Opinion
E073998
05-12-2021
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. ARNOLDO MIJANGOS BELTRAN, Defendant and Appellant.
Robert L.S. Angres, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Steve Oetting and Paige B. Hazard, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Super.Ct.No. INF1102402) OPINION APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Mac R. Fisher, Judge. Affirmed as modified. Robert L.S. Angres, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Steve Oetting and Paige B. Hazard, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Defendant and appellant Arnoldo Mijangos Beltran's attempt to make a U-turn with his tractor trailer truck caused a fatal motorcycle crash. Beltran was convicted on charges that include gross vehicular manslaughter, and the jury found that in committing that offense Beltran personally inflicted great bodily injury per Penal Code sections 1192.8 and 1192.7, subdivision (c)(8). The trial court imposed a nine-year prison sentence but suspended it pending successful completion of a five-year term of probation and with the condition that Beltran serve 365 days in jail.
Further undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.
In this appeal, Beltran argues that the jury's finding that he personally inflicted great bodily injury is not supported by substantial evidence. He also challenges the constitutionality of residency approval conditions included as terms of his probation. Finally, he argues that a recent change in the law, Assembly Bill No. 1950 (Assem. Bill No. 1950), requires that his probation term be reduced to two years. We are not persuaded by Beltran's first argument, but we find merit in the other two. We therefore modify the judgment to reduce the probation term and change the residency approval conditions but affirm the judgment in all other respects.
I. FACTS
Before sunrise on October 26, 2011, Beltran was at work driving a tractor trailer truck and had just made a delivery to a store at a shopping center in Cathedral City. He exited the shopping center, making a mandatory right turn to go westbound on a street with three lanes of westbound traffic and two lanes of eastbound traffic, plus a dedicated center turn lane, and a speed limit of 40 miles per hour. His next delivery, however, required him to travel east, so a few hundred feet later he attempted to make a U-turn.
Beltran first veered right to use a bus turnout space, and he then turned left for the U-turn. When he began the maneuver, he saw no traffic approaching from either direction. In the middle of the maneuver, however, with his trailer stretched out across all three lanes of westbound traffic, Beltran noticed the lights of an approaching westbound motorcycle. Beltran was concerned that the motorcycle would hit the rear of his truck, and he tried to rush the turn to avoid a collision. The truck "lagged," but Beltran believed there was a space of about five feet between the back of his trailer and the side of the road that the motorcycle could use. Beltran saw the motorcycle swerve, but it did not reappear in his right-side mirrors, as it would have if it had successfully steered to that open space. Beltran then noticed that the motorcycle was lying on its side.
Beltran completed the U-turn, parked his truck in the dedicated turning lane in the center of the street, and activated his hazard lights. He then exited his truck to investigate. Beltran found the motorcycle lying on its side and leaking fluid, but he did not immediately find its rider. Beltran called 911 and reported that a motorcycle had crashed, but he did not mention his involvement.
There is some evidence that Beltran did not immediately stop, but rather drove away and then returned. There is no question, however, that he returned to the scene within minutes.
Beltran also did not disclose his involvement to the police officer who responded to the scene, and there was no damage to Beltran's vehicle to indicate he might have had a role in the crash. Beltran and the officer eventually found the victim deceased, lying on the opposite side of a fence about 20 feet from the motorcycle. After discovery of the victim's body, Beltran asked the officer if he could leave. The officer, still unaware of Beltran's connection to the accident and focused on securing the scene, told him he could do so. Beltran's involvement was established later, after review of local surveillance footage.
The accident investigation determined that the victim had veered to the right and slammed on his brakes to avoid colliding with Beltran's tractor/trailer. The victim succeeded in avoiding a collision. But in doing so, he lost control and the motorcycle ended up on its right side, slid across several lanes of the street, and slammed into the curb. The impact with the curb launched the victim away from the motorcycle and over the fence, perhaps striking the fence in the process. The victim died within a few minutes of the accident from blunt force trauma to the head.
Beltran was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter (§ 192, subd. (c), count 1 and fleeing the accident scene (Veh. Code, § 20001, subd. (a), count 2). A jury found true allegations that in committing count 1 Beltran had fled the accident scene (Veh. Code, § 20001, subd. (c)) and had personally inflicted great bodily injury and personally used a dangerous or deadly weapon (§§ 1192.7, subds. (c)(8) & (23), 1192.8). The trial court imposed a nine year prison sentence, but suspended it pending successful completion of a five-year term of probation and with the condition that Beltran serve 365 days in jail.
It took two trials to reach this result. Beltran's first trial resulted in a conviction on count 2, but a mistrial on count 1 after the jury failed to reach a verdict. On retrial, a second jury found Beltran guilty on count 1 and found the alleged enhancements of that count to be true.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Personal Infliction of Great Bodily Injury
As there is no evidence that either he or his truck came into contact with the victim or his motorcycle, Beltran contends that there is no substantial evidence to support the jury's conclusion that he personally inflicted great bodily injury within the meaning of section 1192.7, subdivision (c)(8). We are not persuaded.
The jury's bodily injury finding does not affect Beltran's sentence. Rather, it designates the gross vehicular manslaughter conviction as a "serious felony" that could enhance his sentence in a future case. (See People v. Modiri (2006) 39 Cal.4th 481, 485.)
A defendant "personally inflicts" great bodily injury if he or she "directly perform[s] the act that causes the physical injury to the victim." (People v. Cole (1982) 31 Cal.3d 568, 579.) The defendant "must directly cause an injury, not just proximately cause it." (People v. Guzman (2000) 77 Cal.App.4th 761, 764 (Guzman); see People v. Rodriguez (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 341, 349 (Rodriguez) ["To 'personally inflict' injury, the actor must do more than take some direct action which proximately causes injury. The defendant must directly, personally, himself inflict the injury."].) However, "[w]hen the acts of more than one person combine to inflict great bodily injury, each of those persons has directly caused that injury and each has personally inflicted that injury." (People v. Ollo (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 1152, 1157.) "This is true even when one of the persons contributing to the injury is the victim herself." (Ibid.)
Beltran concedes that his actions were the proximate cause of the victim's injuries, in that his U-turn "'set[] in motion a chain of events that produce[d] as a direct, natural and probable consequence of the act or omission the great bodily injury or death and without which the great bodily injury or death would not have occurred.'" (People v. Zarazua (2008) 162 Cal.App.4th 1348, 1361.) He argues, however, that he did not personally inflict any injuries on the victim because he "never personally came in contact with [the victim] nor did his truck; [the victim] died by trying to avoid a collision and then flying off his motorcycle." It is well established, however, that "neither the application of physical force, nor affirmative action by the defendant is necessarily required" to support a finding that the defendant personally inflicted great bodily injury. (People v. Elder (2014) 227 Cal.App.4th 411, 419.)
Guzman, supra, 77 Cal.App.4th at p. 761, is factually similar to this case. In Guzman, the defendant made "an unsafe left turn in front of another vehicle" while driving drunk. (Id. at p. 763.) That vehicle slammed into the defendant's, severely injuring the defendant's passenger. (Ibid.) The defendant admitted that if he had not made the unsafe turn the passenger "'may not have been injured,'" but he argued that the driver of the other vehicle was the person who "directly performed the act that caused the injury." (Id. at p. 764.) The Court of Appeal rejected that argument, reasoning that the defendant's unsafe turn while driving drunk was a "volitional act" that was "the direct cause of the collision and therefore was the direct cause of the injury." (Ibid.) On that basis, the court upheld a finding that the defendant had personally inflicted great bodily injury on his passenger. (Id. at pp. 763, 765.)
Applying Guzman to this case requires considering the incident as an "accident" rather than as a "collision," since there was no collision between Beltran's truck and the victim's motorcycle. Otherwise, however, identical reasoning applies. Beltran "was not merely an accomplice." (Guzman, supra, 77 Cal.App.4th at p. 764.) There was no intervening person who acted between Beltran's U-turn and the victim's attempt to avoid the road obstacle that Beltran created in making that turn. The analysis could be different if Beltran had caused another driver to react in a manner that caused a collision with a third vehicle, injuring the third vehicle's occupants. (See People v. Valenzuela (2010) 191 Cal.App.4th 316, 323 [if victims were injured when "another driver swerved to avoid defendant and that driver's vehicle collided with the victims," the defendant would not be the direct cause of the victim's injuries, "though defendant's reckless driving would still be the proximate cause"].) Rather, here, Beltran's unsafe turn was the direct cause of the accident that injured the victim. The victim's choice appears to have been to collide with Beltran's truck or attempt to avoid it. We discern no reason why the fact that the victim—attempting to avoid a collision—struck a curb rather than Beltran's vehicle should make Beltran any less the direct cause of the victim's injuries.
We also find People v. Dominick (1986) 182 Cal.App.3d 1174 (Dominick) instructive, even though it arose from very different facts. In Dominick, the victim fell part way down a mountainside when she pulled away from the defendants, one of whom was holding her from behind and the other of whom was beating her with a pole. (Id. at p. 1185.) The Court of Appeal upheld the defendants' enhancements for personally inflicting great bodily injury based on a broken shoulder the victim sustained in the fall. (Id. at pp. 1186, 1209-1211.) Even though the victim's broken shoulder was caused, in some sense, by her own volitional act of attempting to avoid the beating, the defendants were nevertheless the direct cause of the injury, and on that basis held to have personally inflicted it. In a similar sense, here too the victim's desperate effort to avoid physical injury was a cause of his injuries. Nevertheless, Beltran created the need for the victim to take emergency action just as the Dominick defendants created a reason for the victim to flee. Beltran's actions likewise were the direct cause of the victim's injuries, and Beltran is responsible for accidentally, but nevertheless personally, inflicting them.
The victim was also stabbed 20 times, but that was part of a second, separate assault. (Dominick, supra, 182 Cal.App.3d at p. 1210.)
Beltran's arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, Rodriguez, supra, 69 Cal.App.4th 341 does not require a different result. In Rodriguez, a police officer hit his head attempting to tackle the defendant, who was attempting to elude arrest on a bicycle. (Id. at p. 346.) The Court of Appeal, while discussing an instruction that erroneously equated direct cause with proximate cause, opined that there was no evidence the defendant had directly caused the officer's injuries: "Rodriguez did not initiate a struggle or any other physical contact with the officer. Nor can we find evidence in this record of any act by Rodriguez that directly caused the officer injury." (Id. at p. 351.) In contrast, in our case, Beltran acted (with an unsafe U-turn) in a way that directly caused the victim to crash his motorcycle. Based on Beltran's action alone, the victim was set to collide with Beltran, though the victim attempted to avoid that collision. Rodriguez correctly states the law, but the facts of this case require a different result.
Beltran has not demonstrated that we should disturb the jury's finding that he personally inflicted great bodily injury. B. Residency Approval Probation Conditions
Beltran's probation conditions include the following residency approval requirements: "Inform the probation officer of your place of residence and reside at a residence approved by the probation officer. Give written notice to the probation officer 24 hours before changing your residence and do not move without the approval of the probation officer." Beltran contends that these conditions are unconstitutionally overbroad and violate his right to travel and freedom of association. The People argue that Beltran forfeited the issue by failing to object in the trial court and, in the alternative, that the conditions are constitutional. We conclude the issue is not forfeited and the conditions should be modified.
Where a claim that a probation condition is overbroad and violates fundamental constitutional rights is based on undisputed facts, it may be treated as a pure question of law, which is not forfeited by failure to raise it in the trial court. (In re Sheena K. (2007) 40 Cal.4th 875, 888-889) Here, we find Beltran's claim of error was not forfeited because it presents a "pure question[] of law" turning on undisputed facts. (People v. Welch (1993) 5 Cal.4th 228, 235.) Moreover, the challenged probation condition can easily be remedied on appeal by modification. (See In re Sheena K., supra, at p. 888.) It therefore "does not appear legally imperative, practical, or wise to extend the forfeiture rule" to Beltran's constitutional challenge. (Ibid.)
Probation conditions impinging on "constitutional rights 'must be narrowly drawn'" so that they are reasonably related to the state's interest in reformation and rehabilitation. (People v. Lopez (1998) 66 Cal.App.4th 615, 627.) Residency approval conditions have sometimes been upheld as constitutional. For example, in People v. Stapleton (2017) 9 Cal.App.5th 989, the Court of Appeal upheld residential approval conditions substantively identical to those here, where the defendant was required to register as a sex offender and had a history of mental health issues and substance abuse. (Id. at pp. 992, 995.) In those circumstances, the Court of Appeal found that the residency approval condition "may directly affect his rehabilitation" as he could, for example, "opt to live in a residence where drugs are used or sold." (Id. at pp. 995-996.)
The present case is distinguishable. Beltran has no history of mental health issues or substance abuse, and he is not required to register as a sex offender. He has no prior criminal history and nothing about his residence contributed to his current offenses. No doubt, it is important for the probation officer to know where Beltran is living to enforce other probation conditions. But the People have proposed no reason why approval of Beltran's residence is reasonably necessary to do so, or otherwise would have any foreseeable effect on his rehabilitation. The circumstance that the probation officer would be required to refrain from arbitrarily disapproving a defendant's request for approval of a new place of residence (see People v. Stapleton, supra, 9 Cal.App.5th at p. 996-997) does not establish that requiring approval is necessary or appropriate.
We have the power to modify a probation condition. (See In re Sheena K., supra, 40 Cal.4th at pp. 888, 892.) We therefore will order the residency conditions modified to read: "Keep the probation officer informed of your place of residence and give written notice to the probation officer twenty-four (24) hours prior to a change in residence." C. Assem. Bill No. 1950
When Beltran was sentenced, section 1203.1, subdivision (a) provided that the court may impose felony probation "for a period of time not exceeding the maximum possible term of the sentence." (Former § 1203.1, subd. (a).) While this appeal was pending, the Legislature enacted Assem. Bill No. 1950, which among other things amended section 1203.1, subdivision (a), so that it now provides that a felony probation term cannot exceed two years. Citing In re Estrada (1965) 63 Cal.2d 740, 748 (Estrada), Beltran contends this two-year limitation for felony probation terms applies retroactively to cases like his own that were not final when the new law became effective on January 1, 2021. The People disagree, arguing that the Estrada presumption of retroactivity applies only to criminal laws that reduce punishment and probation is not punishment.
Several Court of Appeal panels have recently found that, even though probation is not technically punishment, the Estrada retroactivity rule applies to Assem. Bill No. 1950. (People v. Quinn (2021) 59 Cal.App.5th 874, 883-884; People v. Sims (2021) 59 Cal.App.5th 943, 964.) We find these opinions persuasive and adopt their reasoning. Accordingly, we reduce Beltran's term of probation to two years. (See People v. Quinn, supra, at p. 885.)
III. DISPOSITION
Beltran's probation term is reduced to two years and the residency approval conditions of his probation are modified to read: "Keep the probation officer informed of your place of residence and give written notice to the probation officer twenty-four (24) hours prior to a change in residence." The judgment is affirmed in all other respects.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
RAPHAEL
J. We concur: FIELDS
Acting P. J. MENETREZ
J.