People v. Drennen
| Docket Number | F084428 |
| Decision Date | 20 October 2023 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. DUSTIN JAMES DRENNEN, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Kern County Super Ct. No. DF016167A John R. Brownlee, Judge.
Matthew J. Smith, under appointment by the Court of Appeal for Defendant and Appellant.
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Louis M. Vasquez, Lewis A. Martinez and Amanda D Cary, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Defendant Dustin James Drennen contends on appeal that (1) the judgment on count 2 must be reversed and remanded because the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support his conviction for assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer; (2) the judgment on count 3 should be modified to reduce his conviction for assault with a deadly weapon on a firefighter to a conviction for simple assault; and (3) his sentence should be vacated and the matter remanded for resentencing in accordance with the reversal of count 2 and modification of count 3.
We affirm the judgment.
On February 25, 2022, the Kern County District Attorney filed an information charging defendant with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer (Pen. Code,[1] § 245, subd. (c); counts 1 &2)[2]; assault with a deadly weapon on a firefighter (§ 245, subd. (c); count 3); two counts of hit and run resulting in injury (Veh. Code, § 20001, subd. (b)(1); counts 4 &5); evading a peace officer (Veh. Code, § 2800.2; count 6); evading a peace officer on a highway while driving in the opposite direction of traffic (Veh. Code, § 2800.4; count 7); misdemeanor reckless driving in an off-street parking facility (Veh. Code, § 23103, subd. (b); count 8); misdemeanor reckless driving (Veh. Code, § 23101, subd. (a); count 9); and resisting arrest (§ 148, subd. (a)(1); count 10).
Defendant pled not guilty to all charges.
On May 2, 2022, defendant waived a jury trial and agreed to a court trial instead. The court found defendant not guilty on count 1 (assault against peace officer Rivera), and guilty of all remaining counts. At the sentencing hearing on June 1, 2022, the court designated count 2 (assault against peace officer Manuele) as the principal term and imposed the upper term of five years on that charge based on the following aggravating circumstances: (1) defendant's prior convictions as an adult were numerous; (2) defendant was on felony probation and postrelease community supervision when the crime was committed; (3) defendant's performance on misdemeanor probation, felony probation and postrelease community supervision was unsatisfactory in that he failed to comply with terms or reoffended; (4) defendant had served three prior prison terms; and (5) the crime involved a great threat of bodily harm in that defendant traveled in excess of 100 miles per hour and against lanes of traffic on a busy highway.[3] The court denied probation and sentenced defendant to an aggregate state prison term of seven years.
On June 1, 2022, defendant filed a notice of appeal.
On April 28, 2021, at approximately 3:30 p.m., officers Manuele and Rivera responded in separate patrol cars to a call for service about someone unconscious in a car at a superstore parking lot in Delano.
As Rivera drove through the parking lot, a group of people standing next to defendant's car flagged him down. Rivera parked his patrol car nearby and walked toward defendant's car.
Manuele also arrived on scene and parked his patrol car approximately 25 to 30 feet directly behind and perpendicular to defendant's car. Defendant's car was facing east and Manuele's patrol car was facing south.
Manuele estimated a group of about 15 to 25 onlookers were near defendant's car.
Both officers approached defendant's car. They saw the driver's side door was open and defendant was sitting cross-legged on the ground next to the inside of the open driver's side door, slumped over with his head on the driver's side door frame. Defendant did not appear to be conscious, so Rivera shook defendant in an attempt to wake him, but was unsuccessful. Rivera checked defendant for a pulse and found he was still breathing. At that time, Kern County fire personnel were arriving on scene. Manuele looked through defendant's back pockets for his identification but found none, so he went back to his patrol car to run the license plate number on defendant's car. When Manuele left defendant's car, he was still unconscious. Rivera moved to the outside of defendant's driver's side door so that fire personnel could have access to defendant.
While the officers were checking defendant, a Kern County Fire Department truck arrived with lights and sirens activated. The fire truck parked approximately 20 feet away from the front of defendant's car, facing north. The three firefighters who arrived in the truck walked towards defendant's car. Rivera moved to the outside of the driver's side door to allow firefighter Andrew Lewis access to defendant.
Lewis saw defendant lying limp on the ground between his car and its open driver's side door. He talked to defendant to try to wake him up, but defendant did not respond. Lewis then performed an "external rub," which is a painful stimulus, causing defendant to regain consciousness. Lewis asked defendant for his name and other basic information to assess his mentation and level of consciousness. Defendant looked up at Lewis and repeated, "I'm okay." Defendant turned his head 90 degrees and looked around the surrounding area. After approximately 10 seconds of looking around the area, a sudden look of panic came over defendant's face. The firefighters told him to stay seated on the ground, but defendant continued to rise to a standing position.
One firefighter pointed to a bottle on defendant's driver's seat and asked defendant," '[W]ere you drinking that[?]'" Lewis asked defendant to keep his legs outside of the car and face him so he could check his vital signs. The group of onlookers was still present around defendant's car as he regained consciousness.
Defendant then made a sudden move to seat himself in his car's driver's seat and placed the keys in the ignition, stating," 'I'm okay. I'm okay. I have to go.'" Rivera feared defendant might be intoxicated and ordered him to stop. Rivera stepped around the open driver's side door of defendant's car, intending to reach inside to get the keys out of the ignition, but the firefighters were in Rivera's way. Defendant told Rivera," 'I'm not leaving,'" as Rivera moved towards him. Before Rivera could reach defendant, defendant put his car in reverse and accelerated. Lewis was trapped between the car's door and the car as it reversed. As defendant reversed his car, Rivera grabbed onto the car's window for support and to avoid being hit.
As defendant reversed, Lewis spun out of the way, but the open driver's side door hit Lewis's right leg and the window hit his right elbow, shattering the window. Although he felt the impact, he was not injured. Lewis was wearing a heavy duty Nomex material emergency medical services (EMS) jacket and his elbow was not cut by the shattered window. However, because Rivera was hanging onto the window when it shattered, his forearm hit the broken glass from the window causing a laceration on his arm. When Lewis spun out of the way, defendant's car was moving in reverse at approximately seven miles per hour. After Lewis spun out of the way, defendant "hit the gas or hit the accelerator as fast as he could."
As defendant reversed away from Lewis, Lewis saw Rivera hanging onto the driver's side window and saw Manuele seated in his patrol car with the driver's side door open and one leg clearly hanging outside of his car.
Approximately less than 30 seconds passed between defendant regaining consciousness and reversing his car. The group of onlookers still surrounded the car as defendant began reversing and Rivera ordered him to stop. Multiple onlookers backed away from the car as defendant began to reverse.
As defendant was reversing his car with Rivera hanging onto the window and the window was shattering, defendant looked at Rivera and said," 'What the f[***] are you doing?'" Rivera continued to hold onto defendant's car and attempted to keep pace with it by running alongside it, trying to stop defendant from leaving the area. Rivera did not notice whether defendant looked in his rearview or sideview mirrors or backward over his shoulder as he reversed the car. Rivera saw Manuele seated in the driver's seat of his patrol car parked approximately 20 feet behind where defendant had been parked. The car continued backwards towards Manuele's patrol car until the rear-end of defendant's car collided with the patrol car's driver's side door. Before the impact, Rivera was able to step away from between the inside of the car's open driver's side door and the body of the car.
Meanwhile Manuele was sitting in the driver's seat of his patrol car with the door open and his left leg hanging outside of his car, when he heard "some kind of screaming going on." When he looked up, he saw Rivera engaged in a physical altercation with defendant and defendant's car reversing out of its parking stall toward his patrol car at approximately 10 to 15 miles per hour. Manuele's attention had previously been on his computer as he ran defendant's license plate information, so he did not notice whether defendant looked to see his patrol car parked behind defendant's car. Manuele realized "within that split second" of noticing defendant's...
To continue reading
Request your trial