Opinion
G055401
03-19-2018
In re DANIEL C., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. DANIEL C., Defendant and Appellant.
Richard L. Fitzer, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Super. Ct. No. 17DL0137) OPINION Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, Bradley S. Erdosi, Judge. Affirmed. Richard L. Fitzer, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Appellant minor was adjudged a ward of the juvenile court pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 602. His wardship resulted from a negotiated disposition of a sustained petition alleging - inter alia - auto theft and firearm possession along with a pending case and a series of probation violations.
He appealed, and we appointed counsel to represent him. Counsel did not argue against his client, but advised this court he could find no issues to argue on appellant's behalf. (People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436.) Counsel filed a brief which set forth the facts of the case and two points counsel had considered as possibly supporting an appeal: both pertained to the propriety of gang testimony. Appellant was given 30 days to file written argument in his own behalf, but no brief was filed.
There was much for us to review here. Appellant had both a suppression hearing and a trial on the felony charges against him. We have reviewed those and scoured their records for error. But we have found none.
The earlier charges and probation violations wrapped up in the negotiated plea are not directly before us. If we could have found any indication they were somehow bound up in an inappropriate plea negotiation, we would have considered that, but there is no such suggestion in our record. --------
As to the suppression hearing, there was precious little to make an issue of. Police contacted minor and the passenger in a parked car and asked who owned the car. Minor could not provide that information, even though he was sitting in the driver's seat. The officer noted both the stereo and an interior door speaker were missing. At the same time, he realized the male passenger in the car was wearing gloves and holding something metallic in his hands. The minors were ordered out, and a firearm was found on the passenger floorboard of the car, which was - unsurprisingly - stolen.
There is nothing on the face of this encounter to suggest a viable Fourth Amendment argument. But even if there were, "No just interest of the Government in the effective and rigorous enforcement of the criminal law will be hampered by recognizing that anyone legitimately on premises where a search occurs may challenge its legality by way of a motion to suppress, when its fruits are proposed to be used against him. This would of course not avail those who, by virtue of their wrongful presence, cannot invoke the privacy of the premises searched." (Jones v. United States (1960) 362 U.S. 257, 267, italics added.) Appellant has no standing to complain about the search of the stolen car.
Nor can we find any infirmity in his trial. Appointed counsel tried to find error in the gang evidence introduced against him but was unable to. The trial judge correctly excluded some of this evidence - including that of a proffered gang expert and that of a deputy probation officer who had conducted appellant's intake interview, at which he had admitted his F-Troop association - thereby depriving appellant of some viable issues, and we can find no flaw in the evidence admitted. We have been particularly careful in analyzing the court's rulings under People v. Sanchez (2016) 63 Cal.4th 665, since appellant's trial counsel cogently and assiduously argued the case at trial; we can find no error.
We are not triers of fact. We do not see the witnesses and so cannot re-weigh their testimony. We are limited to reviewing the trial court's discretionary decisions about the admission and use of that testimony, and nothing in the transcripts of this hearing would cause us to feel the trial court abused its discretion in those rulings.
We have also searched the record for other possible issues. We can find no procedural misstep or evidentiary error we think reasonably arguable and agree with appellate counsel's implied acknowledgment that there were none. We find ourselves in complete agreement with appellate counsel that there is no basis here for an appeal. The judgment is affirmed.
BEDSWORTH, J. WE CONCUR: O'LEARY, P. J. MOORE, J.