Court Opinion

ID: 9724516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:59:58.941595+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:01.983533
License: Public Domain

BRAUER, Acting P. J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I join in the opinion of the court except as to that part which orders remand for resentencing.
People v. Ginese (1981) 121 Cal.App.3d 468 [175 Cal.Rptr. 383] is not clear. I do not quarrel with that decision if it is merely construed to hold that where a specific age of a child is an element of a crime or a degree of a crime the court may not aggravate the defendant’s sentence on the basis of California Rules of Court, rule 421(a)(9), namely that “[t]he defendant used . . . minors in the commission of the crime.” But if Ginese is interpreted so as to preclude aggravating on the basis of a victim’s age considerably below that which is an element of the offense, Ginese is wrong1 and should not be followed. A trial judge is well within his rights in determining that a defendant is far more depraved and dangerous if he molests a nine-year-old than if he engages in the same conduct with a perhaps sexually precocious thirteen-year-old. In my view, a trial judge who points out, as this one did, that a victim of molestation was nine years of age has stated sufficient grounds for the imposition of the upper term. Rules 408 and 443 make clear that the enumeration in the rules is not exclusive and that the sentencing judge need not parrot the ponderous prose of the rules.
Appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied October 13, 1988, Broussard, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Ginese derives solace from the entirely unexceptionable but different case of People v. Flores (1981) 115 Cal.App.3d 924 [171 Cal.Rptr. 777]. There the dividing line was 16 years of age, the victims were between 14 and 16 years old, and the sentencing judge gave no reason except that “the victims were particularly vulnerable due to their young age."