People v. Reynolds

• Decision Date: 07 June 1989
• Docket Number: No. H002998,H002998
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William REYNOLDS, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 352

259 Cal.Rptr. 352

211 Cal.App.3d 382

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. William REYNOLDS, Defendant and Appellant.

No. H002998.

Court of Appeal, Sixth District, California.

June 7, 1989.

Certified for Partial Publication ^*

As Modified July 7, 1989.

Review Denied Aug. 24, 1989.

Cameron M. Cunningham, Santa Rosa, for defendant and appellant.

John K. Van de Kamp, Atty. Gen., Steve White, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., John H. Sugiyama, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Martin S. Kaye, Supervising Deputy Atty. Gen., Joyce E. Hee, Deputy Atty. Gen., San Francisco, for plaintiff and respondent.

COTTLE, Associate Justice.

Defendant William Reynolds was charged by amended information with assault with a deadly weapon (Pen.Code, § 245, subd. (a)(1)) and with false imprisonment (Pen.Code, §§ 236-237). It was alleged he personally used a knife (Pen.Code, §§ 667, 1192.7) and inflicted great bodily injury to the victim (Pen.Code, § 12022.7) in the commission of these offenses. Reynolds was also charged with four out-of-state prior serious felony convictions within the meaning of Penal Code sections 667 and 1192.7.

After his motion to suppress evidence (Pen.Code, § 1538.5) was denied in part, Reynolds proceeded to trial. A jury found Reynolds guilty of both counts and found true the personal use allegation. It found untrue the great bodily injury allegation.

A separate jury trial was held on the prior conviction enhancement allegations. The trial court struck one of the four allegations. The other three prior serious felony convictions were found to be true. Reynolds was sentenced to 19 years in state prison.

I FACTS

On July 17, 1986, at approximately 5:30 p.m. Shauna Lee, a San Jose City College student, was walking through the parking lot of Repo Depo and Kirkwood Printing en route to an evening class when she noticed a van in the lot with its rear doors facing her. She saw Reynolds get out of the driver's side, lean inside the empty van, and then start to walk towards her. She started to run, but Reynolds ran up, grabbed her by her upper arm, jerked her around, and pointed a knife with a curved blade at her.

Reynolds dragged Lee to the van as she screamed to attract attention. Reynolds shoved Lee into the van, climbed in, and closed the doors as Lee continued to struggle and scream. Reynolds told her to "shut up" and began choking her neck. When she managed to scratch his face, Reynolds released his left hand and tore her gold rimmed glasses off her face and threw them in the back of the van. Lee managed to sit up and scream, "rape" and "murder."

Reynolds grabbed the back of Lee's hair and pounded her head on the metal floor and circular tire bump of the van several times. He suddenly stopped hitting Lee's head against the van floor as Lee heard the sound of a car horn. He opened the sliding door and pushed her out head first onto the pavement.

At approximately 5:35 p.m., Jeffrey Rodgers and Jelena Kralj were leaving Kirkwood Printing when Kralj heard muffled screams. She drove to the side of the building to investigate and saw a white van with a blue horizontal stripe, heard screams inside the van, and saw Reynolds look out its back window. She alerted Rodgers who followed Kralj to the van where they both yelled and honked their car horns. Rodgers heard a woman's screams as well as knocking and pounding noises coming from the van. Both Rodgers and Kralj saw the side doors of the van fly open and saw Reynolds throw Lee head first onto the pavement.

Rodgers saw Reynolds look out of the van at him, rush outside, slam the side doors, and then drive off. Rodgers followed the van a short distance to Harmon Street, where it parked in front of an apartment building; Rodgers then drove back to Kirkwood Printing.

About fifteen minutes later, Rodgers led San Jose Police Officer Tozer to the parked van on Harmon. Police and sheriff deputies questioned people at the apartment complex until they ascertained that a man who fit the suspect's description was in apartment 15 of 959 Harmon.

Tozer and Officer Johnson knocked and announced their presence at the door to the apartment. Reynolds's fiancee, Lisa Castor, opened the door, refused to let the officers enter without a warrant, and tried to slam the door in their faces. Johnson pushed open the door and detained Castor while Tozer looked for the suspect and the knife described by Lee.

Tozer saw a knife with a curved blade lying on a living room table and another knife on top of a bedroom table. He also saw a brown paper garbage bag in the kitchen with a bloody rag in it and the gold rims of what appeared to be a pair of glasses. The officers searched the bedroom and found Reynolds hiding under the bed.

Reynolds testified on his own behalf that he had been driving a van which had been loaned to him by his employer when he noticed Lee hitchhiking. Reynolds picked her up and she directed him to the Repo Depo lot where she turned to him and said, "How about letting me make some money." He told her he did not have any money and asked her to get out of the van. She asked for money for sex and threatened to scream rape; he told her all he had was ten dollars and demanded she get out. He told her he had a girlfriend. Eventually he put his head down on the steering wheel, hoping she would leave if he didn't say anything, but Lee jumped at him, scratching, biting, and screaming "rape." While struggling to get out of his seat belt, Reynolds, by "normal instinct" warded off Lee's attack by striking her near her right eye.

Able to undo his seat belt, Reynolds lunged at Lee; they both fell into the back part of the van. As Lee bit him Reynolds grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head back as far as he could. He tried to get the side doors open but was prevented from doing so because Lee was scratching and punching him. Finally able to open the doors, he threw Lee out. When the doors were open, Reynolds saw a man standing near his car and saw another car facing the van. He drove off because he did not think anyone would believe what had happened. He returned to his apartment, parked the van, and, because his fiancee was very jealous, he told her that he had picked up a male hitchhiker who had pulled a knife and that they had gotten into a fight.

Reynolds used his T-shirt to wipe off blood from his injuries and threw it in the garbage. He helped Castor clean up the van and then returned to the apartment. He testified that Castor wiped up blood from the floor of the van and found a pair of glasses inside the van.

Reynolds spotted two deputy sheriffs downstairs and went into the bedroom. He listened to Castor answer the officer's knock and heard the commotion as they entered the apartment. He was standing up next to the closet when the police entered the bedroom, not hiding under the bed.

II-IV ^**

V OUT-OF-STATE PRIOR CONVICTIONS

Reynolds claims the trial court erred in imposing five-year enhancements for his out-of-state prior convictions as they did not include all of the elements of the corresponding California statutes.

On February 11, 1987, the trial court found as a matter of law that three of Reynolds's out-of-state prior convictions were "serious felonies" within the meaning of Penal Code section 667 and 1192.7. Defense counsel asked whether, in so ruling, the court had limited itself to reviewing the sentencing records and record of conviction pursuant to the holding in People v. Alfaro (1986) 42 Cal.3d 627, 230 Cal.Rptr. 129, 724 P.2d 1154. In response, the trial court stated that it had relied solely upon the relevant state statutes and upon the record of conviction in each case, that it had "not considered the informations in arriving at [its] decision."

In People v. Guerrero (1988) 44 Cal.3d 343, 355, 243 Cal.Rptr. 688, 748 P.2d 1150, the California Supreme Court expressly overruled Alfaro and held that "in determining the truth of a prior-conviction allegation, the trier of fact may look to the entire record of the conviction." In that case, the Supreme Court determined the trial court had acted properly when it reviewed an accusatory pleading charging a residential burglary and the defendant's plea of guilty or nolo contendere in determining whether two serious felony convictions were true.

With regard to the prior Michigan conviction, in 1978 Reynolds pleaded guilty to violating section 750.110 of the Michigan Compiled Laws (breaking and entering an occupied dwelling house). That section, provides, in pertinent part, as follows: "Any person who breaks and enters any occupied dwelling house, with intent to commit any felony or larceny therein, shall be guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 15 years. For the purpose of this section 'any occupied dwelling house' includes one that does not require the physical presence of an occupant at the time of the breaking and entering but one which is habitually used as a place of abode."

In 1986 Penal Code section 459 provided in relevant part as follows: "Every person who enters any house, room, apartment, tenement ... with intent to commit grand or petit larceny or any felony is guilty of burglary. As used in this chapter, 'inhabited' means currently being used for dwelling purposes, whether occupied or not." A burglary of an inhabited dwelling house constituted first degree burglary (Pen.Code, § 460). In order to prove the crime of burglary of an inhabited dwelling house where the target crime is theft, the prosecution was required to prove that a person entered an inhabited dwelling house, and that at the time of that entry, "such person had the specific intent to steal and take away someone else's property, and intended to deprive the owner permanently of such property." (CALJIC No. 14.50.)

The Michigan and California statutes proscribing burglary of a residence are identical in all essential respects. Reynolds's sole contention is that the Michigan offense did...