Court Opinion

ID: 9795779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:38:48.506182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:36:43.831571
License: Public Domain

BAXTER, J., Concurring.
I concur in the majority’s holding, solely and reluctantly under compulsion of People v. Robles (2000) 23 Cal.4th 1106 [99 Cal.Rptr.2d 120, 5 P.3d 176] (Robles). It is unfortunate, however, that the analysis embraced in Robles continues to impede law enforcement efforts to eradicate unlawful criminal street gang activity, including the type of crimes involved here.
I.
Responding to the “state of crisis” in California “caused by violent street gangs whose members threaten, terrorize, and commit a multitude of crimes against the peaceful citizens of their neighborhoods” (Pen. Code, § 186.21, 2d par.; all further statutory references are to this code unless otherwise indicated), our lawmakers passed the California Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act (§ 186.20 et seq.), and later the Anti-Street Crimes Act of 1995 (Stats. 1996, ch. 787, §§ 1, 2, 3, pp. 4152, 4153). But alleviating this crisis remains considerably more difficult because this court persists in a flawed construction of anti-street-crime legislation that elevates two firearm offenses from misdemeanors to felonies when the defendant is an active participant in a criminal street gang. (See § 12031, subd. (a)(2)(C) (hereafter section 12031(a)(2)(C)) [carrying a loaded firearm]; § 12025, subd. (b)(3) (hereafter section 12025(b)(3)) [carrying a concealed firearm].)
By its terms, section 12031(a)(2)(C) authorizes felony punishment when a person carrying a loaded firearm in public “is an active participant in a criminal street gang, as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 186.22” (hereafter section 186.22(a)). In a decision preceding Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th 1106, this court unanimously concluded that a defendant “ ‘actively participates in any criminal street gang,’ within the meaning of section 186.22(a),” *528when the defendant’s gang involvement “ ‘is more than nominal or passive.’ ” (People v. Castenada (2000) 23 Cal.4th 743, 752 [97 Cal.Rptr.2d 906, 3 P.3d 278].) Accordingly, as my dissent in Robles explained, it logically follows that, under section 12031(a)(2)(C), “the crime of carrying a loaded firearm in public, normally punishable as a misdemeanor, becomes punishable as a felony when the person carrying the firearm is more than nominally or passively involved with a criminal street gang.” (Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 1117 (dis. opn. of Baxter, J.).)
Disregarding this natural and commonsense reading of section 12031(a)(2)(C), the Robles majority construed the statute to authorize felony punishment for the firearm violation only upon further proof that the defendant actually violated section 186.22(a), which entails the following three elements: (1) the defendant actively participates in a criminal street gang; (2) with knowledge that its members engage or have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity; and (3) the defendant willfully promotes, furthers, or assists in any felonious criminal conduct by members of that gang. (See Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 1115.)
Following the analytical path taken in Robles, the court here is compelled to hold that felony punishment under section 12031(a)(2)(C) is possible only if the prosecution can prove a complete violation of section 186.22(a), without sole reference to the current firearm charge. Under this rule, section 186.22(a)’s third element of willfully promoting, furthering, or assisting in any felonious criminal conduct by gang members cannot be satisfied by proof of the charged incident of carrying a loaded firearm, but must be established by proof of a separate felony.
I continue to find Robles problematic because nothing in section 12031(a)(2)(C)’s text or history suggests it is intended to target only those gun-toting active gang participants who have violated section 186.22(a) and thus have been involved in other, separate, gang-related felonies. Not only is Robles’s construction unsupported in this regard, but as a practical matter it strips the statute of any meaningful utility as an anti-street-crime measure.
Significantly, the court here does not disavow its earlier concession in Robles that its construction of section 12031(a)(2)(C) leaves prosecutors with little use for the provision in cases where a defendant commits a violation of section 186.22(a) while carrying a concealed firearm in public: “It is true that a violation of section 186.22(a), when punished as a felony, results in a maximum three-year prison sentence. It is also true that a violation of that section while carrying a firearm triggers section 12021.5[, subdivision (a)], which imposes additional punishment of up to three years in state prison. Thus, the People are correct that a defendant violating section 186.22(a) *529while carrying a loaded firearm could be subject to a longer term of imprisonment (six years) than the maximum three-year term for violating section 12031(a)(2)(C) . . . .” (Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 1113.)
In the face of this obvious deficiency, Robles offered an alternative theory to justify section 12031(a)(2)(C)’s existence: “[T]he Legislature may have enacted section 12031(a)(2)(C) to cover a situation not subject to felony punishment under section 186.22(a): when the person carrying the loaded firearm had at some other time committed a violation of section 186.22(a).” (Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 1113.)
This rationale, also not disavowed here, is unconvincing for two reasons. First, section 12031(a)(2)(C) is explicit in authorizing felony punishment for a firearm violation “[w]here the person is an active participant in a criminal street gang.” (Italics added.) Hence, the wording of the statute defies any notion that it is intended to apply where the defendant previously “was” an active gang participant who violated section 186.22(a) at some other time in the past. (Robles, supra, 23 Cal.4th at p. 1118 (dis. opn. of Baxter, J.).) Second, there appears to be only a narrow range of defendants who would not already be subject to felony punishment where section 12031(a)(2)(C) might apply, i.e., those defendants who previously were convicted of misdemeanor violations of section 186.22(a), and those who violated section 186.22(a) at some previous time, but the statute of limitations had run. As the People point out, it is highly unlikely the Legislature enacted section 12031(a)(2)(C) to target only these particular defendants.
While I continue to have significant disagreements with the court’s construction of section 12031(a)(2)(C), I agree that, whether or not correct, the same analysis governs the interplay between section 186.22(a) and section 12025(b)(3), which elevates the misdemeanor offense of carrying a concealed firearm on one’s person to a felony if committed by “an active participant in a criminal street gang, as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 186.22.” (§ 12025(b)(3); see maj. opn., ante, at p. 523.) Accordingly, both the court’s analysis and my alternative analysis of section 12031(a)(2)(C) apply to the identical language set forth in section 12025(b)(3).
H.
In this case, the evidence showed that defendant was an active member of a criminal street gang, and that he was in a rival gang’s territory with a concealed and loaded gun shortly before he was arrested. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 520.) Despite the express legislative desire to stem criminal street gang violence and to severely punish armed, active gang participants such as defendant, faithful application of the statutory analysis adopted in Robles, *530supra, 23 Cal.4th 1106, means that, without evidence of separate felonious conduct, defendant can receive no harsher punishment for his two firearm offenses than any ordinary member of the public with no gang ties whatsoever.
Accepting Robles as our court’s interpretation of section 12031(a)(2)(C), and by extension section 12025(b)(3), I reluctantly agree that defendant’s felony firearm convictions must be reversed due to erroneous instruction.
Corrigan, 1, concurred.