People v. Hill
| Decision Date | 11 April 2016 |
| Docket Number | C074857 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. RYLAND GEORGE HILL, Defendant and Appellant. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
Defendant Ryland George Hill is an admitted alcoholic with a long history of driving while intoxicated. Defendant was convicted of several drunk driving (DUI) related offenses based on two incidents in July and August 2012. He also stands convicted of domestic violence which took place during a drunken altercation with his girlfriend before his August DUI arrest. (Veh. Code, § 23152, subds. (a)-(b), Pen. Code, § 273.5, subd. (a); unless otherwise set forth, statutory references that follow are to the Penal Code.) He was sentenced to eight years, eight months in prison.
On appeal, defendant contends that the court erred in admitting an officer's testimony about the domestic violence incident together with photographs showing his girlfriend's injuries because the officer did not testify at the preliminary hearing and the prosecution never identified the officer as an intended witness in pretrial discovery. He also challenges the constitutionality of a warrantless blood draw from his August DUI arrest, arguing it violated the United States Supreme Court's decision in Missouri v. McNeely (2013) --U.S.--, (McNeely), which found that the natural metabolization of alcohol in the bloodstream, by itself, was insufficient to establish the exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment's search warrant requirement for blood draws in drunk driving cases.
Finally, defendant claims, and the People concede, that the trial court lacked authority to stay the mandatory four year driver's license suspension imposed by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) under Vehicle Code section 13352, subdivision (a)(7) until after his release from prison. We agree the court erred in staying the DMV license suspension, but otherwise affirm the judgment.
On July 14, 2012, Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy John Wilson was interviewing a witness who had reported a shooting incident. While speaking with the witness, Deputy Wilson observed a black Mercedes sedan drive by and fail to stop at a nearby stop sign. The witness said the vehicle might have been involved in the shooting. Deputy Wilson got in his patrol car, turned on his overhead lights and siren, and began pursuing the Mercedes. After committing several more vehicle code infractions, the driver of the Mercedes eventually parked at an apartment complex.
Defendant was driving the car. He smelled of alcohol and had an unsteady gait. He admitted he had been drinking. Deputy Wilson arrested defendant and transportedhim to the county jail. Although he refused to participate in field sobriety tests at the jail, defendant nevertheless consented to a blood test. Defendant's blood sample contained a .11 percent blood-alcohol concentration.
Nearly a month after his July DUI arrest, Alvin Green invited defendant and defendant's girlfriend, Alicia Smith, over to his apartment for a social visit. They drank and played dominoes for several hours. Green eventually fell asleep in a recliner. Defendant and Smith were on a nearby couch.
Green awoke to the sound of defendant and Smith fighting. Green saw Smith lying on the couch while defendant was standing next to Smith with his body hunched over her. Defendant was hitting Smith, and Smith was trying to fight back. Green tried to break up the fight by grabbing defendant, but defendant turned and hit Green in the chest. The force of the blow knocked Green to the ground. Green eventually told defendant to leave his house, and defendant left.
Defendant kicked and damaged the front door after Green asked him to leave. A neighbor called the police after hearing Smith yelling for someone to "please call the cops."
Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy Emmons responded to the 911 call, and spoke with Smith at Green's house. Emmons saw bruises on Smith's face, elbow, wrist, hand, and toe, and took pictures of the bruising.
After leaving Green's house in the early morning hours of August 13, defendant drove to his apartment in the same black Mercedes that he had been driving when Deputy Wilson arrested him for DUI a month earlier. Defendant happened to pass Deputy Wilson on the way home. Deputy Wilson recognized defendant's car and knewdefendant's license was suspended based on his previous interaction with defendant in July.
Deputy Wilson turned on his overhead lights and tried to stop defendant's car. Defendant, however, only stopped briefly to tell Deputy Wilson he was driving to his apartment and then he continued home. Once at the apartment complex, defendant parked his car and attempted to run into his apartment. Defendant had blood-shot eyes and slurred speech, he was unsteady on his feet, and he smelled of alcohol. He told officers that he sometimes drinks and drives. Defendant refused to participate in field sobriety tests. He was arrested and transported to the North Sacramento CHP station for a blood draw.
Defendant initially refused to cooperate with the blood draw. After officers told him they would forcefully take a blood sample, however, defendant acquiesced. Tests revealed that defendant's blood-alcohol concentration was .17 percent.
An October 2012 information charged defendant with two counts of driving under the influence of alcohol (Veh. Code, § 23152, subd.(a), counts 1 and 5), two counts of driving with a blood-alcohol content of .08 percent or higher (Veh. Code, § 23152, subd. (b), counts 2 and 6), and two counts of driving on a DUI-related suspended license (Veh. Code, § 14601.2, subd. (a), counts 3 and 7). The information also charged defendant with both felony and misdemeanor counts for evading a peace officer (Veh. Code, §§ 2800.2, subd. (a) and 2800.1, subd. (a), counts 4 and 8), inflicting corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition on a cohabitant (§ 273.5, subd. (a), count 9), battery (§ 242, count 10), and vandalism (§ 594, subd. (a), count 11).
The DUI-related charges each included prior conviction allegations. Counts 1, 2, 5, and 6 alleged defendant had three prior convictions for violating Vehicle Code section 23152 within the last 10 years. Counts 3 and 7 alleged defendant had five priorconvictions within the last five years for driving on a DUI-related suspended license. The information further alleged that defendant had suffered a prior serious felony conviction for first degree robbery (§§ 1192.7, subd. (c), 211), and that he had served a prior prison term for forgery. (§§ 667.5, subd. (b), 470, subd. (d).) The People later dismissed the prison prior allegation.
Defendant represented himself throughout the proceedings. (Faretta v. California (1975) 422 U.S. 806 .) He moved to suppress the results of the warrantless blood draw from the August DUI arrest. The court denied the motion, finding defendant had consented to the search. Even if defendant had not consented, the court concluded McNeeley did not apply retroactively and that the officers were operating under a good faith belief that a warrant was not required under the then-existing state of the law.
At trial, the prosecution called two witnesses to testify regarding the domestic violence charge: Alvin Green who witnessed the incident and Deputy Emmons who responded to the 911 call. Green testified that he saw defendant repeatedly hit Smith and that Smith's face was swollen and bruised after the attack. Green was shown two photographs--People's Exhibits 24 and 32. Exhibit 24 showed Smith's bruised face. Exhibit 32 showed Green's damaged front door. The photographic evidence was admitted without objection.
Deputy Emmons was then called to testify about her domestic violence investigation, including several photographs showing Smith's injuries and the damage to Green's door. In addition to the previously admitted People's Exhibits 24 and 32, the other photographs were marked as People's Exhibits 25 through 31. Prior to showing Deputy Emmons the photographs, the prosecutor offered to show them to defendant. Defendant responded, "[a]ctually, I've seen them." The prosecutor then said, "Are you sure?" Defendant told her,
After reviewing the photographs, Deputy Emmons testified that the pictures accurately reflected Smith's injuries. When the prosecutor asked the court for permission to publish People's Exhibits 24 through 32 to the jury (even though exhibits 24 and 32 had already been admitted and published without any objection), defendant objected. The objection was based on Deputy Emmons not having testified at the preliminary hearing and because she was not listed on the prosecution's witness list. The prosecutor conceded she had mistakenly forgotten to include Deputy Emmons's name on the witness list, but said Deputy Emmons's report was among the set of documents delivered to defendant during discovery.
When the court asked whether counsel had "some sort of information that will help me decide this issue," the prosecutor stated, "I have my numbered copies of discovery as well as a receipt indicating what pages of discovery Mr. Hill was provided." The court then asked, "All right, and is that report in the pile of documents?" The prosecutor responded, "Yes." Defendant claimed he never received the report, however.
The court overruled the objection, finding the prosecutor had shown that she had discovered the report to defendant as required. Defendant then reiterated that his primary concern...
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