Court Opinion

ID: 9382869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-28 21:02:31.404303+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:42.250650
License: Public Domain

Filed 3/28/23 P. v. Dexter CA3
                                           NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
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 This opinion has not been certified for publication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
                                      THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT
                                                     (Sacramento)
                                                            ----

 THE PEOPLE,                                                                                   C095756

                    Plaintiff and Respondent,                                    (Super. Ct. No. 20FE011056)

           v.

 AARON DEXTER,

                    Defendant and Appellant.

         Defendant Aaron Dexter appeals a judgment entered after a jury determined he
committed robbery, attempted petty theft, and found true the allegation that he had
suffered a prior strike as a result of a prior juvenile adjudication for robbery. Defendant’s
sole issue on appeal challenges whether a juvenile adjudication may properly be used as a
prior strike for purposes of California’s “Three Strikes” law (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subd.

                                                             1
(b)-(i), 1170.12),1 arguing developments in case law require a reevaluation of the issue.
We disagree and will affirm the judgment.
                                     BACKGROUND
        The People’s amended information charged defendant with second degree robbery
(§ 211; count one) and attempted second degree robbery (§§ 664/211; count two). The
information also alleged defendant had suffered a prior strike (§§ 667, subds. (b)-(i),
1170.12) as the result of a prior juvenile adjudication for robbery (§ 211).
        Given the legal issue presented in this appeal, the facts underlying these
allegations are not relevant and will not be recounted here. It is enough to note defendant
entered a temporarily closed minimart and grabbed a case of beer. A physical struggle
ensued, and defendant ultimately fled with personal property belonging to one of the
minimart employees.
        The matter was tried by a jury in two phases, with the prior strike bifurcated at
defendant’s request. The jury found defendant guilty of robbery and the lesser included
offense of attempted petty theft (§§ 664/484, subd. (a)), but not guilty of attempted
robbery. The jury then found the prior strike allegation true.
        The trial court sentenced defendant on February 18, 2022, which included time for
an unrelated case. The court denied defendant’s renewed Romero2 motion to dismiss his
prior strike and sentenced him to an aggregate prison term of eight years eight months,
plus a one-year consecutive jail term. This sentence was comprised of six years eight
months, plus a one-year consecutive jail term for the unrelated case, plus a consecutive
term of two years for the robbery (one-third the midterm, doubled because of the prior

1   Subsequent undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.
2   People v. Superior Court (Romero) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497.

                                              2
strike), plus time served for the attempted petty theft. Defendant timely appealed,3 and
appellate briefing in this matter was completed January 19, 2023.
                                       DISCUSSION
       Defendant’s sole issue on appeal contends the trial court’s use of his prior juvenile
adjudication as a strike violates the United States Constitution because he did not have a
right to a jury trial in the juvenile proceeding. Recognizing, as he must, that the
California Supreme Court rejected this position in People v. Nguyen (2009) 46 Cal.4th
1007, defendant asserts that later decisions, both from the Supreme Court of the United
States and California Supreme Court, have called Nguyen into question. We disagree.
       “Other than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a
crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved
beyond a reasonable doubt.” (Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) 530 U.S. 466, 490.) In
People v. Nguyen, supra, 46 Cal.4th 1007, the California Supreme Court discussed this
principle as applied to a juvenile adjudication, stating, “the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth
Amendments, as construed in Apprendi, do not preclude the sentence-enhancing use,
against an adult felon, of a prior valid, fair, and reliable adjudication that the defendant,
while a minor, previously engaged in felony misconduct, where the juvenile proceeding
included all the constitutional protections applicable to such matters, even though these
protections do not include the right to jury trial.” (Nguyen, at p. 1019.) Nguyen,
therefore, forecloses defendant’s argument.
       Defendant counters, arguing Nguyen is no longer valid because of intervening
decisions in Mathis v. United States (2016) 579 U.S. 500, Descamps v. United States
(2013) 570 U.S. 254, and People v. Gallardo (2017) 4 Cal.5th 120. This argument was

3 We denied defendant’s request to consolidate this appeal with defendant’s appeal of the
unrelated case.

                                               3
considered and rejected in People v. Romero (2019) 44 Cal.App.5th 381. We reject
defendant’s argument for the same reasons.
       In particular, the Romero court noted that “in 2016, after Descamps and Mathis
were decided, our Supreme Court expressly declined to reconsider its holding in Nguyen
that ‘juvenile adjudications [are] inadmissible as prior convictions under Apprendi . . .
and its progeny.’ [Citation.] In addition, Descamps and Mathis do nothing to undermine
the premise of our Supreme Court’s holding in Nguyen because they did not concern the
possibility of using the fact that a defendant incurred a juvenile adjudication to enhance a
defendant’s sentence for a subsequent crime.” (People v. Romero, supra, 44 Cal.App.5th
at p. 389.) “In both cases, the Supreme Court concluded that the sentencing courts were
generally barred from looking beyond the statutory elements of the prior offenses to
determine whether the defendant’s conduct qualified for imposition of a sentence
enhancement under the [Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984].” (Ibid.)
       Similarly, in Gallardo, the California Supreme Court found error when a trial
court reviewed a preliminary hearing transcript to determine if a prior conviction
qualified as a strike. (People v. Gallardo, supra, 4 Cal.5th at pp. 136-137.) “Thus,
although Gallardo, Mathis, and Descamps all disapprove judicial factfinding by a
sentencing court to determine whether the defendant suffered a qualifying prior
conviction when that issue is unclear from the fact of the conviction itself, none of those
cases calls into question Nguyen’s holding that a sentencing court may impose a sentence
enhancement based on a prior juvenile adjudication, despite the lack of right to a jury trial
in that proceeding.” (People v. Romero, supra, 44 Cal.App.5th at p. 389.) Accordingly,
Nguyen remains good law, which we are bound to follow. (Ibid.; Auto Equity Sales, Inc.
v. Superior Court (1962) 57 Cal.2d 450, 455.) We, therefore, reject defendant’s claim
that the trial court’s use of his prior juvenile adjudication as a prior strike violated his
constitutional rights.

                                               4
                                  DISPOSITION
      The judgment is affirmed.

                                               /s/
                                           EARL, J.

We concur:

    /s/
ROBIE, Acting P. J.

   /s/
DUARTE, J.

                                       5