Court Opinion

ID: 9895365
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-06 21:03:35.860249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:12:14.563915
License: Public Domain

Filed 11/6/23 P. v. Medrano CA2/4
     NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not
been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 FOUR

THE PEOPLE,                                                     B322290

         Plaintiff and Respondent,                              (Los Angeles County
                                                                Super. Ct. No. BA364189)
         v.

JUAN GILBERTO MEDRANO,

         Defendant and Appellant.

      APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Charlaine F. Olmedo, Judge. Reversed and
remanded, with directions.
      Steven Schorr, 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, Scott A. Taryle and Viet H. Nguyen,
Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
                  ____________________________

                                                      1
       Appellant Juan Gilberto Medrano appeals from the denial, at
the prima facie stage of review, of a post-conviction petition for
resentencing pursuant to Penal Code section 1172.6 (former section
1170.95).1 He stands convicted of two counts of murder. The
killings occurred during a fight that broke out between appellant
and his friend, Salvador Ayala, on one side, and Ayala’s neighbors,
Javier Mejia and Raul Deras, on the other. By the time the
altercation ended, both Mejia and Ayala were dead. Appellant was
convicted of second degree murder of both men and of assault by
means likely to produce great bodily injury as to Deras.
       On appeal, appellant argues and respondent concedes the
trial court erred in summarily denying section 1172.6 relief because
jury instructions on an uncharged conspiracy allowed the jury to
convict appellant of both murders based on the natural and
probable consequences doctrine. We accept respondent’s concession
and accordingly reverse and remand for further proceedings in the
trial court.

                           BACKGROUND
      In 2012, a jury convicted appellant of second degree murder
(§ 187), involving victims Mejia and Ayala, and also found appellant
guilty of assault by means likely to cause great bodily injury (§ 245)
against victim Deras. The jury found not true allegations that
appellant personally used a knife (§ 12022, subd. (b)(1)) and
committed multiple murders within the meaning of section 190.2,
subdivision (a)(3). The trial court sentenced appellant to an

1      Effective June 30, 2022, Penal Code section 1170.95 was
renumbered section 1172.6, with no change in text. (Stats. 2022, ch. 58,
§ 10). We hereafter cite to section 1172.6 for ease of reference.
Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

                                    2
aggregate term of 33 years to life. In 2014, this court affirmed
appellant’s convictions on direct appeal. (People v. Medrano (Aug.
21, 2014, B247087) [nonpub. opn.].)
       In July 2020, appellant filed a petition for resentencing under
section 1172.6. The trial court appointed counsel to represent
appellant and set a prima facie hearing.
       On June 28, 2022, the trial court found appellant failed to
state a prima facie case for relief and denied the petition. The court
determined appellant was not entitled to relief because the jury was
not instructed on either felony murder2 or the natural and probable
consequences doctrine. The court acknowledged there was
“language concerning natural and probable consequences” in the
conspiracy instruction, CALCRIM [No.] 416, and in the implied
malice instruction, CALCRIM [No.] 520, but concluded the use of
this language “doesn’t necessarily mean the doctrine itself is
involved.”
       Appellant timely appealed.

                            DISCUSSION
A.     Section 1172.6
       Senate Bill No. 1437 (2017–2018 Reg. Sess.) (SB 1437) limited
accomplice liability under the felony-murder rule and eliminated
the natural and probable consequences doctrine as it relates to
murder to ensure that a person’s sentence is commensurate with
his or her individual criminal culpability. (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015,
§ 1, subd. (f); People v. Gentile (2020) 10 Cal.5th 830, 842–843
(Gentile); see also People v. Lewis (2021) 11 Cal.5th 952, 957, 971
(Lewis).) To that end, and as relevant here, SB 1437 amended

2     The parties agree the prosecution did not pursue a felony murder
theory in this case.

                                   3
section 188, subdivision (a)(3) to require that all principals to
murder must act with express or implied malice. (Stats. 2018,
ch. 1015, §§ 1, 188, subd. (a)(3) [“[m]alice shall not be imputed to a
person based solely on his or her participation in a crime”]; Gentile,
supra, 10 Cal.5th at pp. 842–843, 851.)
       SB 1437 also added section 1172.6, providing a procedure for
defendants whose cases are final to seek retroactive relief by
petitioning the sentencing court to vacate the conviction and
resentence on any remaining counts. (§ 1172.6, subd. (a).)
Section 1172.6, subdivisions (b)(3) and (c) require the court to
appoint counsel for all properly pleaded petitions and then conduct
a prima facie analysis, with briefing by the parties, as to the
petitioner’s eligibility before determining whether to issue an order
to show cause at a later evidentiary hearing. (§ 1172.6,
subds. (b)(3), (c); Lewis, supra, 11 Cal.5th at pp. 961–970.)
       “In reviewing any part of the record of conviction at this
preliminary juncture, a trial court should not engage in ‘factfinding
involving the weighing of evidence or the exercise of discretion.’”
(People v. Lewis, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 972, internal citation
omitted.) “Rather, it should decide such issues only after issuing an
order to show cause and holding an evidentiary hearing.” (People v.
Duchine (2021) 60 Cal.App.5th 798, 811.)

B.    Jury Instructions Given at Trial
      At appellant’s trial, the jury was instructed on various
theories of murder liability.3 Under one theory, the jury could find
appellant guilty of the murders if he joined in a conspiracy to

3     As indicated in subsection C, post, the record does not establish the
jury necessarily based its verdicts on any instructions or theory other
than the uncharged conspiracy instruction.

                                    4
commit assault with a deadly weapon and murder was a natural
and probable consequence of that target crime. In other words,
appellant could be found guilty of the murders if they were the
natural and probable consequences of an assault with a deadly
weapon committed by a coconspirator. The relevant jury
instructions, CALCRIM No. 417 and CALJIC No. 417, as given,
stated:

     “417. A member of a conspiracy is criminally
     responsible for the crimes he or she conspires to commit
     no matter which member of the conspiracy commits the
     crime.

     A member of the conspiracy is also criminally
     responsible for any act of any member of the conspiracy
     if that act is done to further the conspiracy and that act
     is a natural and probable consequence of the common
     plan or design of the conspiracy.

     This rule applies even if the act was not intended
     as part of the original plan.

     A natural and probable consequence is one that a
     reasonable person would know is likely to happen if
     nothing unusual intervenes. In deciding whether a
     consequence is natural and probable, consider all the
     circumstances established by the evidence.
     A member of a conspiracy is not criminally responsible
     for the act of another member if that act does not further

                                 5
      the common plan or is not a natural and probable
      consequence of the common plan.

      To prove that the defendant is guilty of the crimes
      charge in counts [one] and [two] [the murder charges],
      the People must prove that number 1, the defendant
      conspired to commit one of the following crimes:

      Assault with a deadly or dangerous weapon.

      Number 2. A member of the conspiracy committed
      assault, assault with a deadly or dangerous weapon to
      further the conspiracy.

      Number 3. Murder was a natural and probable
      consequence of the common plan or design of the crime
      that the defendant conspired to commit.”4

C.    Summary Denial of Appellant’s Section 1172.6
      Petition Was Reversible Error
      The trial court erred in denying the petition at the prima facie
stage. Although the jury was not instructed on the natural and
probable consequences doctrine as it applied to a theory of aiding
and abetting, it was instructed on that same theory as applied to
another theory of vicarious liability, conspiracy. And while the
People argued below, citing Gentile, supra, 10 Cal.5th at p. 844,
that conspiracy to commit murder remains a valid theory upon

4     We previously granted appellant’s motion to judicially notice pages
576 through 614 and 698 through 701 of volume 5 of the reporter’s
transcript in Appeal No. 247087.

                                    6
which a murder conviction may be based, the jury instructions here
were not so limited. Instead, the instructions allowed the jury to
impute malice for both murders based on appellant’s participation
in an uncharged conspiracy to commit an assault with a deadly
weapon. (Compare People v. Offley (2020) 48 Cal.App.5th 588, 599
[trial court erred in summarily denying resentencing relief where
jury was instructed on natural and probable consequences doctrine
as part of its instruction on conspiracy liability; jury could have
found appellant conspired only to commit assault of which a natural
consequence was murder] with People v. Beck & Cruz (2019) 8
Cal.5th 548, 645 [“Beck and Cruz were charged with conspiracy to
murder, not conspiracy to commit a lesser crime that resulted in
murder. There is thus no possibility they were found guilty of
murder on a natural and probable consequences theory”], original
italics.)
       Moreover, nothing in the verdicts indicate the jury did not
rely on CALCRIM No. 417 but instead on a still-valid theory of
murder. The instructions offered the jurors multiple theories and
plainly told them they did not have to agree on any one theory:
“Where the evidence shows only a single discrete crime [was
committed] but leaves room for disagreement as to exactly how the
crime was committed or what the defendant’s precise role was, you
need not unanimously agree on the basis or theory whereby the
defendant is guilty.” The jury found appellant not guilty of first
degree murder, but guilty of second degree murder. In addition, the
jury found not true the allegations that appellant personally used a
knife. Thus, the record of conviction was insufficient to show that
appellant was ineligible for section 1172.6 relief as a matter of law.
(See Lewis, supra, 11 Cal.5th at pp. 970–972; see also People v.
Langi (2022) 73 Cal.App.5th 972, 984.)

                                  7
       In briefing below, the People argued the section 1172.6
petition should be denied because there was “ample evidence” to
support appellant’s murder convictions under any of the alternate
theories presented. As acknowledged by respondent, however, this
is not a basis from which to conclude the section 1172.6 petition
fails as a matter of law at the prima facie stage of review. Rather,
an order to show cause must issue to allow the parties to present
and the trial court to consider the evidence.

                           DISPOSITION
       The order denying appellant’s resentencing petition is
reversed. The matter is remanded to the trial court with directions
to issue an order to show cause and conduct an evidentiary hearing
in accordance with section 1172.6, subdivision (d).

                                          MORI, J.

      We concur:

            CURREY, P. J.

            ZUKIN, J.

                                  8