to kill is ineligible for section 1172.6
resentencing].)
II.    Analysis
       Per Delgadillo, we will “evaluate the specific arguments
presented in [defendant’s supplemental] brief,” but will not
undertake an “an independent review of the entire record to
identify unraised issues.” (Delgadillo, supra, at p. 232.)
       Defendant makes three arguments.
       First, defendant seems to argue that, even if the jury’s
special circumstance finding meant that he acted with the intent
to kill, the jury was not required to find that he aided and abetted
the killing rather than the underlying felony of robbery. As a
result, he continues, the jury’s special circumstance finding does

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not render him ineligible for relief as a matter of law. Defendant
did not raise this argument below, so the argument is forfeited.
Even if not forfeited, it lacks merit for two reasons. To begin, it
attacks the actus reus element of the crime, even though Senate
Bill No. 1437 is meant to address the mens rea of the crime. It is
far from clear that defendant’s challenge is within the scope of
section 1172.6. (Accord, Farfan, supra, 71 Cal.App.5th at p. 947
[rejecting use of section 1172.6 to attack elements of a crime
other than intent].) Further, defendant’s argument has been
rejected in People v. Lopez (2023) 88 Cal.App.5th 566, 578-580,
which held that defendant’s actus reus of assisting with the
underlying felony is sufficient and not changed by Senate Bill No.
1437.
       Second, defendant challenges the insufficiency of the jury
instruction regarding reasonable doubt. This is far outside the
scope of section 1172.6, and thus was properly denied as outside
that statute’s scope.
       Third and lastly, defendant argues that no court has
factored his youth into whether he was capable of acting with
reckless indifference to the value of human life, as required by
People v. Jones (2022) 86 Cal.App.5th 1076 and People v. Oliver
(2023) 90 Cal.App.5th 466. Defendant’s relative youth may be
relevant to recklessness, but the jury here found that he acted
with the intent to kill. Considerations relevant to recklessness
are therefore irrelevant, and the failure to analyze irrelevant
factors does not entitle defendant to relief.

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                           DISPOSITION
       The trial court's order denying defendant’s section 1172.6
petition is affirmed.
       NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.

——————————————————————————————
LUI, P. J., CHAVEZ, J., HOFFSTADT, J.

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