Court Opinion

ID: 9927320
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-26 20:02:35.650145+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:25:08.048949
License: Public Domain

Filed 1/26/24 P. v. Taylor CA2/8
      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 EIGHT

 THE PEOPLE,                                                  B324559

           Plaintiff and Respondent,                          Los Angeles County
                                                              Super. Ct. No. MA072867
           v.

 ISAAC WILLIAM TAYLOR,

           Defendant and Appellant.

      APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Shannon Knight, Judge. Affirmed.
      Maxine Weksler, 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, Zee Rodriguez, Supervising Deputy
Attorney General, and Michael C. Keller, Deputy Attorney
General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
                        ____________________
       Isaac William Taylor appeals a resentencing order. We
affirm.
       Statutory citations are to the Penal Code.
       When he was 54 years old, Taylor approached David Ho on
a sidewalk and told Ho to look down. Taylor was holding a gun
at waist level. Taylor told Ho to move back a short distance into
an alley and demanded Ho’s wallet. Ho surrendered the wallet.
Taylor said, “[T]here better be money [in the wallet] or you’re
going to die tonight.” (People v. Taylor (2020) 43 Cal.App.5th
1102, 1104–1105 (Taylor).)
       According to his probation report, police found Taylor
shortly after the robbery and found a gun nearby. The gun had
six rounds in the magazine and a round in the chamber. During
his resentencing and in his appellate briefs, Taylor has not
contested this information about his loaded gun.
       A jury convicted Taylor of robbery and kidnapping for
robbery and found he had used a handgun. Taylor admitted a
prior serious felony conviction that also qualified as a strike. The
trial court originally sentenced him to 29 years to life in prison
for kidnapping and 25 years for robbery.
       This is Taylor’s third appeal.
       In the first appeal, we reversed the kidnapping for robbery
conviction. (Taylor, supra, 43 Cal.App.5th at p. 1105.) The trial
court then resentenced Taylor to 25 years in prison: the upper
term of five years for robbery, doubled due to a prior strike, plus
15 years for the firearm and prior serious felony enhancements.
       In the second appeal, we remanded for resentencing due to
an ameliorative sentencing law. (People v. Taylor (May 5, 2022,
B307932) [nonpub. opn.].)

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       At resentencing, defense counsel asked the court to strike
the prior serious felony enhancement and to reduce or stay the
gun enhancement. Counsel argued Taylor’s criminal history was
remote and largely for drug offenses; he had substance abuse
disorder; he was almost 60 years old and in poor health; he
experienced trauma as a child; and he had made positive changes
while in prison for the robbery of Ho.
       The court resentenced Taylor to 16 years in prison: the
middle term of three years for robbery, doubled due to the prior
strike, plus 10 years for the firearm enhancement. The court
struck the prior serious felony enhancement.
       The court explained its reasoning. It struck the prior
serious felony enhancement due to Taylor’s age and medical
history. It imposed the 10-year firearm enhancement based on
the facts of the robbery, which included a loaded gun and
significant risk to the victim.
       The court also discussed Taylor’s criminal history. The
prosecution presented four relevant documents: a certified
“California rap sheet,” a certified “F.B.I. C.L.E.T.S. rap sheet,”
and two certified records of conviction from Nevada. The court
admitted these documents without objection from Taylor’s
counsel. The court found the convictions listed in the exhibits to
be true and found Taylor’s convictions were numerous and
increasingly serious.
       The court found that reducing Taylor’s sentence would
endanger public safety: it “may very well result in physical
injury or serious danger to others.”
       In this third and present appeal, Taylor challenges the 16-
year sentence. Specifically, he argues the court abused its
discretion by imposing the 10-year firearm enhancement.

                                3
       We affirm because imposition of the enhancement was
reasonable given the nature of the robbery and Taylor’s extensive
criminal history.
       Section 1385, subdivision (c)(1) now requires courts to
dismiss enhancements if it is in the furtherance of justice to do
so. The law lists nine mitigating circumstances, including if a
case has multiple enhancements or if the current offense is
connected to mental illness. (Id., subd. (c)(2)(B) & (D).) Proof of
one or more circumstances weighs greatly in favor of dismissing
the enhancement unless dismissal would endanger public safety.
(Id., subd. (c)(2).) Endanger public safety means a likelihood the
dismissal would result in physical injury or serious danger to
others. (Ibid.)
       The trial court did not abuse its discretion by finding
dismissal of the firearm enhancement would endanger public
safety. The facts of the robbery support the finding. Taylor held
a gun. It was loaded with several rounds, including a round in
the chamber. He gratuitously threatened death to Ho. The
dangerousness and callousness of this robbery made it more
likely Taylor would endanger public safety without the
enhancement.
       Taylor’s criminal history bolsters the finding. The four
documents the court admitted with Taylor’s records of conviction
are not in our appellate record. Neither party addresses this
omission. Based on Taylor’s probation report and reporters’
transcripts in which the parties discussed Taylor’s criminal
history, Taylor had several convictions for possession or sale of
drugs in the 1980s, a 1984 conviction for vehicle theft, a 1992
conviction for possession of a controlled substance and attempted
coercion, a 1994 conviction for robbery for which Taylor received

                                 4
a 12-year sentence, and a Nevada conditional release violation
that Taylor admitted in 2011. The trial court was correct that
Taylor’s convictions were numerous and his present conviction
was the most serious. Based on this pattern, the court did not
abuse its discretion by finding Taylor was likely to endanger
public safety without the enhancement.
       On appeal, Taylor emphasizes mitigating factors including
his age, health, and substance use disorder, but the trial court
properly heard and considered these points. The court lowered
Taylor’s sentence to a middle term and struck one enhancement,
thereby shortening Taylor’s sentence by nine years. The court
appropriately exercised its discretion.
       Taylor’s strike is not an enhancement under section 1385,
so there were not multiple enhancements. Taylor’s opening brief
says his strike and firearm enhancement constituted multiple
enhancements and all but one of them should be dismissed under
section 1385, subdivision (c)(2)(B). He says his strike was an
enhancement based on one statement in a Senate bill analysis:
“Sentence enhancements are not elements of the crime, they are
additional circumstances that increase the penalty, or time
served, of the underlying crime.” (Sen. Rules Com., Off. of Sen.
Floor Analyses, 3d reading analysis of Sen. Bill No. 81 (2021–
2022 Reg. Sess.) as amended Aug. 30, 2021, p. 2.) The
prosecution responds by citing People v. Burke (2023) 89
Cal.App.5th 237, 243–244, which held that section 1385,
subdivision (c) does not apply to the Three Strikes law. Taylor
does not address this issue in his reply. The recent case People v.
Olay (2023) 98 Cal.App.5th 60 came to the same conclusion as
Burke and comprehensively analyzed the statute’s text and
legislative history. (Id. at pp. 67–69.) We agree with Burke and

                                 5
Olay’s holding. Taylor’s strike was not an enhancement under
section 1385, so the provision about multiple enhancements did
not apply.
                          DISPOSITION
      The order is affirmed.

                                         WILEY, J.

We concur:

             STRATTON, P. J.

             GRIMES, J.

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