People v. Miranda-Guerrero

• Decision Date: 17 November 2022
• Docket Number: S118147
• Citation: 14 Cal.5th 1,519 P.3d 1004,301 Cal.Rptr.3d 15
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Victor M. MIRANDA-GUERRERO, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: California Supreme Court

14 Cal.5th 1

519 P.3d 1004

301 Cal.Rptr.3d 15

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.Victor M. MIRANDA-GUERRERO, Defendant and Appellant.

S118147

Supreme Court of California.

November 17, 2022

Michael J. Hersek, State Public Defender, under appointment by the Supreme Court, Denise Kendall, Assistant State Public Defender, and Evan Young, Deputy State Public Defender, for Defendant and Appellant.

Kamala D. Harris and Rob Bonta, Attorneys General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Holly D. Wilkens, Kristine A. Gutierrez and Meredith S. White, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Opinion of the Court by Liu, J.

Defendant Victor M. Miranda-Guerrero was charged with six crimes and convicted of five: kidnapping to commit rape, murder, attempted carjacking, assault with intent to commit rape, and receiving stolen property. The jury could not reach a verdict on an additional assault charge, and it was dismissed. Although Miranda-Guerrero pleaded not guilty to all counts, the defense contested only the murder and assault allegations at trial. The jury found true a special circumstance that the murder occurred during the commission or attempted commission of rape, and it returned a death verdict. We affirm.

I. FACTS

A. Guilt Phase

The charged offenses occurred in Huntington Beach between September 1999 and May 2000.

1. September 1999 Kidnapping of Jamie H.

On September 12, 1999, Jamie H. was asleep in her car in a parking structure in downtown Huntington Beach when she was awakened by the driver's side window breaking. Miranda-Guerrero was standing outside Jamie's car, and he began punching her in the face. She fought back and tried to start the car. Miranda-Guerrero grabbed her hair and slammed her head into the car door. He opened the car door, pushed her into the passenger seat, and got into the driver's seat. He threw a backpack into the back seat and told Jamie in broken English that he had "fire," which she took to mean that he had a gun.

Miranda-Guerrero started the car and drove to a residential area. He pulled over, and he and Jamie continued to fight. He unzipped his pants, exposed his erect penis, and told Jamie to get on top of him. She refused. He took a condom out of his pocket, put it on, and tried to kiss Jamie, but she turned away. He started driving again, and when he reached a stop sign, Jamie jumped out of the car. Miranda-Guerrero caught her shirt and dragged her along the street briefly before letting go, at which point she was able to escape with the help of a nearby driver.

Jamie had abrasions on her thigh

, elbow, and buttocks from the attack, and a clump of her hair was missing. She got stitches on her eye and lip. A few days later, her car was found with a brick, broken glass, hair, keys, and blood in it. Blood found on Jamie's boots after the attack matched Miranda-Guerrero's DNA.

2. November 1999 Murder of Bridgette Ballas

a. Prosecution Case

On the night of November 26, 1999, Bridgette Ballas went out for drinks with a friend in downtown Huntington Beach. They went to Gallagher's Bar for a while and then walked to Aloha Grill, where they met several other people. Ballas's friend left around 1:00 or 1:30 a.m., but Ballas stayed at the bar. Her friend testified that, at that point, Ballas was not staggering or otherwise showing significant signs of impairment. She told police the next day that Ballas had five or six drinks during the time they were together.

Soon after her friend went home, Ballas left Aloha Grill with a small group of people, including an acquaintance with whom they had been sitting. The group walked a short distance to the house of Jason H., where they continued to hang out and drink. One woman who was part of that group testified that Ballas did not appear drunk and was not stumbling during the walk to Jason's house. Ballas told her at one point that she felt "kind of funny" because she did not know anyone at Jason's, and she left the house after 30 or 40 minutes.

Early in the morning of November 27, Richard B. heard someone scream "Oh my God" three times in quick succession. He looked out his window but did not see anything. When he went outside later that morning, he found Ballas lying partially in the street with her head on the curb. She was between two vehicles. Her pants were pulled down and her shirt was pulled up above her breasts, and she was nonresponsive when Richard tried to speak to her. The location where he found her was about seven-tenths of a mile from Jason's house and about a tenth of a mile from her apartment. He covered her with a blanket and called 911.

Ballas was breathing when Officer Juan Munoz arrived, so Munoz called for medical care. She was taken to Western Medical Center for emergency treatment. At that point, she was in a coma. A CT scan

showed swelling of her brain and a blood clot on the left side of her brain, which was then surgically removed by Dr. Israel Chambi. Part of her temporal lobe was removed to provide more space for her brain to swell; it was damaged and soft. Dr. Chambi testified that he believed her injuries were consistent with blunt trauma resulting from likely more than one impact.

The doctor who performed Ballas's autopsy later came to a similar conclusion. Ballas also had an ear injury that appeared to come from pulling or tugging rather than from blunt trauma. No defensive wounds were found on her body, and no foreign DNA was found under her fingernails. Small pieces of gravel were found inside Ballas's labia, and several abrasions were found inside her vagina that, in the opinion of the doctor who conducted the sexual assault examination, were consistent with injuries often seen in women who have been forcibly penetrated. Saliva collected from a swab of one of Ballas's breasts matched Miranda-Guerrero's DNA. Despite treatment, she died after a few days from the severity of the swelling of her brain

.

Miranda-Guerrero presented an alternative narrative that Ballas fell down and hit her head on the curb after urinating in the street. Police swabbed an area of the street around where Ballas was found for evidence. Part of a nearby gutter appeared damp in crime scene photographs, but that area was not swabbed. No urine was found on the swabs that were collected.

Over Miranda-Guerrero's motion to suppress, several hours of video from his interviews with police were played for the jury, including a portion of the interviews in which he told the officers that he had hit Ballas.

b. Defense Case

As noted, the theory of Miranda-Guerrero's defense was that the brain injury

that killed Ballas resulted from her falling and hitting her head on the curb because she was intoxicated. Defense counsel argued that Miranda-Guerrero had met Ballas after she left Jason's house and that he was walking with her when she stopped to urinate between the two cars where she was found. After urinating, she stood up and fell over. Miranda-Guerrero conceded that he raped her after she was knocked unconscious by the fall.

Jason testified that Ballas seemed intoxicated when he met her on the night of November 26; he said her eyes were glassy and her eyelids were "a little droopy." But he said she did not fall down or seem unsteady on her feet during the time he was with her that evening. A criminalist who conducted an analysis of Ballas's blood the morning she was found testified that she likely had a blood-alcohol level of 0.15 to 0.19 grams percent around 2:30 a.m. on November 27. He testified that the degree to which this blood alcohol level would affect a person's gross motor skills depends on the individual.

An officer who arrived at the scene before Ballas was taken to the hospital testified that the ground underneath her pelvic area on the street appeared wet, and the wetness drained toward the gutter. He tried to smell the wet spot after Ballas was taken away, and he said it did not smell like urine. A palm print from Ballas's right hand was also found on the tailgate of the car parked immediately in front of where she was found. The fingers on the print were pointing nearly straight up, with the thumb facing the street.

The radiologist who conducted the CT scan

of Ballas testified that her injuries could have been caused by a fall from full height if she hit her head on the curb without breaking her fall. He said the injuries would also be consistent with her head being slammed into the curb by an attacker. And he said he had only seen a fall cause injuries like Ballas's when the patient was geriatric or when the person fell from a height or the fall occurred during activities like bicycling, skateboarding, or rollerblading.

According to an officer who interviewed Richard after Ballas was found, Richard stated that the voice he heard yelling early in the morning on November 27 might have been male.

3. May 2000 Attempted Carjacking of Heidi D.

On the night of May 25, 2000, Heidi D. went out with a few of her friends in downtown Huntington Beach. They returned around midnight to the parking garage where they had left their car. Miranda-Guerrero approached the group as they got to the car. He started talking to the women, but he was incoherent. He tried to grab the keys from Heidi, and they started fighting over the keys near the driver's side door. She eventually let Miranda-Guerrero take the keys, and he got into the car.

One of Heidi's friends went to the driver's side door and told Miranda-Guerrero to give her the keys. He grabbed her by the back of her head and pulled her into the car. This conduct was the basis of the additional assault charge on which the jury could not reach a verdict. Another of her friends opened the passenger door and started hitting Miranda-Guerrero and trying to get the keys out of the ignition. He hit her back with his elbow. Heidi and a third friend ran to a nearby bar to get help, and the other two friends soon got away and joined them. Miranda-Guerrero...