Court Opinion

ID: 9894738
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-02 18:03:45.833156+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:29.208662
License: Public Domain

Filed 11/2/23 P. v. Salas CA2/2
   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 TWO

THE PEOPLE,                                                  B324032

         Plaintiff and Respondent,                           (Los Angeles County
                                                             Super. Ct. No. BA452909)
         v.

RENE SALAS,

         Defendant and Appellant.

     APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los
Angeles County, Lisa B. Lench, Judge. Affirmed as modified.

     Joshua L. Siegel, 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, Noah P. Hill, Supervising Deputy
Attorney General, and Thomas C. Hsieh, Deputy Attorney
General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

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       Rene Salas (defendant) appeals the sentences on three of
the 11 counts on which he stands convicted. The People concede
the trial court erred, and we agree. We accordingly modify those
sentences, but otherwise affirm the judgment.
         FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I.     Facts
       As pertinent to this narrow appeal, it suffices to recount
that defendant is a member of the Valerio Street criminal street
gang who, in 2015 and 2016, engaged in three distinct crimes
with fellow gang members—namely, (1) he shot at pedestrians on
a Van Nuys neighborhood street, killing one; (2) he and a fellow
gang member snuck into the garage of a rival gang member, and
defendant shot and killed the rival; and (3) he kidnaped a woman
and forcibly tattooed his gang’s symbols on her neck and arms
while a gun was placed in her mouth to keep her still.
II.    Procedural Background
       A.    Charges, conviction, and sentence
       In May 2017, a grand jury returned a 20-count indictment
against defendant and several others. Specifically, the
indictment charged defendant with (1) two counts of murder
(Pen. Code, § 187);1 (2) three counts of attempted premeditated

1     All further statutory references are to the Penal Code
unless otherwise indicated.

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murder (§§ 187, 664, subd. (a)); (3) witness intimidation (§ 136.1)
for threatening to kill his girlfriend if she reported what she
knew about his role in the neighborhood shooting; (4) being a
felon in possession of a firearm (§ 29800, subd. (a)(1)) during that
shooting; (5) conspiracy to commit the murder of his gang rival (§
182); (6) kidnapping of the woman (§ 207); (7) torture of the
woman (§ 206); and (8) aggravated mayhem of the woman (§ 205).
The indictment also alleged (1) various firearm enhancements,
(2) gang enhancements (for all crimes except the felon in
possession charge), and (3) two special circumstances as to the
murder counts.
       After the jury found defendant guilty of all charged crimes,
all alleged enhancements, and the special circumstances, the trial
court sentenced defendant to prison for a determinate term of 25
years, plus two indeterminate terms of life without the possibility
of parole, plus 177 years to life.
       B.     Prior appeal
       In an unpublished opinion, we rejected defendant’s various
attacks on his convictions, but agreed with defendant that the
narrower definition of the gang enhancement under the newly
enacted Assembly Bill No. 333 (2021-2022 Reg. Sess.) applied
retroactively to his non-final conviction and necessitated vacating
the gang enhancement as well as any firearm enhancement or
special circumstance tied to the gang enhancement. (People v.
Garnica et al. (Feb. 3, 2022, B307386) [nonpub. opn.], at p. 30.)
We remanded for further proceedings, explaining: “Because the
elements newly required by Assembly Bill No. 333 were ‘never
tried’ to the jury, the People should be given the opportunity to
decide whether to retry the affected enhancements to a jury.
(People v. Figueroa (1993) 20 Cal.App.4th 65, 72, fn. 2.)”

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       C.     Remand and resentencing
       The prosecution was unable to proceed on a retrial of the
gang enhancements and the court granted defendant’s motion to
dismiss those allegations under section 1382. The trial court
resentenced defendant to a determinate term of six years,
followed by life without the possibility of parole, followed by 195
years to life. As pertinent to this appeal, the trial court more
specifically imposed sentences of 40 years to life for each
attempted premeditated murder count, comprised of a base
sentence of 15 years to life plus 25 years to life for a firearm
enhancement.
       D.     Appeal
       Defendant filed this timely appeal.
                            DISCUSSION
       Defendant argues that the trial court erred in imposing 15
years to life as the base sentence for each attempted murder
count because section 664, subdivision (a), prescribes a base
sentence of life (with a default minimum of seven years). (§§ 664,
subd. (a), 3046, subd. (a); People v. Chiu (2014) 59 Cal.4th 155,
163, superseded on other grounds by Sen. Bill No. 1437 (2017-
2018 Reg. Sess.).) Although a base sentence with a specifically
imposed minimum term is required in certain circumstances (§§
664, subds. (e) & (f), 186.22, subd. (b)(5)), none of those
circumstances is present now that the gang enhancements have
been dismissed. Thus, we conclude there is no basis for any base
sentence other than life. We modify the base sentences for these
three counts in the judgment accordingly.
                           DISPOSITION
       The judgment is modified to strike each of the 15-year-to-
life base sentence terms imposed on the three attempted murder

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counts and impose in each of their places a term of life with the
possibility of parole. In all other respects, the judgment is
affirmed. The trial court will prepare a new abstract of judgment
reflecting the change of sentence and transmit the abstract to the
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.

                                     ______________________, J.
                                     HOFFSTADT

We concur:

_________________________, Acting P. J.
ASHMANN-GERST

_________________________, J.*
KWAN

*     Judge of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County,
assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of
the California Constitution.

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