Court Opinion

ID: 9403777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-21 17:04:38.958295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:35.339945
License: Public Domain

Filed 6/21/23 P. v. Brians CA2/6
     NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been
certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 SIX

THE PEOPLE,                                                       2d Crim. No. B323941
                                                               (Super. Ct. No. 19F-07233)
     Plaintiff and Respondent,                                  (San Luis Obispo County)

v.

MICHAEL ANTHONY
BRIANS,

     Defendant and Appellant.

      Michael Anthony Brians molested several young girls in his
family over a period of nearly three decades. After a jury
convicted him of seven counts of committing lewd acts on a child
under 14 years old (Pen. Code,1 § 288, subd. (a)) and one count of
sexually penetrating a child under 14 with a foreign object (§ 289,
subd. (j)), the trial court ordered Brians to pay $475,000 in
restitution for the noneconomic damages incurred by his victims:
$50,000 for each year of abuse one of his victims was forced to

          1 Statutory         references are to the Penal Code.
endure, and $25,000 for each violation of section 288 committed
against two other victims. Brians contends these orders should
be vacated because the court did not specify why it chose the
$25,000 and $50,000 restitution baselines. We affirm.
            FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
       At the restitution hearing, prosecutors moved the trial
court to order Brians to pay $475,000 to his three victims for
their “past and future psychological harm”: $400,000 to B.D., or
$50,000 per year of sexual abuse she endured; $50,000 to J.D., or
$25,000 for each lewd act Brians committed against her; and
$25,000 to K.D. for the lewd act Brians committed against her.
Prosecutors said they decided on these figures based on the
analysis in People v. Smith (2011) 198 Cal.App.4th 415 (Smith).
They noted the restitution ordered in that case included losses
the victim endured in the years after the defendant abused her.
Here, in contrast, the requested restitution was based on the
years during which Brians committed his crimes, even though
“the sexual abuse did go on much longer.”
       The trial court considered the victims’ trial testimony and
the impact statements presented at sentencing when determining
the appropriate amount of restitution. B.D. said that Brians
subjected her to “[r]epeated sexual acts, includ[ing]
masturbation, mutual masturbation, oral copulation, digital
penetration, and ultimately sexual intercourse” for more than 10
years. He threatened to harm her, her family, or himself if she
did not comply with his demands, and would “frequently
brandish a weapon.”
       Brians started abusing J.D. when she was just eight or
nine years old. At the time of trial J.D. still “[didn’t] think [she]
ever really did” deal with the trauma caused by Brians’s abuse.

                                 2
       K.D. was 10 or 11 when Brians abused her. Her memories
of the abuse continue to surface—sometimes at random—forcing
her to “keep herself away from people because she’s afraid of . . .
having . . . [a] breakdown.” She also no longer likes to be touched
physically.
       Based on these statements, and “recognizing how difficult it
is to quantify psychological harm,” the trial court concluded that
the restitution prosecutors requested was “not an overestimate.”
It ordered Brians to pay $400,000 in restitution to B.D., $50,000
to J.D., and $25,000 to K.D.
                            DISCUSSION
       Brians contends the restitution orders must be vacated
because the trial court did not explain why it chose $25,000 and
$50,000 baselines for the noneconomic damages his victims
suffered. We disagree.
       The California Constitution provides victims the right to
restitution for losses caused by criminal defendants. (Smith,
supra, 198 Cal.App.4th at p. 431; see Cal. Const., art. I, § 28,
subd. (b)(13).) Pursuant to section 1202.4, subdivision (f), trial
courts must order restitution “based on the amount of loss
claimed by the victim or victims or any other showing to the
court.” (Italics added.) Restitution is generally limited to
economic damages (Smith, at p. 431), but may also be ordered for
noneconomic damages stemming from a defendant’s violations of
section 288 (§ 1202.4, subd. (f)(3)(F)). “Noneconomic damages are
‘subjective, non-monetary losses including, but not limited to,
pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental suffering, emotional
distress, loss of society and companionship, loss of consortium,
injury to reputation and humiliation.’ ” (Smith, at p. 431.)

                                3
       We review a restitution order that includes noneconomic
damages for abuse of discretion. (Smith, supra, 198 Cal.App.4th
at p. 435.) “Under this standard, while a trial court has broad
discretion to choose a method for calculating the amount of
restitution, it must employ a method that is rationally designed
to determine the . . . victim’s . . . loss.” (People v. Giordano (2007)
42 Cal.4th 644, 663-664.) The court must also “make a clear
statement of the calculation method used and how that method
justifies the amount ordered.” (Id. at p. 664.) We will affirm the
amount so long as it “does not, at first blush, shock the conscience
or suggest passion, prejudice[,] or corruption on the part of the
trial court.” (Smith, at p. 436.)
       There was no abuse of discretion here. The trial court cited
each victim’s testimony and the victim impact statements read at
sentencing when determining restitution. Brians molested B.D.
for nearly a decade, from the age of five or six through high
school. He molested J.D. when she was eight to 10 years old, and
K.D. when she was 10 to 13. Each of these victims continues to
live in fear and experiences emotional and psychological trauma.
Brians “ruined” their childhoods, and they continue to struggle
with their personal relationships. Ordering restitution of $50,000
for each year of abuse B.D. endured and $25,000 for each lewd act
committed against J.D. and K.D. would help compensate these
victims for the psychological harm caused by Brians. The
Giordano “clear statement” standard is met.
       Without citing any authority, Brians complains that the
trial court did not explain why it chose the restitution baselines it
did, and that it instead should have connected “[t]he amount of
restitution for noneconomic damages . . . to the cost of therapy,
lost work, lost school, or any other type of treatment for the pain

                                  4
and suffering, so that a reviewing court can determine whether
the subjective reasoning of the trial court was reasonable.” That
is not the law. Section 1202.4 does not provide guidelines for
setting the amount of noneconomic damages from sexual abuse,
but instead permits them to be based on “any other showing”
made to the court—such as a victim’s testimony. Moreover, as
the Smith court explained, because “ ‘[n]o fixed standard exists
for deciding the amount of these damages,’ ” a reviewing court
must examine the restitution ordered and determine whether it
“ ‘shocks the conscience and suggests passion, prejudice[,] or
corruption.’ ” (Smith, supra, 198 Cal.App.4th at p. 436.) Neither
$50,000 per year of abuse nor $25,000 per lewd act does so.
       Our sister courts have upheld restitution orders with
similar or even greater baselines for calculating noneconomic
damages. In Smith, for example, the Court of Appeal upheld a
restitution order requiring the defendant to pay $750,000 in
noneconomic damages, concluding that it was a reasonable
calculation based on the defendant’s seven years of abuse and the
years of psychological trauma that followed. (Smith, supra, 198
Cal.App.4th at pp. 436-437.) The court in People v. Lehman
(2016) 247 Cal.App.4th 795, 803-804, upheld restitution orders
with even greater baselines—nearly $100,000 per year of abuse
each victim endured—based on the victims’ testimony at trial,
their impact statements, and probation report. The use of lower
baselines here, tied solely to Brians’s years of abuse and the lewd
acts he committed, was not an abuse of discretion.

                                 5
                           DISPOSITION
      The trial court’s restitution orders, entered September 12,
2022, are affirmed.
      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.

                                    BALTODANO, J.

We concur:

             GILBERT, P. J.

             YEGAN, J.

                                6
                   Jacquelyn H. Duffy, Judge

           Superior Court County of San Luis Obispo

                ______________________________

      Jolene Larimore, 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, Assistant
Attorney General, Noah P. Hill and Heidi Salerno, Deputy
Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.