Court Opinion

ID: 9894739
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-02 18:03:46.186997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:29.309183
License: Public Domain

Filed 11/2/23 P. v. Moreno 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   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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,                                                  B319890

         Plaintiff and Respondent,                           (Los Angeles County
                                                             Super. Ct. No. KA042134)
         v.

BRENDA MORENO,

         Defendant and Appellant.

     APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los
Angeles County, Rob B. Villeza, Judge. Affirmed.

      Alex Coolman, 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, Seth McCutcheon and William H.
Shin, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

                              ******
       Brenda Moreno (defendant) appeals the trial court’s order
denying her petition for resentencing filed pursuant to Penal
Code section 1172.6.1 Concluding there was no error, we affirm.
          FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I.     Facts
       A.     The underlying crimes
       On a Tuesday night in late September 1998, defendant and
four others—her roommate, her roommate’s boyfriend (the
boyfriend), and two of his friends (Dennis Barroso and Brian
Scott)—drove around the San Gabriel Valley committing a rash
of violent crimes. Defendant joined in because she “wanted to get
the money” from the robberies they planned to commit “to buy
drugs and to pay [her] rent.”
       With the roommate driving an SUV, the group prepared for
the spree by making three stops—two separate stops to pick up a
total of four shotguns and four handguns, and one stop to pick up
black knitted gloves.
       After the boyfriend suggested driving to Diamond Bar to
find their first victim, defendant willingly gave the roommate
driving directions.

1     All further statutory references are to the Penal Code
unless otherwise indicated.
      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 refer to the section by its new
numbering only.

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       For their first crime of the evening, the group followed a
woman driving an Infiniti. When the woman pulled over across
the street from her house, the boyfriend and his two friends got
out of their SUV, with shotguns and handguns on display. They
demanded the woman’s purse, her watch and her necklace. The
boyfriend drove off in the Infiniti. One of the boyfriend’s friends
expressed his intention to “shoot her,” and the others had to talk
him out of it. Afterwards, the group rendezvoused at the
boyfriend’s apartment to split up the proceeds of the carjacking.
Defendant “wanted to go and do it again” because it “seemed like
fun” and “was so easy.” One of the boyfriend’s friends declined to
continue.
       The group then tried to commit a second carjacking in
Rosemead, but ultimately failed. As before, the roommate
followed the intended victim into his driveway, and the boyfriend
and his remaining friend jumped out of the SUV to point
shotguns at the driver. But the driver honked his horn, put his
car in reverse, and drove away—but not before the remaining
friend shot at the car.
       After that failure, the roommate drove up alongside a group
of four pedestrians—a man named Gilbert Rivas (Rivas), his
fiancée, his fiancée’s teenage son and Rivas’s teenage brother.
The boyfriend and his friend leaned out of the SUV’s windows
and demanded to know Rivas’s gang affiliation; when Rivas
replied that he did not “bang,” the two men in the SUV
proclaimed their affiliation with the “Valinda Flats” gang. They
then jumped out of the car—with the two men again wielding
shotguns. Rivas’s teenage brother handed over cash, some
cigarettes and his new black Nikes. Defendant then demanded
that Rivas’s fiancée hand over her rings. When she hesitated and

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explained that her rings had little monetary value but great
sentimental value, defendant yelled, “Take off your rings, bitch!”
and punched her in the face. When Rivas told defendant that she
did not need to hurt his fiancée or disrespect them, the
boyfriend’s friend shot Rivas in the stomach and the boyfriend
shot Rivas twice more—once in the back and once in the head.
They all got back into the roommate’s car, leaving Rivas to die
from his wounds.
       The next day, defendant dropped off the stolen Infiniti at a
body shop; shredded some documents from the Diamond Bar
robbery; changed her appearance by cutting and dyeing her hair;
and spent the rest of the day “g[etting] high” and watching
movies.
       B.     Plea, conviction, and sentencing
       On June 1, 1999, defendant entered a plea agreement in
which she pleaded guilty to second degree murder (§ 187, subd.
(a)) and one count of robbery (§ 211) in exchange for the dismissal
of the remaining charges and a sentence of 15 years to life in
prison. As part of the plea agreement, defendant agreed
to testify fully and truthfully at all stages of the trial of her
codefendants—the roommate, the boyfriend, and the boyfriend’s
friend. The trial court sentenced defendant to the agreed-upon
term of 15 years to life. Defendant did not appeal her conviction.
II.    Procedural Background
       On November 30, 2020, defendant filed a petition for
resentencing under section 1172.6. After appointing counsel for
defendant and entertaining briefing, the trial court in October
2021 issued an order to show cause and set the matter for an
evidentiary hearing.

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        On April 20, 2022, the trial court held an evidentiary
hearing. At the beginning of the hearing, the court recited the
list of documents that it had reviewed and considered for the
purposes of the hearing. Among other things, that list included
(1) the pleadings and attached exhibits; (2) the record of
conviction, which included “the preliminary hearing transcript”
and “portions of the trial transcript, including the testimony of
[defendant] as a witness for the People against the remaining
defendants”; (3) the plea agreement; and (4) the Court of Appeal
decision issued in the boyfriend’s friend’s appeal on April 24,
2001.2 Defendant had no objection to the admission of any of the
listed items. Defendant introduced no new evidence and did not
testify.
        The trial court denied defendant’s petition after finding,
beyond a reasonable doubt, that she was a major participant in
the underlying robbery and had acted with reckless disregard for
human life. Specifically, the court found defendant (1) played a
major role in planning the robberies and “provided directions to
the targeted areas where the incidents occurred”; (2) knew guns
would be used to commit the robberies because she was inside the
car when they were retrieved and used in the earlier incidents;
(3) was aware of the danger posed by the crime because the
boyfriend’s friend had previously fired his weapon during the
failed carjacking; (4) did nothing to minimize the risk of violence
but instead escalated the Rivas robbery by punching Rivas’s
fiancée in the face when she refused to hand over her rings,
causing Rivas to intervene, leading to his death; and (5) did not
render any aid to Rivas but fled with the others.

2      (People v. Barroso et al. (Apr. 24, 2001, B135322) [nonpub.
opn.].)

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III.   Appeal
       Defendant filed this timely appeal.
                           DISCUSSION
       Defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying her
petition because (1) the court impermissibly relied on the facts
set forth in the appellate opinion involving the boyfriend’s friend,
in violation of section 1172.6, subdivision (d)(3); and (2) the court
misconstrued one snippet of her testimony at the boyfriend’s
friend’s trial.3
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
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

3     In her opening brief, defendant argued that the record did
not support five specific factual findings made by the trial court.
This argument was premised on the trial court’s incorrect
reference to only one of three volumes of transcripts from the
boyfriend’s friend’s trial. When the People pointed out the trial
court’s error and explained how the other two volumes of
transcripts set forth the evidence that supported the factual
findings defendant attacked, defendant in her reply appropriately
withdrew that argument. Thus, we have no occasion to address
it.

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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.”
Where, as here, a defendant files a facially sufficient petition and
the record does not otherwise foreclose relief as a matter of law,
the trial court must issue an order to show cause and convene an
evidentiary hearing. (§ 1172.6, subd. (c).) At the hearing, the
People have the burden of proving to the trial court, as an
independent factfinder, that a defendant is guilty of murder on a
still-valid theory. (§ 1172.6, subd. (d)(3).) At that hearing, the
Evidence Code “govern[s],” “except that the court may [also]
consider” (1) “evidence previously admitted at any prior hearing
or trial that is admissible under current law,” (2) “stipulated
evidence,” (3) “matters judicially noticed,” and (4) “the procedural
history of the case recited in any prior appellate opinion.” (Ibid.)
II.    Analysis
       Neither of defendant’s arguments has merit.
       The trial court did not err by impermissibly considering the
facts from the appellate opinion in the boyfriend’s friend’s case.
To begin, the trial court did not rely on the facts from that
opinion. Defendant asserts that the court cited the opinion for
the proposition that defendant jumped out of the car to confront
Rivas and the others while armed, but the trial court cited the
preliminary hearing transcript—not the appellate opinion.
Further, whether defendant was armed at that time was not a
critical factor in the trial court’s analysis of whether she acted
with reckless indifference to the value of human life; indeed, the

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court remarked that “defendant didn’t supply or use guns during
the crime spree.” (Italics added.) Lastly, even if the trial court
had relied on the passage from the appellate opinion indicating
that all three people who jumped out of the SUV were armed, this
error is not cognizable because defendant forfeited the error by
saying she did not “object” to the trial court’s unrestricted
reliance on that opinion. Defendant’s argument that section
1172.6, subdivision (d)(3), precludes a forfeiture or waiver was
rejected in People v. Vance (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 706, 713-714.
We see no basis to disagree with Vance.
       The trial court also did not misconstrue a snippet of her
testimony from the boyfriend’s friend’s trial. At that trial, she
testified, “. . . I chose to get off and sock this lady, and maybe that
did trigger off the shooting . . . maybe I was the person that
triggered off the shooting, you know, and I feel good.” (Italics
added.) She further explained, “Even though I’m crying, I feel
good that I came out and I said the truth because this guy’s life
was taken away.” (Italics added.) Defendant complains that the
trial court read the first snippet of her testimony as indicating
that she “fe[lt] good” about triggering the shooting. We agree
that the full context of her testimony would not support this
reading, but the trial court did not construe her testimony in this
way. To the contrary, when assessing whether defendant acted
with reckless indifference to human life, the court repeated
defendant’s statement verbatim on two occasions but on neither
occasion commented on defendant’s use of the word “good.” We
decline to invalidate the court’s ruling on the basis of a
misconstruction of the court’s reasoning.
       And even if we assume that the trial court somehow
committed either error, those errors were harmless because

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substantial evidence supports the trial court’s finding beyond a
reasonable doubt that defendant acted with reckless indifference
to human life—even if we ignore the contents of the appellate
opinion and construe the “feel good” comment in the manner
defendant suggests.4 (People v. Nieber (2022) 82 Cal.App.5th 458,
476 [applying substantial evidence review].)
      In People v. Banks (2015) 61 Cal.4th 788 (Banks) and
People v. Clark (2016) 63 Cal.4th 522 (Clark), our Supreme Court
spelled out that a defendant acts with reckless indifference to
human life when she “‘“knowingly engag[es] in criminal activities
known to carry a grave risk of death.”’” (Banks, at p. 801,
quoting People v. Estrada (1995) 11 Cal.4th 568, 577,
quoting Tison v. Arizona (1987) 481 U.S. 137, 157.) Our Supreme
Court has identified a number of considerations bearing on
whether a defendant has acted with reckless indifference to
human life. “No one of these considerations is necessary, nor is
any one of them necessarily sufficient” (Banks, at p. 803); what
matters is the totality of the considerations (In re Scoggins (2020)
9 Cal.5th 667, 677). The considerations are: (1) “Did the
defendant use or know that a gun would be used during the
[underlying] felony,” and, relatedly, “[h]ow many weapons were
ultimately used?”; (2) “Was the defendant physically present at
the crime,” such that she had “the opportunity to restrain the
crime or aid the victim?”; (3) “What was the duration of the
interaction between the perpetrators of the [underlying] felony
and the victims?”; (4) “What was the defendant’s knowledge of . . .
her confederate’s propensity for violence or likelihood of using

4     We need not examine the major participant element
because defendant concedes this element. (People v. Bascomb
(2020) 55 Cal.App.5th 1077, 1084, 1087.)

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lethal force?”; and (5) “What efforts did the defendant make to
minimize the risks of violence during the felony?” (Ibid., citing
Clark, supra, 63 Cal.4th at pp. 618-623.)
      The Banks factors support the trial court’s finding that
defendant acted with reckless indifference to human life.
      First, defendant knew that guns would be used in the
confrontation with Rivas and his family. She was present when
the group retrieved the cache of guns; she was present when the
boyfriend and his friends displayed the guns during the first
carjacking and second failed carjacking; and she was present
when the boyfriend’s friend shot at the fleeing victim of the
second carjacking. Whether defendant herself used a gun does
not diminish her awareness that her compatriots were “locked
and loaded.”
      Second, defendant knew of the propensity for violence of
her cohorts because of what happened in the two carjackings
earlier in the evening.
      Third, defendant was present at the crime scene and played
an integral part in the robbery. When defendant believed Rivas’s
fiancée was not complying quickly enough with the group’s
demands, she stepped forward and punched the fiancée in the
face and demanded her rings. It was that conduct that
immediately escalated the confrontation, as defendant herself
acknowledged when testifying.
      Fourth, defendant did nothing to minimize the risk of
violence. To the contrary, defendant knew the boyfriend’s friend
was trigger happy and she nevertheless escalated the situation
by punching Rivas’s fiancée.
      Finally, defendant did nothing to aid Rivas when he was
shot. She fled with the others, and later disguised her looks to

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evade arrest.
                       DISPOSITION
    The order is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.

                                     ______________________, J.
                                     HOFFSTADT

We concur:

_________________________, Acting P. J.
ASHMANN-GERST

_________________________, J.
CHAVEZ

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