People v. Daniels
| Decision Date | 04 August 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. H032497.,H032497. |
| Citation | 97 Cal. Rptr. 3d 659,176 Cal.App.4th 304 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. SAMMY DANIELS, Defendant and Appellant. |
Julie Schumer, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Assistant Attorney General, Rene A. Chacon and Linda M. Murphy, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Defendant Sammy Daniels was convicted by jury trial of kidnapping for rape (Pen. Code, § 209, subd. (b)(1)), and allegations of numerous prior convictions (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subds. (a), (b)-(i), 1170.12) and prison priors (Pen. Code, § 667.5, subd. (a)) were found true. He was committed to state prison for a term of 28 years to life consecutive to a 21-year term. On appeal, he contends that the trial court prejudicially erred in (1) admitting evidence that he had committed a prior rape in 1990, (2) excluding defense expert testimony on alcoholic blackouts, (3) misinstructing the jury on the elements of kidnapping for rape where the victim was incapacitated, and (4) imposing a $40 court security fee rather than a $20 court security fee. The Attorney General concedes that the court erred in regard to the court security fee. We conclude that Penal Code section 209, subdivision (b)(1) extends to a taking and asportation of an incapacitated person to commit rape where the perpetrator uses only the amount of force necessary to effect the taking and asportation of an incapacitated person, rather than "something more" than that amount of force. We therefore find no instructional error. We accept the Attorney General's concession that the court security fee must be reduced to $20 and reject the remainder of defendant's contentions.
On Saturday, August 27, 2005, 21-year-old S.D. (S.) spent the evening with her friend J.H. (J.) and J.'s older sister T.H. (T.). The three women socialized at T. and J.'s parents' house for a while, and S. and J. each drank a number of shots of vodka or rum.1 Then, T. drove the three women to downtown Palo Alto so that they could go "bar hopping." The first bar they visited was Old Pro, where S. had one or more "Jager bombs" and shared a mixed drink with a male friend she encountered.2 After spending half an hour at Old Pro, they proceeded to Nola's, which was next door to Old Pro. At Nola's, S. had a few more "Jager bombs." Their next destination was a bar called Fanny & Alexander's, which was a couple of blocks away from the other two bars. At the entrance to Fanny & Alexander's, T. had a dispute with the bouncer over payment of the cover charge. Defendant, a 51-year-old man who was standing nearby, offered to pay the cover charge for the three women, and they accepted the offer.
The women went inside the bar and immediately went to the bathroom, as S. was feeling sick. Her indisposition was due to the fact that she had consumed "probably around 13 shots" of alcohol over a period of three to four hours.3 S. vomited in the toilet while they were in the bathroom. They came out of the bathroom and briefly socialized with some men they knew. It was near closing time when they arrived at Fanny & Alexander's, and they left the bar at closing time, which was 2:00 a.m. At this point, both S. and J. were intoxicated, but were walking and talking normally.
Once they exited Fanny & Alexander's, S. left J. and T. and ran across the street into a parking lot to vomit. J. lost sight of her. When S. did not return within a couple of minutes, J. ran across the street and looked for her, but she could not find her. T. and J. tried calling S. on her cell phone numerous times, but there was no answer. T. and J. walked around looking for S. for another 10 to 15 minutes, but did not find her. They finally assumed she had found a ride with another friend, and they went home.
S. had gone into an alley on the side of the parking lot across the street from Fanny & Alexander's. She lost consciousness, and the next thing she remembered was waking up to find herself lying on the ground in the alley. She heard her cell phone ringing "a lot of times," but "I just could only, like lie there and throw up, really." S. heard defendant's voice talking to her as she was lying on the ground facedown. Defendant asked her if she was "okay." She did not respond. Since her phone had stopped ringing, S. thought that perhaps defendant had answered it and was going to bring her to her friends. S. continued to throw up "and then somehow I ended up in a car." S. thought defendant had driven up to where she was lying. She had no recollection as to how she got in the car, and she had not agreed to get in the car.4
S. vomited out the window of the car. S. continued to alternate between a state of unconsciousness and a state of being "out of it." "I was, like, in and out of being passed out and throwing up, wake up only to throw up and then passing out again." She noticed that the car was moving. At one point, when S. was vomiting out the car window, she noticed that the car was at a gas station. She "couldn't physically get out" of the car, because she was unable to "move or talk." S. felt someone touching her "[u]nder my shirt on my breasts." She was "pretty sure" that her "skin" was being touched.5 S. did not know whose hands were touching her, but she was "pretty sure" that this person was in the car with her. S. was "scared" and did not know what to do. She fell back to sleep.
Defendant, who lived in an apartment in Hayward and worked in Mountain View, arrived at the Super 8 Motel in Hayward between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. Hayward is 20 miles from downtown Palo Alto, a distance that takes about 30 to 45 minutes to drive in the absence of traffic. Defendant's Hayward apartment was about a mile and a half from the Super 8 Motel. Defendant entered the motel office and filled out a registration card, and the motel clerk wrote down defendant's driver's license number on the card. Defendant signed the card with his Muslim name "Ali Bilal." Defendant told the clerk that the room was for him and his wife.
The next thing S. remembered after falling back to sleep in the car was "being carried somewhere and then laid down on the bed in a hotel room." S. kept her eyes closed because she was "scared and I didn't know what to do." She heard defendant say "I'll be right back" and leave the motel room. As soon as he left the room, S. opened her eyes. Suddenly, she felt able to move and speak again. S. "totally freaked out and got up and ran out of the room." At some point, S. had lost both her purse and her shoes.6 She ran into the motel's parking lot and approached two young male strangers.
James Elder and Gary Casupang, young men in their mid-20's, had checked into the Super 8 Motel in Hayward between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. on August 28, 2005. As they were parking their car, they saw a large maroon car parking nearby. A few minutes after arriving at their room, they went back out to their car to turn off the car's interior light. As they approached their car, they heard a woman's voice behind them yelling repeatedly "Help." Elder looked around and saw S. running toward them from the motel building. She looked "scared" and "traumatized." Elder and Casupang had never seen S. before.
S. was breathing heavily and seemed "quite hysterical." Elder saw defendant "running behind her and chasing her." S. reached them, "latched herself onto" Casupang's arm, and told Casupang "I've been kidnapped." She asked them to help her, and Elder and Casupang agreed to do so. They took her to their car. Defendant stopped chasing her, "backed off a bit," and "lingered" near a maroon car by the motel building. He crouched down and watched them.
Elder, Casupang and S. got into their car and drove away. Elder and Casupang told S. that they were "[n]ear Oakland," and S. was "horrified." S. did not seem intoxicated. S. asked Elder and Casupang to take her to Palo Alto. She told them that she had gone out to a bar in Palo Alto with some friends. She said she was kidnapped when she went outside the bar to use her phone. S. said that the man who had kidnapped her had tried to sexually assault her. She provided no details.
Ten minutes after checking into the Super 8 Motel, defendant returned to the motel clerk, said "My wife disappeared," and asked the clerk for a refund. Because this was within the motel's "grace period," the clerk returned defendant's money to him. The clerk suggested that defendant call 911, but defendant said "there is no need." Defendant scratched out his driver's license number on the registration card and left. The clerk saw defendant drive away in a maroon car.
Elder and Casupang took S. back to Palo Alto. S. went to the Palo Alto Police Department with her mother about 6:00 a.m. S. was interviewed by two police officers. The one-hour interview was interrupted four or five times for S. to go to the bathroom due to her nausea. S. did not seem intoxicated.
On the morning of August 30, 2005, defendant brought S.'s purse to the Palo Alto post office. He told the postal clerk that he had found the purse in the parking lot. The clerk told defendant that they had a lost and found and would try to return the purse to its rightful owner. The post office notified S., and she retrieved her purse. S.'s cell phone, wallet, identification, credit cards, money, and keys were in the purse along with a small spiral notebook. S. noticed that a note had been written inside her notebook.
This note, which had been written by defendant, read: ...
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