Court Opinion

ID: 9796671
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:02:18.518272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:53.944030
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Concurring.
I agree with the majority that the five-year enhancement under Vehicle Code section 20001, subdivision (c), for “[a] *409person who flees the scene of the crime after committing” gross vehicular manslaughter may apply to an aider and abettor. I also agree with the majority that in sentencing defendant George Kenneth Waller, Jr., the trial court’s explanation for imposing the upper term for each of the two manslaughter counts, which included the statement that there were “separate victims of the crime involving violence,” did not constitute reversible error. I write separately to explain my understanding of the legal basis for the latter holding.
The jury convicted defendant Waller of two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence (Pen. Code, § 192, subd. (c)(1)) and two counts of misdemeanor reckless driving with bodily injury (Veh. Code, § 23104, subd. (a)). The trial court sentenced Waller to the upper term of six years on each of the manslaughter counts and to 180 days on each of the misdemeanor counts, all terms to run concurrently, resulting in a total term of six years. When it imposed the upper terms on the manslaughter counts, the court said that it found mitigating factors in Waller’s lack of significant criminal record and his background. The court then gave this explanation for the upper terms: “[Tjhis defendant was convicted of other crimes for which consecutive sentences could have been imposed, and there are separate victims of the crime involving violence. I am using that aggravating factor as a basis for imposing the aggravated term. I think it outweighs all of the mitigation referred to by counsel and by the probation department.” (Italics added.)
As the majority points out (maj. opn., ante, at p. 405), the trial court’s statement is ambiguous, but the majority does not fully explain the ambiguity. The Court of Appeal construed the trial court’s statement as providing two distinct reasons for imposing the upper term—because defendant had been “convicted of other crimes for which consecutive sentences could have been imposed,” and, secondly, because “there are separate victims of the crime involving violence.” But the court’s next sentence, referring to “that aggravating factor” and asserting that “it” outweighed the factors in mitigation, belied the suggestion in the first sentence that the court was relying on two different aggravating factors.
In my view, the ambiguity in the trial court’s statement of reasons is best resolved by construing the quoted language as stating a single aggravating factor with two components. What the trial court most likely was saying was that it was an aggravating factor that defendant Waller had been convicted of other crimes for which concurrent sentences were being imposed even though those other crimes could have been sentenced consecutively because they *410were crimes of violence against other victims. The reference to “separate victims” was merely to explain why consecutive sentences could have been imposed on the various counts even though all counts resulted from a single incident. (See People v. Champion (1995) 9 Cal.4th 879, 934 [39 Cal.Rptr.2d 547, 891 P.2d 93] [“When a defendant engages in violent conduct that injures several persons, he may be separately punished for injuring each of those persons . . .”].)
Significantly, the trial court said there were “separate” victims, not “multiple” victims. What separated the victims from each other was that each was the subject of a different count, and no count involved more than one victim, as the trial court was well aware. The trial court introduced an element of uncertainty, however, by saying there were “separate victims of the crime involving violence.” (Italics added.) The trial court may have simply misspoken, intending to say “crimes” rather than “crime,” or the court may have intended here to refer to the entire incident as “the crime.”
In any event, even if one were to assume for the sake of argument that the trial court intended the reference to “separate victims of the crime” as a second, distinct aggravating factor, and that the trial court erred in so doing, the error was not prejudicial. “When a trial court has given both proper and improper reasons for a sentence choice, a reviewing court will set aside the sentence only if it is reasonably probable that the trial court would have chosen a lesser sentence had it known that some of its reasons were improper.” (People v. Price (1991) 1 Cal.4th 324, 492 [3 Cal.Rptr.2d 106, 821 P.2d 610].) “Only a single aggravating factor is required to impose the upper term.” (People v. Osband (1996) 13 Cal.4th 622, 728 [55 Cal.Rptr.2d 26, 919 P.2d 640].) Here, defendant Waller’s criminal recklessness resulted in the death of two people and serious injuries to two others. The trial court exercised great leniency in imposing concurrent sentences on the four counts of which defendant was convicted, and it reasonably counterbalanced that leniency by imposing upper term sentences on the two manslaughter counts. Nothing in the record suggests that the trial court was confused or mistaken about the relevant facts or that the court’s discretionary sentencing choices were based on a mechanical counting of aggravating and mitigating factors rather than on the trial court’s appraisal of the seriousness of defendant Waller’s conduct. On this record, it is not reasonably probable that the trial court would have chosen a lesser sentence had it understood that “separate victims” could not constitute a distinct and additional aggravating factor.
*411I do not understand the court’s decision in this case as providing authority for treating separate or multiple victims as an aggravating factor in situations materially different from this one, such as when the trial court imposes consecutive sentences on multiple counts, each involving a single victim. On this basis, I concur in the majority opinion.
Werdegar, J., concurred.