People v. Williams

• Decision Date: 14 April 2000
• Docket Number: No. H018413.,H018413.
• Citation: People v. Williams, 94 Cal.Rptr.2d 727, 79 Cal.App.4th 1157 (Cal. App. 2000)
• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Anthony WILLIAMS, Defendant and Appellant.

94 Cal.Rptr.2d 727

79 Cal.App.4th 1157

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Anthony WILLIAMS, Defendant and Appellant.

No. H018413.

Court of Appeal, Sixth District.

April 14, 2000.

Review Denied August 9, 2000.^*

Robert Wayne Gehring, Esq. By Appointment of the Sixth District Appellate Program, Fallbrook, Attorney for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Acting Chief Asst. Atty. General, Ronald A. Bass, Senior Asst. Atty.

General, Richard Rochman, Deputy Atty. General, Martin S. Kaye, Deputy Atty. General, Attorneys for Plaintiff and Respondent.

WUNDERLICH, J.

I. Statement of the Case

A jury convicted defendant Anthony Williams of four counts of second degree armed robbery and being a felon in possession of a firearm. (Pen.Code, §§ 211, 212.5, subd. (c); 12021.1, subd. (a), 12022, subd. (a).)¹ In addition, the jury found that defendant committed the offenses while on parole for a serious or violent felony, suffered two prior "strike" felony convictions and a prior "serious felony" conviction, and served a prior prison term. (See §§ 667, subd. (a), 667, subds. (b)-(i), 667.5, subd. (b), 1170.12, 1203.085, subd. (a).) The court imposed a total sentence of 32 years as follows: five concurrent 25years-to-life sentences, one for each offense; consecutive and three concurrent one-year arming enhancements, one for each count of robbery; a consecutive five-year enhancement for the prior "serious felony" conviction; and a consecutive one-year enhancement for the prior prison term. The court also imposed a restitution fine of $5,000 and a criminal justice administration fee of $138 and ordered any money confiscated from him be applied toward his restitution fund fine. The court gave defendant credit for 508 days of actual presentence custody and an additional 75 days of conduct credit, for a total of 583 days.

Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal from the judgment. He claims the court erred in giving standard CALJIC instructions that permitted the jury to infer guilt from his false or misleading statements to police (CALJIC No. 2.03) and from his conscious possession of recently stolen property (CALJIC No. 2.15). He also claims the court erred in imposing a one-year prior-prison-term enhancement and undercalculating the amount of pretrial custody credit to which he was entitled. We agree that the court undercalculated his custody credit, modify the judgment, and affirm the judgment as modified.

II Facts

On the evening of November 11, 1996, Arturo Wolf, Esther Lopez, Pablo Figueroa, and Jessica Garcia were working at Little Caesar's Pizza Parlor on Branham Lane in San Jose. At around 8:30 p.m., two masked African-American men burst in through the front door. According to Figueroa and Garcia, one of the men was wearing a surgical glove. Wolf and Lopez were near the front counter and Figueroa and Garcia were in the back. One of the men jumped over the counter and pointed a gun at Wolf. Lopez ran into the back, screaming for Figueroa, but the gunman followed her and brought her, Figueroa, and Garcia back out front. The robbers demanded keys to the safe, but Figueroa and Garcia could not produce them. The robbers then settled for $120 from the cash register and Wolfs wallet and fled out the door. Figueroa immediately locked it, and Garcia called the police. The time was 8:36 p.m.

The police dispatcher broadcast information about the robbery, and upon hearing it, Officer Alexander Keller of the San Jose Police Department positioned himself on Blossom Hill about 1.4 miles from Little Caesar's. At 8:40 p.m., he spotted a white van with three African-American men in the front seat. He attempted to stop it, but the van sped up, turned onto a side street, and began to swerve. It hit the curb a few times, then turned onto another street and slowed down. As it did, the front passenger door opened, and an African-American man jumped out and ran off. According to Keller, this person was about five feet eight to five feet ten inches tall, 20 to 25 years old, and had a shaved head. He was wearing a red and blue plaid Pendleton jacket and was cradling a large bulge under the jacket. He was also holding a handgun.

Keller waited for backup officers, and when they arrived, defendant and a man named Emmanuel Earl Briggs were taken from the van, arrested, and placed in separate patrol cars.² Police searched the van and found a large, blue plaid flannel shirt. Inside a shirt pocket was a Montgomery Ward receipt with defendant's name on it for a battery. Next to the shirt was a plastic surgical glove. Police also found a black hooded sweatshirt. In searching the surrounding area, police found the plaid jacket worn by the man who fled from the van.

Police brought the victims to the scene, but none could positively identify either suspect. Wolf thought the blue flannel shirt found in the van looked like the one worn by a robber. He also said the two suspects were about the same size as the robbers. Garcia thought defendant's eyes looked like those of the gunman, but she did not think Briggs looked like either robber. Lopez said defendant was about the same size as one of the robbers and that the blue flannel shirt was the same type as that worn by a robber. However, she too did not think Briggs was one of the robbers. Figueroa could not identify either defendant or Briggs. At trial, Figueroa and Garcia testified that one robber wore a surgical glove and the other wore a dark glove.

When booked, defendant had neatly folded hundred dollar bills in his wallet. No such bills were taken from the cash register at Little Caesar's. Briggs had only $8.36 on him. Police lifted fingerprints and shoe prints from the counter at Little Caesar's, but none matched defendant's or Briggs's. A week after the arrest, police found Wolf's wallet in a compartment in the back of the van. Five months later, at a line-up, none of the victims could identify defendant as one of the robbers.

The Defense

Defendant testified that he worked for a plumbing company and that the white van was assigned to him.³ He explained that on the night of the robbery, he and Briggs went to Montgomery Ward's for a new car battery but stopped on the way for something to eat at a Carl's Jr., which is not far from Little Caesar's. Before they got out of the van, an African-American man opened the passenger side door, pointed a gun at Briggs, and got in. He then ordered defendant to "get the `F' out of there," directing him onto Blossom Hill. Within minutes, a patrol car started to follow them, and the man ordered defendant to turn. Defendant tried to pull over to the curb once or twice, but the man ordered him to keep going. Moments later, the man went into the back of the van. Defendant thought he was about to be hit or shot and let go of the steering wheel, causing the van to hit the curb. The man then returned to the front, ordered defendant do slow down, and then jumped out and ran.

The police arrived and ordered defendant and Briggs out of the van, handcuffed them, and put them in different patrol cars. Defendant testified that when he was in the patrol car, an officer asked if he knew what was going on. According to defendant, he said he did not know and then told the officer he had just been carjacked, specifically, that "I was going to get a bite to eat at Carl's Junior, [and a] guy walked up to our van, put a gun in [sic ] my head and told me to drive."

Later, while he sat in a holding cell, an officer told defendant he was being booked for armed robbery and asked if he had anything to say. Defendant said he wanted to talk to a lawyer. The officer said police had defendant's shoe print from the restaurant counter. Defendant responded, "You do a full investigation and thorough because you'll find out I didn't have anything to do with any robbery."

At trial, defendant denied robbing Little Caesar's, or even knowing where it was located. Defendant admitted that his size and eye color were similar to one of the suspects. He admitted that the blue plaid shirt found in the van belonged to him. And he admitted that he uses surgical gloves for work. However, he did not know about the glove in the back of the van. Defendant also admitted prior convictions for voluntary manslaughter with personal use of a gun and for assault with a gun, arising from the same incident.

Rebuttal

Officer Mike Enoos of the San Jose Police Department testified that he spoke to defendant while defendant was handcuffed in the back of the patrol car. At that time, defendant said that the carjacker had approached him and Briggs as they were walking to Carl's Jr.⁴

III. CALJIC No. 2.03

In instructing the jury, the trial court gave CALJIC No. 2.03, which allows the jury to consider any "willfully false or deliberately misleading" statement made by a defendant after arrest "as a circumstance tending to prove a consciousness of guilt."⁵ According to defendant, this instruction allowed jurors to consider his explanation to Officer Enoos about the carjacking as evidence of guilt if they found that it was false or misleading. Defendant points out that he spoke to Enoos before receiving any Miranda⁶ advisements. Thus, he claims that giving CALJIC No. 2.03 violated the general rule that prohibits the prosecution from using "unMirandized" statements to prove guilt. (See Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694.)

In Miranda v. Arizona, supra, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (hereafter Miranda), the United States Supreme Court observed that when an individual is subjected to custodial interrogation, his or her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination is jeopardized. To protect it as well as the exercise of the rights to remain silent and to have an attorney, the court established certain procedural rules for law enforcement officers to follow when questioning an arrestee. Specifically, police must warn an...