People v. Crooks
| Decision Date | 10 June 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. C023565,C023565 |
| Citation | 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 236,55 Cal.App.4th 797 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | , 97 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 4375, 97 Daily Journal D.A.R. 7328 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Ronald Aubrey CROOKS, Defendant and Appellant. |
Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General, George Williamson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Assistant Attorney General, Margaret Venturi and Paul E. O'Connor, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Defendant Ronald Aubrey Crooks burglarized the victim's apartment and raped the victim in her own bedroom. As pertinent, defendant was sentenced to a term of 25 years to life under the provisions of California's "first strike" sentencing law as set forth in Penal Code section 667.61. 1 In the published portion of this opinion, we conclude this sentence did not constitute cruel or unusual punishment, nor did the sentence violate defendant's right to the equal protection of the laws.
Defendant was charged by an amended information with five felony counts arising from the same set of facts: first degree burglary with intent to commit rape (count 1; §§ 459, 261, subd. (a)(2)); sexual battery (count 2; § 243.4, subd. (a)); and three counts of rape by means of force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury (counts 3-5; § 261, subd. (a)(2)). It was also alleged that defendant committed counts 3 through 5 while personally armed with a deadly weapon, a knife (§ 12022.3, subd. (b)), and during the commission of a first degree burglary (§ 667.61, subds. (c)(2), (d)(4)).
After trial, a jury convicted defendant on all counts and found all the accompanying allegations true.
The trial court sentenced defendant to a total state prison term of 37 years and 8 months to life, computed as follows: 25 years to life on count 3 (§§ 261, subd. (a)(2), 459, 667.61), plus a 2-year enhancement on the personal arming allegation (§ 12022.3, subd. (b)); 6 years on count 4, plus a 2-year enhancement on the personal arming allegation, run consecutively to the term on count 3; and an unstayed term of 2 years on count 5, plus an 8-month enhancement on the personal arming allegation, run consecutively to the terms on counts 3 and 4. 2
Defendant contends that the trial court erred prejudicially by preventing him from eliciting a witness's opinion as to whether a person with a certain blood alcohol percentage would be impaired. He further contends that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to call a certain witness and by failing to pursue an inconsistency between the victim's trial testimony and her pretrial story. He also raises numerous claims of sentencing error, some of which attack the constitutionality of section 667.61, the "one strike" provision mandating life sentences for certain forcible rapes.
The People not only disagree with all of defendant's claims of error but contend that defendant's sentence was too light because the trial court's imposition of a reduced enhancement of eight months on count 5, rather than a full-term two-year enhancement, was unauthorized by law.
Agreeing with the People, we shall modify the judgment to impose a two-year enhancement on count 5. In all other respects, we shall affirm the judgment.
The essential facts were not disputed; indeed, they were confirmed by defendant in his own testimony.
On the morning of November 7, 1995, 3 the victim, Angelina S., discovered that she had left her keys in the locked bedroom of her duplex. Unable to open the door, she called a neighbor; the neighbor suggested asking the help of defendant, who lived across the street. Defendant succeeded in opening the door.
Before going to bed that night the victim locked the doors to her house, but not the bedroom door.
In the early morning hours of November 8, the victim was awakened by the cries of her seven-year-old daughter Paula, who was sleeping in the same bed. The victim saw a man standing at the foot of the bed. In her half-awake state she thought he was wearing a blue and white Power Ranger outfit; later she realized that he had on a mask. 4 She screamed, got out of bed, and tried to reach the bedroom door, with Paula behind her. Defendant pinned the victim face down on the floor and lay on top of her. During the struggle she perceived that he was naked except for the "mask." When she managed to remove the "mask," she recognized defendant.
She asked him what he wanted, telling him she had no money or jewelry. She believed that he answered: "[That's] not what I want." She asked him to let Paula leave the room; he agreed and told Paula to go to bed. In her native Tagalog, the victim then told Paula to call the authorities (avoiding the words "police" and "911" for fear of alarming defendant). Soon afterward Paula called 911 and told the victim in Tagalog from outside the bedroom that she had done so.
The victim asked defendant why he was doing this and "[didn't he] have a wife to do this with?" He told her to shut up. When she screamed instead, he slapped her three or four times, telling her to "[t]hink about [her] daughter."
Defendant initially agreed not to insert his penis into the victim so that she would not become pregnant. As the struggle continued, however, he took off her sweat pants and underwear, touching her "private part." He then put his hand under her shirt and touched her breast. Next, he tried to open her legs by force and penetrate her. He had a hard time because she continued to resist and try to move away. However, he succeeded in pushing his penis into her vagina three separate times, though he could not get it all the way in.
The victim heard her dog bark. Defendant asked her what the noise was; she said she did not know. He stood up, pulled her by the hair, and told her to go to the bedroom window. When he let go of her hair, she ran from the bedroom and out of the house, screaming. She saw the police outside. A sheriff's deputy stopped defendant as he tried to run out the front door.
Investigating officers found a large kitchen knife belonging to the victim on the bedroom floor alongside her bed; she had not put it there. It had been in her kitchen when she went to sleep that night.
Deputy Osborne, one of the investigating officers, detected a mild odor of alcohol on defendant's breath but observed no other signs of intoxication.
A detective conducted a videotaped interview of defendant (which was played for the jury) at around 5:40 a.m. on November 8. Defendant confessed his crimes but blamed them on his alcoholism and the alcohol he had drunk throughout the day. He admitted that he had penetrated the victim on three separate occasions.
A physical examination of the victim revealed two small tears at the bottom of her vagina.
Testifying on his own behalf, defendant stated that he is an alcoholic and that he assaulted the victim on account of his alcoholism. He drank six quarts of beer on November 7 and also smoked a marijuana joint.
During the afternoon of November 7, despite having drunk three quarts of beer already, he was able to drive his daughter safely to a karate class. By 4 p.m. he was still feeling all right, able to think about his decisions and make plans.
Defendant and his wife quarreled at dinner. Afterward he went out. He could not remember what he was doing between 11:30 p.m. on the 7th and 2:30 a.m. on the 8th, but he remembered entering the victim's house through the window, going to her washer and grabbing a pair of her panties for a disguise, then going back to the kitchen After entering the victim's bedroom he put the knife down. At that point the victim woke up. He remembered all the details of the offenses clearly and described them essentially as the victim had done.
and taking a knife, which he intended to use to scare her. He took off his clothes in her living room before going to the bedroom. He never actually made a decision to assault her, but he knew what he was doing and did exactly what he intended to do. The alcohol told him it was all right to do everything he did.
Counsel stipulated that a blood test administered to defendant at 10 a.m. on November 8 showed a blood alcohol level of .07 percent.
I-II **
III
Defendant contends that as applied to the facts of this case section 667.61 constitutes cruel and/or unusual punishment under both the United States and the California Constitutions. We disagree.
Section 667.61 provides as relevant:
Thus section 667.61 mandated a minimum sentence of 25 years to life in state prison for defendant because he committed the kind of rape specified in section 261, subdivision (a)(2), while engaged in the commission of a first degree burglary done with the intent to commit that kind of rape. (§ 667.61, subd. (d)(4).) 8 Before the trial court imposed sentence under section 667.61, it considered and denied a motion by defendant challenging the mandatory sentence as "cruel and unusual" under the federal Constitution (8th...
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...same offense, which we take as a concession that his sentence withstands a constitutional challenge on either basis. (People v. Crooks (1997) 55 Cal.App.4th 797, 808 [defendant bears burden of establishing disproportionality].) He merely intimates that his sentence is disproportionate in co......
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...a lesser included enhancement also found by the jury rather than to impose no enhancement at all. (E.g., People v. Crooks (1997) 55 Cal.App.4th 797, 811, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 236 [noting courts’ [‘]inherent authority to correct an unauthorized sentence[’]]; People v. Relkin (2016) 6 Cal.App.5th 1......
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...by law, a reviewing court may correct that sentence whenever the error is called to the court's attention." ( People v. Crooks (1997) 55 Cal.App.4th 797, 811, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 236.) "[A] sentence is generally ‘unauthorized’ where it could not lawfully be imposed under any circumstance in the ......
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