Court Opinion

ID: 9942732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-21 20:04:14.36972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:42:41.145110
License: Public Domain

Filed 2/21/24 P. v. McLaughlin CA2/6

   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 SIX

 THE PEOPLE,                                                  2d Crim. No. B324160
                                                            (Super. Ct. No. NA117856)
      Plaintiff and Respondent,                               (Los Angeles County)

 v.

 JOHN DAVID McLAUGHLIN,

      Defendant and Appellant.

       John David McLaughlin appeals his convictions by a jury
on two counts of attempted robbery (Penal Code, §§ 664/211) 1
and one count of criminal threats (§ 422, subd. (a)). The trial
court found true that appellant had five prior convictions under
the Three Strikes law. (§§ 667, subds (b)-(i), 1170.12, subds. (a)-
(d).) It struck four of the convictions and sentenced him to eight
years, eight months in prison. Appellant contends the court
erred by instructing the jury incorrectly on the issue of his
mental fitness, and by failing to instruct the jury sua sponte on

         1 All unmarked statutory references are to the Penal Code.
the issues of unconsciousness and voluntary intoxication. We will
affirm.
         FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
       Appellant entered a bank in Marina del Rey on the
morning of August 17, 2021. He approached the teller’s window
and passed her a plastic bag with a note reading, “All bills in the
bag now. . . . Please and thanks.” He then told her to fill it with
money. No customers were present in the lobby, so the teller
“stalled” by walking to an area behind the counter where
appellant could not see her. He left after a few minutes without
incident.
       Appellant boarded a bus to Long Beach, where he entered a
second bank. He passed the teller a plastic bag with a note
reading, “Put all large bills in the bag thanks.” The teller pressed
the alarm button and handed the note to her supervisor.
Appellant looked at them and said, “Do what I say, or you’ll
regret it.” The supervisor directed him to leave. Appellant
punched the teller window and walked out of the bank. Police
arrested him an hour later about a mile away.
       Appellant represented himself at trial. Both tellers
identified him as the man who attempted to rob them. The
People also showed jurors bank surveillance images of a man who
looked like appellant, with the same tattoos, wearing the same
clothes and carrying the same plaid bag he had when he was
arrested. Testifying in his defense, appellant acknowledged he
resembled the suspect but denied visiting either bank. He
described it as the “weirdest day of [his] life” and felt
“everything’s been kind of like gray” since his arrest.
       The jury asked the court two questions while deliberating:
“Are we able to take the defendant’s mental fitness into account?

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And, two, or request a professional to evaluate him?” The People
recommended the court answer “no” to both questions because
the jury heard no evidence about defendant’s mental fitness at
trial. The court agreed and asked appellant if he wished to be
heard. Appellant responded, “I think my mental fitness – me
personally, I think it’s fine if the jury wants to know. They think
that my – maybe it sounds like I might be mentally ill or
something? Me personally, I don’t think so.” The court answered
the two questions as follows: “No, the defendant’s mental fitness
is for the court to consider, not you. No, there is no professional
mental health evaluation for you to consider. . . . Please do not
speculate as to the defendant’s mental fitness.” Appellant did not
object.
                            DISCUSSION
                      Mental Fitness Instruction
       Appellant contends the trial court erred when it directed
jurors not to consider his mental fitness while deliberating. This
response to the jury’s questions, he argues, “eliminated the intent
requirement entirely or impermissibly handicapped the jury in
its ability to find that appellant did not have the specific intent
required for attempted robbery or criminal threats.” (See People
v. Alvarez (1996) 14 Cal.4th 155, 224 [larcenous intent to steal a
required element of attempted robbery]; Dziubla v. Piazza (2020)
59 Cal.App.5th 140, 151, citing section 422 [criminal threats
theory of illegality requires “a willful threat to commit a crime
that would result in death or great bodily injury to another”].)
The People argue appellant invited any error when he denied
suffering from mental illness and posed no objection to the trial
court’s proposed answers. We agree. (In re Seaton (2004) 34
Cal.4th 193, 198; People v. Boyette (2002) 29 Cal.4th 381, 430.)

                                 3
       But we also find the court's response was proper and did
not mislead the jury. (People v. Lucero (2000) 23 Cal.4th 692,
723-724.) The parties introduced no evidence at trial related to
appellant’s mental fitness at the time of the alleged crimes.
Appellant never argued he lacked capacity to form the specific
intent to rob the victims or to threaten them. Instead, he denied
entering the banks at all and described the charges against him
as a case of mistaken identity. The court need not have inferred
the existence of such evidence from the jury’s questions. The
court’s answers directed the jury’s attention to where it
belonged—on the parties’ evidence and the court’s instructions.
Among the instructions were those describing the intent element
for each charged crime. (See, e.g., CALCRIM Nos. 251 [Union of
Act and Intent: Specific Intent], 460 [Attempt], 1600 [Robbery],
1300 [Criminal Threats].) The jury could not have been misled in
light of these instructions and the evidence.
     Voluntary Intoxication and Unconsciousness Instructions
       Appellant contends the trial court erred by not instructing
the jury sua sponte on voluntary intoxication and
unconsciousness. He argues there was substantial evidence to
support both defenses. We again disagree. The parties presented
no evidence appellant committed the charged crimes while under
the influence of drugs or alcohol. All discussions about his past
struggles with substance abuse were conducted outside the jury’s
presence. When confronted with surveillance photos from the
banks, appellant did not testify that he may have committed the
crimes while unconscious or that he did not remember the
incidents. It would not have mattered if he had. (See People v.
Rogers (2006) 39 Cal.4th 826, 888 [“defendant’s own testimony
that he could not remember portions of the events, standing

                                4
alone, was insufficient to warrant an unconsciousness
instruction”].) He simply denied being the person in the photos.
A trial court’s duty to instruct the jury sua sponte did not extend
to instructions “inconsistent with the defendant’s theory of the
case.” (Id. at p. 887.)
                           CONCLUSION
       The judgment is affirmed.
       NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.

                                     CODY, J.

We concur:

      YEGAN, Acting P. J.

      BALTODANO, J.

                                 5
                      James Otto, Judge
             Superior Court County of Los Angeles
               ______________________________

      Brad J. Poore, 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, Christopher G. Sanchez, Deputy
Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

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