People v. Adams, H030529 (Cal. App. 5/20/2008)
| Decision Date | 20 May 2008 |
| Docket Number | H030529 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. ERIC SHAWN ADAMS, et al. Defendants and Appellants. |
Appeal from Super. Ct. Nos. CC591038, CC466717.
A jury found appellant Eric Adams guilty of four counts of making a criminal threat, two counts of attempting to dissuade a witness from testifying by threat of force, one count of unlawfully causing a fire to an inhabited structure, two counts of conspiracy to dissuade a witness from testifying, one count of misdemeanor battery and one count of misdemeanor brandishing a weapon. (Pen. Code, §§ 422, 136.1, 182, 452, 242, 417.) The same jury found appellant Jesse Adams guilty of one count of attempting to dissuade a witness from testifying by threat of force, one count of making a criminal threat, and one count of conspiracy to dissuade a witness from testifying. (Pen. Code, §§ 136.1, 422, 182.) The trial court sentenced Eric Adams to 24 years in state prison. The trial court sentenced Jesse Adams to a state prison term of 75 years to life with a consecutive determinate term of 30 years.
Appellants contend that the trial court erred in instructing the jury on the witness dissuasion charges. They contend that there was insufficient evidence that the victims of the criminal threats experienced sustained fear. Appellants contend that they received ineffective assistance of counsel because counsel did not object to the admission of taped jail phone conversations and dog sniffing evidence. Appellants contend that the trial court erred in admitting expert testimony concerning the meaning of slang terms. Eric Adams contends that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury that it must determine the number of conspiracies proved. Appellants contend that the trial court committed sentencing error. As to Eric Adams, we reverse for instructional error as to the two conspiracy counts. As to Jesse Adams, we modify the sentence and affirm the judgment.
Counts 11 through 15, which charged Eric Adams with criminal threats, battery, and brandishing, arose out of events on August 23, 2004. Christopher Huber and Rolando Gonzalez were trimming trees at the home of Huber's brother-in-law Justin Perez and his family. The house was on a corner lot in San Jose. Huber was up in a tree and Gonzalez was gathering branches below.
A young woman ran up to Gonzalez screaming, A white car skidded to a stop and Eric Adams got out. The woman, Shante Adams, Eric's wife, was hysterical and her shirt was covered with blood. She got behind Gonzalez and held him in front of her as Eric tried to reach around him.1 Eric yelled, Gonzalez testified that Shante was "embracing" him from behind as Eric pushed him by the shoulders and tried to grab Shante. Eric said, Eric yelled,
Huber started to lower himself from the tree. Eric said, When Eric "gave up trying to get at the lady" through Gonzalez, he started to leave and said, "You ever heard of the Seven Trees?" Huber and Gonzalez understood this to be some kind of gang reference.
Eric left in the white car. Perez and his family tended to Shante's injury in their garage. A few minutes later Eric pulled up, got out of the car, and told Gonzalez, "I told you I was going to kill you." He said something about pistols or guns. Eric went to the trunk of the car, opened it, and reached inside. Eric pulled out what Gonzalez thought was a shotgun. Gonzalez ran and hid behind a tree. Eric was holding something covered with a black jacket. It turned out to be a two-by-four. He held it "in the manner of a pistol."
Huber testified that Eric held the two-by-four like a baseball bat and advanced toward them saying, 2 Eric said, "You've never heard of the Seven Trees." He said to Shante, He pointed at Huber and said, "All you people are gonna get fucked up." Eric said to Justin Perez,
When Eric left, Huber drove to the corner with Gonzalez and watched the house from a distance for "security." Huber "wanted to see it coming or if it happened again, [he] wanted to be able to follow him or something." The police arrived about five minutes after Eric left and interviewed Huber, Gonzalez, Perez, and Perez's wife.
Eric testified that although he "might have yelled a little bit" he never threatened to kill Shante, Huber, Gonzalez, or Perez.3 He said that he and Shante had quarreled that morning because she wanted him to ride with her to Richmond so that she could have access to the car pool lane but that he "didn't want to do it." Shante "got into an uproar" and left. Eric testified that Shante returned and started "purposely agitating" him by throwing things around and then left again. He locked the door and placed a couch in front of it. She returned and, in pounding on the door, broke the window in the door, cutting her arm. When Eric saw that Shante was bleeding, he tried to assist her, but she grabbed a dish towel and "stormed out of the apartment again."
Eric testified that he tried to follow Shante in the white car to convince her to get medical treatment. When he pulled up next to where she was on the sidewalk to try to talk to her, she "started running towards that house." Eric was telling Shante, "You're stupid, what are you doing, I am just trying to help you." Eric testified that Shante did not scream for help or say that Eric was going to kill her. Gonzalez was cutting branches and holding a saw. From his position up in the tree Huber called, "Get the fuck back, it's not going to happen here." When Shante hid behind Gonzalez, Eric tried to explain that she was his wife and that Huber and Gonzalez had the wrong impression of the events but that Gonzalez and Huber just kept yelling at him to leave. Gonzalez threatened to call the police. Eric testified that he told Gonzalez, "I was going to call [the] I.N.S. on him if he don't get out of my business and have him deported" and Gonzalez put his phone away. Gonzalez became angry and aggressive toward Eric.
Eric testified that he left after telling Shante not to worry and that he would return for her. He went to get a soda and call his mother-in-law to tell her what had happened. His mother-in-law was some distance away, so, rather than wait for her, Eric returned to the Perez house where he had left Shante. Gonzalez started coming at him with branches in his hand, so Eric reached into his trunk for something with which to defend himself. He found a piece of wood that happened to have a jacket on top of it and pulled it out. He left a few seconds later.
Counts 1, 2, 3, and 4 arose from telephone contact with Huber. As a result of the August 2004 incident, Eric was placed in custody for a parole violation. Huber, Gonzalez, and Perez testified at an administrative hearing in late 2004. Criminal charges were filed against Eric, and Huber testified at the preliminary examination for those charges in December 2004.
On March 22, 2005, while Eric remained in custody pending trial on criminal threats charges, his brother Jesse Adams was paroled from prison, where he had been for over 14 years. Eric called Jesse and Shante numerous times from the jail. Later that month, Huber received a hang-up phone call. According to Huber's caller ID, the call was from "Leonard Hodge" with a phone number of 270-7483. Although Huber did not know anyone by that name, he tried calling the number back and it was busy for about half an hour. Huber received another call, and the caller ID said "number blocked." Huber testified that when he picked up the phone he "got threatened." In a 45-second call, a man's voice, which was "pretty distinctive" and sounded "like a Mike Tyson impersonation," addressed him by name. The man said, "People that talk, wind up in graves." The man said, Huber understood that by "talk" the voice meant "testify . . . in relation to the case against Eric Adams." Although he took this as a threat to his safety and that of Justin Perez and his family, he did not immediately report this call to the police because he "thought it was all B.S." However, the next day he called the Leonard Hodge number and the person who had threatened him answered the phone. The telephone number was that of Leonard Hodge, appellants' uncle, with whom Jesse was living. Eric Adams and Jesse Adams were charged with attempting to dissuade a witness by threat of force, making a criminal threat, and conspiracy to commit witness intimidation in counts 1, 3, and 4. Eric was charged in count 2 with attempting to dissuade a witness while having a prior conviction for witness dissuasion.
Counts 5 through 10 charged unlawfully causing a fire to an inhabited dwelling, attempting to dissuade a witness by threat of force in violation of Penal Code section 136.1, and conspiracy to violate section 136.1.4 About a week after receiving the threatening phone call, Huber arrived home at the end of the day and his grandfather told him that someone had just rung the doorbell. Huber went out and looked around, but did not see anything. On April 3, 2005, Justin Perez called Huber, sounding nervous and shaken, and told Huber...
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