Court Opinion

ID: 9941719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-16 20:02:36.703054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:46:58.033297
License: Public Domain

Filed 2/16/24 P. v. Amaya 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   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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,                                                  B325179

         Plaintiff and Respondent,                           (Los Angeles County
                                                             Super. Ct. No. TA154811)
         v.

ERNEST AMAYA,

         Defendant and Appellant.

     APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los
Angeles County, Teresa P. Magno, Judge. Affirmed.

      Gabriel Silvers, 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, Wyatt E. Bloomfield, Supervising
Deputy Attorney General, and Stefanie Yee, Deputy Attorney
General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

                               ******
       A jury convicted Ernest Amaya (defendant) of assaulting a
fellow train passenger with a knife. Defendant argues that his
assault conviction is invalid due to instructional error and the
ineffective assistance of his counsel. His arguments lack merit,
so we affirm.
         FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I.     Facts
       Just before 10 p.m. on a Monday night in June 2021,
defendant was riding on a Metro train. Out of the blue, he
started yelling racial slurs, including repeatedly calling other
passengers the “‘N’ word.” Several of those passengers yelled
back at defendant, telling him not to use such slurs and to stop.
When defendant persisted, some of the passengers verbally told
him he was “going to get beat” if he continued. One of those
passengers, Brandon Vernell (Vernell), was sitting near
defendant on the train, and told him that he was going to “kick
[his] fucking ass” and “fuck [him] up” if he did not cease his racial
epithets. Vernell never acted on his threats, and stayed in his
seat. However, a second passenger wearing a white tank top
approached defendant, spit on him, and punched him several
times before walking away. A third passenger approached and
struck defendant, causing him to fall onto the ground. While
defendant was on the ground, the second passenger returned and
stomped on or kicked defendant’s head and a fourth passenger
named Allen McGee (McGee) made a lurching motion toward
defendant as if to threaten him. All those men then walked

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away. Defendant then stood up, pulled out a knife, and swung it
at Vernell and McGee, slashing McGee twice. When the train
arrived at the next station, most of the passengers fled but
defendant chased after them with the knife. Defendant only
dropped the knife when a security officer ordered him to do so at
gunpoint.
II.   Procedural Background
      In the operative amended information, the People charged
defendant with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon (Pen.
Code, § 245, subd. (a)(1))—one count against McGee and the
other against Vernell.
      The matter proceeded to a jury trial. Defendant testified.
He denied ever using the “‘N’ word,” instead asserting that
“[e]verybody in the train was saying stuff to [him], that they were
going to beat [him] up,” and that he was “scared.” The trial court
gave several instructions pertinent to the defense of self-defense.
      The jury hung on the assault count against McGee, but
found defendant guilty of assaulting Vernell.
      The trial court sentenced defendant to two years in state
prison.
      Defendant filed this timely appeal.1
                           DISCUSSION
      Defendant argues that his assault conviction must be
reversed because (1) the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury
with the second sentence of the instruction in CALCRIM No. 917
violated his right to present a defense, and his counsel was

1      Defendant filed his notice of appeal after the jury rendered
its verdict but before the pronouncement of judgment and his
sentence. We treat the prematurely filed notice of appeal as
timely. (See Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.308(c).)

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constitutionally ineffective for not requesting that the jury be
instructed with the second sentence of that instruction, and (2)
his counsel was constitutionally ineffective for not requesting an
instruction on the defense of accident. We independently review
claims of instructional error, constitutional error, and ineffective
assistance of counsel. (People v. Nelson (2016) 1 Cal.5th 513,
538 [instructional error]; People v. Cromer (2001) 24 Cal.4th 889,
894 [constitutional error]; People v. Mayfield (1993) 5 Cal.4th
142, 199 [ineffective assistance of counsel].)
I.      Failure to Instruct on Remainder of CALCRIM No.
917
        A.     Pertinent facts
        During trial, defendant requested that the jury be
instructed with the first sentence of CALCRIM No. 917,2 but did
not request the second sentence of the instruction. The court
instructed the jury on the first sentence of CALCRIM No. 917,
which reads: “Words, no matter how offensive, and acts that are
not threatening, are not enough to justify an assault or battery.”
        The court also gave three self-defense instructions.
        First, the court gave the CALCRIM No. 3470 instruction.
That instruction stated that “Self-defense is a defense to Assault
with a Deadly Weapon and to Simple Assault.” The instruction
went on to define the three elements of “lawful self-defense” as:
(1) “[t]he defendant reasonably believed that he was in imminent
danger of suffering bodily injury”; (2) “[t]he defendant reasonably
believed that the immediate use of force was necessary to defend
against that danger”; and (3) “[t]he defendant used no more force

2     Defendant asked that some of the language from the first
sentence be omitted, but the trial court denied that request and
defendant does not challenge that ruling on appeal.

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than was reasonably necessary to defend against that danger.”
The instruction further explained that “[w]hen deciding whether
the defendant’s beliefs were reasonable, consider all the
circumstances as they were known to and appeared to the
defendant and consider what a reasonable person in a similar
situation with similar knowledge would have believed.” (Italics
added.) The instruction also provided that “[i]f [the jury] find[s]
that the defendant received a threat from someone else that he
reasonably associated with . . . McGee and . . . Vernell, [the jury]
may consider that threat in deciding whether the defendant was
justified in acting in self-defense.”
       Second, the court gave the CALCRIM No. 3472 instruction,
which provided that “[a] person does not have the right to self-
defense if he or she provokes a fight or quarrel with the intent to
create an excuse to use force.”
       Third, the court gave the CALCRIM No. 3474 instruction,
which provided that “[t]he right to use force in self-defense
continues only as long as the danger exists or reasonably appears
to exist. When the attacker withdraws or no longer appears
capable of inflicting any injury, then the right to use force ends.”
       In closing argument, defendant argued that he acted in
self-defense in swinging his knife at Vernell because Vernell had
verbally threatened him. In rebuttal, the prosecutor did not
dispute that Vernell’s verbal threats might provide a basis for
self-defense; instead, he argued that Vernell’s purely oral
threats—when Vernell did not otherwise get up or participate in
physically harming defendant—meant that Vernell never
threatened defendant.
       B.    Analysis
       Defendant argues that the jury should also have been

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instructed with the second sentence of CALCRIM No. 917. That
sentence, as tailored to this case, provides: “If you conclude that
[Vernell] spoke or acted in a way that threatened the defendant
with immediate harm or an unlawful touching or great bodily
injury, you may consider that evidence in deciding whether the
defendant acted in self-defense.” Defendant asserts that the trial
court’s failure to instruct using this second sentence (1) denied
him his constitutional right to present a defense, and (2) was the
product of ineffective assistance of counsel.
       Defendant was not denied his constitutional right to
present a defense. To be sure, the second sentence of CALCRIM
No. 917 would have explicitly informed the jury that it could
consider whether Vernell’s words were threatening and, if they
were, consider those threatening words in deciding whether
defendant was justified in swinging the knife at Vernell in self-
defense. But the absence of this language did not preclude
defendant from arguing that Vernell’s statements were
threatening and that defendant was “scared” and hence acted
reasonably in self-defense. Indeed, defendant made precisely
that argument during closing argument. What is more, the
CALCRIM No. 3470 instruction explicitly informed the jury that
it could “consider all the circumstances as they were known to
and appeared to the defendant” in assessing the reasonableness
of defendant’s beliefs that he was in imminent danger of suffering
bodily injury and that immediate use of force was necessary.
Vernell’s words were part of those circumstances. A defendant is
not denied his right to present a defense due to the absence of an
instruction when he is still permitted to present that defense by
virtue of a different instruction and when he actually does so.
(E.g., People v. Watt (2014) 229 Cal.App.4th 1215, 1219 [so

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holding]; accord, People v. Humphrey (1996) 13 Cal.4th 1073,
1089 [instructions that do not “deprive” a defendant “of the right
to present” a defense do not violate the Constitution].)
Defendant’s assertion that the second sentence of CALCRIM No.
917 was the “necessary” “legal footing” for him to rely on
Vernell’s words as a basis for his self-defense claim is incorrect.
       Defendant was also not denied the effective assistance of
counsel. To establish ineffective assistance of counsel, a
defendant must show that counsel’s performance was both (1)
deficient and (2) prejudicial. (People v. Mai (2013) 57 Cal.4th 986,
1009 (Mai).)
       Both elements are absent here.
       Defendant’s attorney was not deficient for failing to request
that the jury be instructed with the second sentence of the
CALCRIM No. 917 instruction for several reasons. To begin, the
instructions as a whole permitted defendant to argue that
Vernell’s verbal threats were relevant to defendant’s claim of self-
defense, so the instructions as given were not incorrect. Indeed,
this is why CALCRIM No. 917 is a so-called pinpoint instruction:
It specifically pinpoints a theory that other instructions already
encompass. (People v. Mayes (1968) 262 Cal.App.2d 195, 198; see
generally People v. Scully (2021) 11 Cal.5th 542, 592 [“Pinpoint
instructions ‘relate particular facts to a legal issue in the case or
“pinpoint” the crux of a defendant’s case . . .’”].) Requests for
pinpoint instructions may be denied when they would be
duplicative of other instructions (Scully, at p. 592; People v.
Bolden (2002) 29 Cal.4th 515, 558), and here, the CALCRIM No.
3470 instruction already told the jury that threats from anyone
associated with Vernell were relevant to self-defense; that
language reaffirms that threats from Vernell himself were

                                 7
relevant—which is precisely what the second sentence of the
CALCRIM No. 917 instruction would have stated. Further,
defendant’s attorney had a tactical reason for requesting only the
first sentence of the CALCRIM No. 917 instruction—namely, that
the attorney sought to use this language to argue that the train
passengers were not justified in assaulting defendant for his
mere words, no matter how offensive they might be; the second
sentence of the CALCRIM No. 917 instruction was unnecessary
to that point and the relevance of Vernell’s statements to
defendant’s self-defense claim was, as noted above, already
established by the general self-defense instructions. This was a
reasonable tactical choice, particularly in light of the fact that we
must “presume[] counsel acted within the wide range of
reasonable professional assistance.” (Mai, supra, 57 Cal.4th at p.
1009.) We may reverse on direct appeal only if the record
discloses “no rational tactical purpose” or “satisfactory
explanation” for counsel’s decision (ibid.); as explained above, we
are able to perceive a rational tactical purpose.
       There was also no prejudice because, as explained above,
defendant was still able to—and did—argue that Vernell’s words
were threatening and caused him to act in self-defense. The jury
may have rejected defendant’s testimony, but its verdict had
nothing to do with instructional error. Defendant responds that
the jury’s inability to reach a verdict as to McGee reveals the
importance of the missing jury instruction language, but McGee
and Vernell played vastly different roles during the incident on
the train: McGee conversed with the second passenger before
that passenger punched defendant and McGee subsequently
made a flinching move toward defendant, while Vernell remained
seated and took no physical actions toward defendant until

                                 8
defendant came at him with a knife.
II.    Failure to Instruct on Defense of Accident
       Defendant next argues that his attorney was
constitutionally ineffective for not requesting an instruction on
the defense of accident because defendant simply “may have
fallen while trying to make his way down the aisle [of the train]
and harmed Vernell accidentally.”
       There was no ineffective assistance of counsel. Defendant’s
attorney was not deficient for failing to request an accident
instruction. To begin, defendant testified at trial that he swung
his knife at Vernell “because [Vernell] was . . . one of the ones
that . . . said he was going to kick [his] ass” and “that was
threatening [him]”; he “felt that [Vernell] was going to attack
[him]”; and he “swang [sic] but towards – not towards him. Kind
of.” In other words, defendant testified that he intentionally
swung his knife at Vernell. At no point did defendant testify that
his conduct was an accident. This was wise, as the claim that “I
did it by accident” is inherently inconsistent with the claim that
“I did it on purpose in self-defense.” (E.g., People v. McCoy (1984)
150 Cal.App.3d 705, 709; People v. Curtis (1994) 30 Cal.App.4th
1337, 1355-1356.) Because there was no evidence—let alone
substantial evidence—to support a defense of accident, and
because an accident defense was inherently inconsistent with his
defense of self-defense, the trial court was neither obligated to
instruct sua sponte on the defense of accident nor to grant any
request for such an instruction by counsel. (People v. Jo (2017)
15 Cal.App.5th 1128, 1165-1168 [no duty to sua sponte instruct
on defense if it is not supported by substantial evidence or if it is
inconsistent with the defendant’s theory of the case]; People v.
Panah (2005) 35 Cal.4th 395, 484 [no duty to instruct on

                                  9
requested defense if it is not supported by substantial evidence].)
Because counsel is not ineffective for failing to request an
instruction that a court would properly deny, defendant’s
attorney’s performance was neither deficient nor prejudicial.
(People v. Dennis (1998) 17 Cal.4th 468, 504, 541 [trial counsel is
not ineffective for failing to request a jury instruction to which
the defendant is not entitled].)
                           DISPOSITION
      The judgment is affirmed.
      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.

                                     ______________________, J.
                                     HOFFSTADT

We concur:

_________________________, P. J.
LUI

_________________________, J.
ASHMANN-GERST

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