People v. Blackwell
| Decision Date | 20 June 2013 |
| Docket Number | A128197 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. BRADLEY BLACKWELL, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
(Sonoma County
Appellant Bradley Blackwell was sentenced to prison for a term of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) following his conviction by jury trial of first degree murder with felony-murder special circumstances and other offenses, which were committed when he was 17 years old. He appealed, arguing his LWOP sentence should be reversed because (1) it exceeded the punishment allowable absent a jury determination of his age and violated his Sixth Amendment rights under Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) 530 U.S. 466, 490 (Apprendi); (2) it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the federal Constitution because he was a juvenile at the time of the offenses; and (3) it was an abuse of discretion.
In People v. Blackwell (2011) 202 Cal.App.4th 144 (Blackwell), we rejected these claims and affirmed the judgment. Appellant's petition for review was denied by the California Supreme Court (March 14, 2012, S199767), but the United States Supreme Court granted his petition for writ of certiorari, vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to this court for reconsideration in light of Miller v. Alabama (2012) 567 U.S. ___ (Miller), which was decided after the issuance of our original opinion,and which held that mandatory LWOP sentences for homicide amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment when they are imposed on a defendant who was a juvenile at the time of the offense. We asked the parties to submit supplemental briefing on the issue.1 Having reconsidered the case in light of Miller, we remand the case to the trial court for resentencing.
Uriel Carreno was living in the converted garage of his aunt and uncle's home on Joan Drive in Petaluma. On February 7, 2007, he ate lunch with his aunt and then returned to his garage apartment. A friend of Carreno's came by later that afternoon and found him lying on the floor, not moving. Carreno had been shot four times in his side and once in his back and had died of his wounds. A piece of the wood doorjamb was found across the room and a muddy shoeprint was on the door adjacent to the doorknob.
The police found five nine-millimeter shell casings of two different colors within three to five feet of Carreno's body. Forensic testing and the position of the casings revealed they had all been fired from the same weapon while the shooter was inside the room. The coroner recovered five spent bullets from Carreno's body, all of which had been fired from the same weapon. Two of the bullets had silver jackets (Silvertips) and the other three were of the Black Talon variety. There was no evidence another firearm had been discharged inside the room during the incident leading to Carreno's death.
Jeffrey Gray, a convicted felon, had seen appellant with a nine-millimeter Beretta during the first part of 2007. Appellant had loaded it with different colored bullets and had told Gray some of them were solid points and some were hollow points. Appellant had referred to the hollow point bullets as Black Talons.
On the afternoon Carreno was shot, appellant had called Christopher Ortele and asked for a ride to Petaluma near the Kmart so he could pay his cell phone bill. Ortele was in the process of installing a car stereo for his friend Amber Powell, who agreed to drive. Powell and Ortele picked up appellant, who was with Keith Kellum, and they alldrove from Rohnert Park to the Petaluma Kmart, but when Powell was about to turn into the parking lot, either appellant or Kellum told her to go the other way and directed her to a residential neighborhood near the corner of Novak and Joan Drive (the street on which Carreno lived).
After Powell parked the car, appellant and Kellum got out and walked in the direction of Joan Drive, telling Powell to wait for them. When they returned five to 15 minutes later, their demeanor had changed. They got into the car and were very quiet during the ride back. It appeared to Powell that appellant was "tearing up" and Kellum was consoling him.
Jeffrey Gray received a call from appellant the same afternoon and arranged to meet him at a trailer park where Gray was visiting a friend. Appellant, Kellum and appellant's brother Colby Blackwell arrived at the trailer park in Colby's truck, and Gray got into the truck with them. Appellant handed Gray some solvent and a rag and told him he wanted him to go inside a house or garage and wipe down any fingerprints that might be on the door. They pulled up to a house on Joan Drive, but saw fire trucks, police cars, and an ambulance outside. Appellant appeared upset and said he had shot a guy they were trying to rob.
The group drove back to appellant's house, where appellant told Gray what had happened in greater detail. Appellant said he and Kellum had gone to Petaluma to rob a guy of some money and dope (crystal methamphetamine). Kellum had kicked in the door of the garage. Appellant claimed that when he went into the garage the guy inside took a shot at him, so he shot back several times.
Also on the day of the shooting, appellant called his girlfriend, Jacqueline Pollard, and asked her to come to his house. He sounded very anxious on the phone. When Pollard arrived she found appellant and Kellum stripped to their boxer shorts. Appellant took her into the bathroom and told her in a "frantic" manner he had been driven to Petaluma by some girl he didn't know and had shot someone dead. Appellant told Pollard he and Kellum had gone to a house, touched a doorknob, and kicked another door down, and he was afraid there would be fingerprints and a footprint on two separatedoors. He claimed that when they entered the room the person inside had fired a shot between his head and Kellum's, so appellant fired a few shots into the person's chest. Appellant admitted he had used his own gun, a semiautomatic that Pollard had seen before. He said he and Kellum were going to burn their clothes, and mentioned a pair of shoes and a jacket that would be placed in a backpack along with the gun and some extra bullets. Pollard saw a backpack containing loose bullets and shoes in appellant's bedroom, and appellant said he was going to bury it.
Sometime later, appellant told Pollard he was concerned that too many people knew the gun was in the bag and where it was buried. He drove her into the Santa Rosa hills and asked her whether she thought he should move it. She told him it might not be a good idea because they had been stopped by the police a number of times in the car they were driving.
On a visit to one Bryan Fishtrom's house in March or April 2007, appellant was carrying a dirty bandana that contained a semi-automatic handgun, bullets, and a lot of mud. The bullets were of different colors and some had hollow tips.
In March 2007, Jeffrey Gray was picked up on a parole violation and told the police what he knew about appellant's involvement in Uriel Carreno's murder. In April 2007, after he was released, Gray saw appellant and his brother Gary Blackwell at Bryan Fishtrom's house. Appellant and his brother asked Gray how he had gotten out of jail, and appellant suggested they go for a ride together. Gray declined.
In May 2007, appellant's brother Colby Blackwell directed police officers to a 50-gallon drum in a rural area. Colby moved the drum, revealing a hole in the ground that contained wet clothing, shoes, pieces of a rifle cleaning kit, five rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition, and rifle grease. A tee shirt bore the imprint of a gun and had rust stains consistent with a Beretta nine-millimeter handgun.
Appellant was interviewed by the police and initially denied knowing anything about Carreno's murder. Later, he told them he and Kellum had gone to a house to "burn a guy for drugs," and Kellum had kicked open the door and shot the person inside several times. Appellant admitted that he knew before they went to the house that Kellum had ahandgun. He acknowledged that his brother Colby had buried some of the evidence, and that he (appellant) had sold the gun that Kellum used in Santa Rosa.
Based on the foregoing evidence, appellant was charged with first degree murder with felony-murder special circumstances (murder in the commission of an attempted robbery and a burglary or attempted burglary), burglary of an inhabited dwelling house, and attempted robbery in an inhabited dwelling house, along with allegations of personal firearm use. (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(A) & (G), 211, 459, 664; 1203.06, subd. (a)(1), 12022.5, subd. (a); 12022.53, subds. (b)-(d).) Although appellant was 17 years old at the time of the killing, the district attorney elected to directly file the case in adult court under Welfare and Institutions Code section 707, subdivision (d).
A jury convicted appellant of the substantive charges and found the special circumstance allegations to be true, though it rejected the firearm allegations.2 After the jury returned its verdict, appellant filed a sentencing memorandum arguing that under Apprendi, supra, 530 U.S. 466, the court could not impose an "adult" sentence without a jury finding regarding his age at the time of the offenses. The court rejected this argument and imposed an LWOP term on the murder count. It acknowledged it had the discretion to impose a lesser term of 25 years to life because appellant was under age 18 when he committed the murder (see...
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