Opinion
G057519
05-26-2020
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. TEODORO B. NUNEZ, Defendant and Appellant.
Melissa Hill, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Roberta L. Davis and Michael J. Wise, Deputy Attorneys General, 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NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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. 16CF1619) OPINION Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, Gregg L. Prickett, Judge. Affirmed. Melissa Hill, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Roberta L. Davis and Michael J. Wise, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
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A jury convicted Teodoro Nunez of second degree murder for killing Omar Castillo with a sword. (Count 1; Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a); all further statutory references are to this code.) The jury also found Nunez guilty of domestic battery causing injury with a prior violent conviction (count 2; § 273.5, subds. (a) & (f)(1)), kidnapping (count 3; § 207, subd. (a)), and a misdemeanor violation of a protective order (count 4, § 166, subd. (c)(1)). The jury further found true the penalty enhancements related to the felony counts for personal use of a deadly weapon (§ 12022, subd. (b)(1)), and for inflicting great bodily injury (GBI) on counts 2 and 3 in circumstances involving domestic violence (§§ 12022.7, subd. (e); 13700, subd. (b)). The trial court sentenced Nunez to 15 years to life for the murder conviction, plus a consecutive determinate term of 13 years and 8 months in prison for the remaining counts and enhancements. On appeal, Nunez challenges a jury instruction (CALRIM No. 917 [verbal provocation alone insufficient to justify murder or manslaughter]), and he asserts sentencing error under section 654. Finding no merit in these claims, we affirm the judgment.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Nunez and Angelica V. (Angelica) knew each other from childhood in Mexico. Nunez moved to the United States in 1999, married, and had two children; when he divorced in 2013, he reconnected with Angelica, who was living in Santa Ana. He soon moved in with her and her two minor daughters. Angelica had other children, including an adult daughter and son who did not live with them.
According to Angelica, within just a "couple of months" of "being together," Nunez became "very aggressive" with her. She testified they had "disagreements" that arose from Nunez's jealousy when "a man . . . would talk to [her]," and their spats became physical, resulting in "many" 911 calls. Nevertheless, in 2015 after moving to Victorville, San Bernardino, and back, Nunez, Angelica, and her two daughters rented a room in a residence on South Oak Street in Santa Ana. The eventual murder victim, Omar, also rented a room there.
In August 2015, Nunez slapped Angelica in the face; the police responded, and took a photograph of her cheek. The couple broke up but reconciled briefly before the police again were called after Nunez pushed Angelica and tried to strike her in the face. By November 2015, after repeated police intervention at the residence, Nunez moved everyone to the house next door.
Police responded to another call in late November and took photographs after Nunez struck Angelica on her left cheek. Nunez was arrested and pled guilty to misdemeanor domestic battery with corporal injury. He nonetheless moved back in with Angelica soon after his release from jail despite a restraining order.
In March 2016, Angelica's adult daughter, Karina, also moved into the residence. Tension between Nunez and Angelica flared and, at a barbecue, Nunez engaged in a fistfight with Angelica's eldest son, prompting the landlord to demand that Nunez move out.
Nunez did not comply until May or June. Angelica testified that once Nunez moved out, he still called and texted her day and night, sometimes telling her he could see what she was doing at that moment. Angelica found containers of food and drink she knew Nunez liked left outside her window "almost every day." On one occasion, the television screen blacked out, and Angelica found the cable had been cut. When she confronted Nunez about it by text message, he responded that "he could do whatever he pleased" because "the account was under his name." On another occasion, Nunez threw a handkerchief wrapped around a pair of Angelica's underwear through her open window, with a note recounting her activities that day.
After Nunez moved out, Angelica began dating, including spending time with Omar, who had just gotten married in March 2016. Omar occasionally gave Karina rides home from work or stopped by the house to visit. Angelica was unaware Omar had recently married. In June of 2016, Omar and several other men declared their love for Angelica by text messages.
About a week before the fatal incident involving Omar, Nunez sent Angelica a text message complaining that Karina was using his speaker. Angelica asked him to return the keys. He then appeared at a window of the residence and left the keys on the ledge. Karina spotted him, told him to leave, and threatened to call the police.
In the middle of the day on June 17, 2016, while Angelica was walking from home to a nearby store, Nunez called her to demand the return of some of his belongings, but rebuffed her offer for one of her daughters to leave the items outside the residence. He wanted to receive them from Angelica. Angelica testified that while she was walking, Nunez drove up in a truck and asked her to come with him because "he needed to talk to [her] for the last time." When she refused, he grabbed her by the waist and tried to force her into the vehicle's passenger side.
A nearby woman responded to Angelica's cry for help, requesting that she call the police. The woman told Nunez "to let her be." Angelica recalled that Nunez grabbed her "with strength and he bit my neck," warning her before fleeing, "This is for you to remember me."
The responding officer observed and photographed incoming text and call activity on Angelica's phone from Nunez. The messages included songs Nunez dedicated to her. Angelica answered one of the calls and handed the phone to the officer, who instructed Nunez, according to Angelica, "to come talk to them." The officer assured Angelica that the police would patrol the area near her home to make sure Nunez did not return.
Angelica contacted an adult nephew to come to the house. Omar also stopped by Angelica's house around midnight. Omar and Angelica drove to a nearby store to purchase beer. When they returned to the house, they joined Karina and Angelica's nephew on a blanket in the front yard. While talking, they heard a car speed by.
Within a few minutes, the group again noticed a fast moving car approaching. Karina testified she heard the car. It came to a stop in front of where they were seated. She recognized it as Nunez's vehicle, and he immediately exited. Angelica testified it seemed like Nunez "[s]uddenly . . . appeared with his hand down—his arm down." Karina yelled at him loudly, "Leave, because I'm going to call the police."
Nunez ignored Karina; she could see he had something like "a tube" up his right sleeve which gave off a "chrome reflection." He withdrew the object, a sword that was about a foot long, as he was walking towards the group. He advanced directly to Omar, who was still seated. As Karina stood and ran, she saw Nunez stab Omar in the chest. Immediately before he stabbed Omar, Nunez demanded to know, "Who is this guy?" As Omar collapsed, he called out in Spanish, "he stabbed me already." Karina did not hear Omar say anything to Nunez as Nunez approached.
Angelica, who was still seated, began yelling. Karina saw her mother stand up, covering her mouth with her hand in shock, and then bend down by a nearby fence, still screaming. Karina, now by the side of the house, called 911. At that point, she saw Nunez walk back into the driveway and stab Angelica. Karina heard Angelica scream out "No" twice. Nunez then picked Angelica up, carried her to his vehicle, and drove off.
Angelica testified that when Nunez first pulled up, by the time he reached the sidewalk from his car, "he stretched his hand out," and from within his long-sleeve shirt, a "weapon slid to his hand." She could not tell what it was, except that it was shiny.
Angelica did not hear Omar speak "at all" as Nunez approached, or before he was stabbed. She testified Omar was "just sitting with cross[ed] legs, and his arms were also crossed in the middle of his legs." His hands were empty; he had a beer beside him. Angelica could not recall Nunez's words, only his tone; she heard him say "something aggressive" to Omar. Nunez raised his right fist, in which he held the weapon, and he struck downwards at Omar with great force. Angelica recognized the weapon; it was about 14 inches long, "like a sword," and she had previously seen it in Nunez's possession.
Angelica heard Omar's last words as he fell to his side. Using his pet name for her ("Skinny"), he said in Spanish, "he already stabbed me."
Angelica stood up in disbelief and froze by the nearby fence, before she felt her legs buckling. Nunez started to leave, but came back. She testified he stabbed her under her breast, reminding her he had "previously told me not to play with him." Nunez then grabbed her with both hands by the waist and carried her to the passenger side of his vehicle. As he carried her, he repeatedly objected that he could "not believe that I had gone out with somebody like Omar."
As he drove, Nunez stated over and over, "You're not going to die[,] Shorty. Just hang on. We're going to the hospital." But then he would, as Angelica recalled, "switch his dialogue and he kept repeating, 'I warned you that you are for me and I told you that I was going to kill you."' Angelica did not respond. Fearful that he would "turn more aggressive," she pretended to faint.
A police officer stopped Nunez about 15 miles away for driving with expired tags. The officer did not know about the stabbing at the time of the stop. He observed that Nunez seemed calm, but he could smell alcohol in the vehicle cabin. When the officer noticed Angelica was bleeding in her abdomen and seemed scared, Nunez told him she had been stabbed by "some guys at a party," and he was rendering help, looking for a hospital. Angelica shook her head to indicate that was false, and when she told the officer faintly, "he stabbed me," the officer drew his firearm, detained Nunez, and called for backup and an ambulance. Nunez was then arrested.
Angelica was hospitalized for a week. She underwent surgery for a stab wound that penetrated through her stomach into her pancreas. Omar died of a single stab wound to his upper chest. The entry point was just over an inch wide and pierced through bone to a depth of at least eight inches.
Investigators impounded Nunez's truck and found a pair of binoculars and a blood-stained towel on the passenger seat. They also found a bloody sword under a messenger bag located under the back left seat; the sword appeared to have been wiped off and was sheathed. Nunez denied sheathing it and claimed it ended up under the bag during "turns" as he looked for a hospital.
Investigators also found three pages of unsent love letters lamenting his incarceration in the back of Nunez's vehicle. Nunez claimed he had written the letters much earlier in his relationship with Angelica, but they were dated the afternoon before the stabbings. Nunez testified that after his encounter with Angelica earlier that day, he found the writings, put that day's date on them, and planned to give them to her at some point.
Nunez testified he did not believe his break up with Angelica was permanent, nor had she told him their relationship was over. In fact, he testified their encounter on June 17 had begun well. He did not drive up and surprise her; to the contrary, they planned to meet a block away from her home so that she would not have problems with her landlord, who did not like him. He said Angelica gave him some of his things when they met, and they hugged and kissed.
But they began to argue when he asked if she knew about threatening phone calls he received from an unidentified male several days before, which Nunez never subsequently mentioned to the police. He denied trying to pull Angelica into his vehicle that afternoon, and said she was instead trying to give him back a ring and bracelets, while he was insisting that she keep them. When the neighbor came out and told him to "leave her alone, son," he admitted he embraced Angelica and gave her an unwanted kiss, but he did not try to take her with him. He left for Napa alone, intending to stay with an uncle.
He turned around later because the police told him in a phone call to turn himself in, after he had sent Angelica more than 50 text messages, which she had not responded to. He intended to give his truck, which he had recently purchased from a friend named Felipe, to Angelica because he believed he would be deported. Angelica did not respond to his text message regarding the truck. Nunez called and e-mailed a cousin of Angelica's to take possession of the truck to give to Angelica. But the cousin did not show up, so Nunez decided to drive to Angelica's house to give her the truck, expecting she would call the police, have him arrested, and he would be deported.
Nunez did not know Omar would be there. He had found a knife in the truck earlier when he vacuumed it, along with other possessions belonging to Felipe or Felipe's daughter. When Nunez arrived at Angelica's house, he took the knife with him because of the threatening phone calls he had received. He acknowledged that before grabbing the knife, "I saw that—that there was a young man hugging Angelica, and he gave her a kiss." Nunez testified, "At that moment, my—and my head became blocked."
Before Nunez pulled up, he did not have any idea Angelica was seeing someone else. When he arrived, he saw four people seated outside on the front lawn, including two men. When Nunez exited his truck, Omar moved away from Angelica, but both remained seated; they appeared to signal each other in an unspecified manner. Nunez walked toward them with the knife visible in his hand "to try to—to avoid that they would attack or—attack me." As he walked up, he saw Omar putting a hand in his pants pocket.
Nunez approached Angelica first; she told Karina to call the police. Karina stood up and moved away as Nunez walked up to the fenced yard; so did the second male, who Nunez feared might be going into the house to get a weapon.
When Nunez walked up to Angelica, she said, "Get out of here, stupid[,] because the police are on the way." Nunez responded, "Who's this guy? Is he your boyfriend? Who is he?" She retorted, "I don't have to tell you anything." Nunez disagreed, "No. Tell me, who is he?" He then saw Omar make a movement "like—like he wanted to see me, to look at me, looking at me." Still seated, Omar insulted Nunez: "Get out of here, you son of a bitch."
At that moment, Nunez saw Omar rising to his feet with a can of beer in his right hand; at the same time, he "made a movement" in his pocket with his left hand, as if he was "pull[ing] something out of his pants pocket and turning himself towards me." According to Nunez, when Omar "made that movement, [he] felt afraid. And that's what happened—that's when—that's when . . . . That's when what happened happened." Nunez stabbed Omar once.
Nunez saw Angelica running back and forth, shouting. He said as he went to grab her "to calm her," he "slipped a bit" on the grass and accidentally stabbed her. He carried her to his truck to take her to the hospital, but claimed he got lost on the way there.
DISCUSSION
1. CALCRIM No. 917
Nunez contends the trial court "prejudicially erred . . . by instructing the jury using a modified version of CALCRIM No. 917 that included the crime of murder." Unmodified, the instruction provides: "Words, no matter how offensive, and acts that are not threatening, are not enough to justify an assault or battery." (CALCRIM No. 917.) In addition to "assault or battery," the court added other crimes to the instruction, including murder and manslaughter. The court instructed the jury: "Words, no matter how offensive, and acts that are not threatening, are not enough to justify murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, domestic violence, battery on a cohabitant, assault or battery."
The court continued the instruction, based on standard language, as follows: "However, if you conclude that either Omar C. and/or Angelica V. spoke or acted in a way that threat[en]ed the defendant with immediate harm or an unlawful touching, you may consider that evidence in deciding whether the defendant acted in self-defense." (See CALCRIM No. 917.) Nunez does not contest this portion of the instruction, only the court's earlier insertion of the word "murder" and, by extension, "manslaughter."
We review claims of instructional error de novo. (People v. Posey (2004) 32 Cal.4th 193, 218.) The trial court has a sua sponte duty to instruct the jury on "'general principles of law relevant to the issues raised by the evidence and necessary for the jury's understanding of the case.'" (People v. Anderson (2011) 51 Cal.4th 989, 996.) The court's instructions must include defenses on which the defendant is relying, if supported by substantial evidence, and other defenses supported by substantial evidence if they are not inconsistent with the defense's theory of the case. (People v. Breverman (1998) 19 Cal.4th 142, 157 (Breverman); People v. Salas (2006) 37 Cal.4th 967, 982.) However, no particular form or instructional language is required, so long as the instructions correctly state the law. (People v. Fiu (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 360, 370.)
As a preliminary matter, respondent asserts Nunez forfeited his instructional challenge by inviting any potential error during his counsel's colloquy with the court. When the prosecutor noted the trial court's draft instruction based on CALCRIM No. 917 "did not include murder or voluntary manslaughter," the prosecutor asked, "Was that intentional, Your Honor?" Turning to defense counsel, the court asked, "Is the defense alleging that any of the statements made by the alleged murder victim justify the defendant's conduct?" When counsel answered, "Yes," the court inquired, "Then any objection to me including the murder count in that?" Defense counsel responded "No."
In our view, any invited error fell on the prosecutor's shoulders since his reply to the court's question insinuated that "murder" and "manslaughter" were part of the standard instruction, rather than additions. Moreover, "a defendant need not object to preserve a challenge to an instruction that incorrectly states the law and affects his or her substantial rights." (People v. Palmer (2005) 133 Cal.App.4th 1141, 1156.) Erroneous instructions that affect the defendant's substantial rights require no objection for review. (§ 1259.)
Additionally, while Nunez does not assert a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) for his trial lawyer's acquiescence to the modification or failure to object, we will address his claim of error in the interest of judicial economy, to prevent the need for a later IAC habeas petition. (People v. Williams (2000) 78 Cal.App.4th 1118, 1126.) We therefore turn to Nunez's instructional claim. We find no merit in it.
Nunez argues that the court's inclusion of murder and manslaughter in CALCRIM No. 917 clouded for the jury the fact that words, "combined with other evidence of provocation," may contribute to a defendant's mental state, thereby justifiably reducing murder to manslaughter. In some circumstances, "words of abuse, insult or reproach may incite the heat of passion specified in the Penal Code section 192 definition of manslaughter, and hence may constitute sufficient provocation to reduce the offense of intentional homicide from murder to manslaughter." (People v. Le (2007) 158 Cal.App.4th 516, 526 (Le).) Thus, a jury may properly conclude that such statements '"would have caused a person of average disposition to act rashly and without due deliberation, that is, from passion rather than from judgment."' (Ibid.) The passion aroused can be anger, rage, or any violent, intense, highly wrought or enthusiastic emotion, except revenge. (Breverman, supra, 19 Cal.4th at p. 163.)
Both subjectively-felt heat of passion and objectively reasonable provocation are needed to negate malice and reduce a murder to manslaughter. (People v. Gutierrez (2002) 28 Cal.4th 1083, 1143.) The test for provocation is not "whether the victim's provocation [of the defendant] would cause an ordinary person of average disposition to kill." (People v. Wright (2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 1461, 1482, italics added.) Instead, "the law of provocation focuses on "'emotion reasonableness'" (i.e., 'whether "the defendant's emotional outrage or passion was reasonable"') . . . ." (Id. at pp. 1481-1482.)
"To be adequate, the provocation must be one that would cause an emotion so intense that an ordinary person would simply react, without reflection. . . . [T]he anger or other passion must be so strong that the defendant's reaction bypassed his thought process to such an extent that judgment could not and did not intervene." (People v. Beltran (2013) 56 Cal.4th 935, 949.) Therefore, instead of asking whether a reasonable person would respond fatally to the provocation, "the question is whether the average person would react in a certain way: with his reason and judgment obscured." (Ibid.)
"The provocative conduct may be physical or verbal, and it may comprise a single incident or numerous incidents over a period of time." (Le, supra, 158 Cal.App.4th at p. 528.) Thus, in People v. Borchers (1958) 50 Cal.2d 321, the court held that a long history between the defendant and the victim was relevant to the issue of a heat of passion defense. "From the evidence viewed as a whole the trial judge could well have concluded that defendant was roused to a heat of 'passion' by a series of events over a considerable period of time: [The victim's] admitted infidelity, her statements that she wished she were dead, her attempt to jump from the car on the trip to San Diego, her repeated urging that defendant shoot her, [her child], and himself on the night of the homicide, and her taunt, 'are you chicken.'" (Id. at pp. 328-329.)
Le similarly involved taunting words capping a husband's agony over his wife's long-running affair, during which he had overheard her lover inquiring whether she had life insurance on him (the husband). (Le, supra, 158 Cal.App.4th at pp. 519-520.) When the husband ultimately resolved to go and make peace with the interloper, his wife protested in their language, "'If you good, then you go suck his penis. Stop asking me questions.'" (Id. at p. 521.) Reacting in a rage, the husband slew his wife's lover before turning himself into police with the words, '"I butcher unexpectedly."' (Id. at p. 522.)
There was no equivalent provocation here. Nunez testified he "became blocked" when he drove up and saw a young man he did not recognize hugging and kissing Angelica. Nunez grabbed the knife in his truck because there were two men present, and he feared they might attack him, although he had no basis to connect them to the previous threatening phone calls he alleged he received. He acknowledged he walked toward the group with the sword in his hand. According to Nunez, when he confronted Angelica, she said "get out of here, stupid because the police are on the way." When Nunez asked if Omar was her boyfriend, Angelica responded, "I don't have to tell you anything." Omar then said, according to Nunez, "Get out of here, you son of a bitch."
"Generally, it is a question of fact for the jury whether the circumstances were sufficient to arouse the passions of the ordinarily reasonable person. [Citations.] However, where the provocation is so slight or so severe that reasonable jurors could not differ on the issue of adequacy, then the court may resolve the question." (People v. Fenenbock (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1688, 1705.) Here, the evidence of verbal provocation was so slight that reasonable jurors could not differ on the issue of adequacy. (Ibid.) Consequently, there was no error in the court instructing the jury that verbal provocation is not enough to justify murder or manslaughter.
There was no evidence here of such verbal provocation that would cause a reasonable person to act without reflection. As other courts have explained, the mere fact of an argument is not sufficient provocation. (People v. Lee (1999) 20 Cal.4th 47, 59.) Even calling a defendant a "mother fucker" and challenging him to use a weapon if he had it, which Omar did not do, is insufficient provocation. (People v. Manriquez (2005) 37 Cal.4th 547, 586 (Manriquez).) Curse words, though accompanied by scratching and kicking the defendant, which also did not occur here, do not suffice. (People v. Gutierrez (2009) 45 Cal.4th 789, 826-827.) A person advancing on a seated group, sword in hand, would necessarily expect to be met with at least a verbal outcry, including the words used here. That is assuming a reasonable person would even make such an advance.
Nunez apparently viewed himself as so lovesick that his passion for Angelica obscured his reason, but "'no defendant may set up his own standard of conduct and justify or excuse himself because in fact his passions were aroused, unless . . . the facts and circumstances were sufficient to arouse the passions of the ordinary reasonable man.'" (Manriquez, supra, 37 Cal.4th at p. 584.) This objective standard of conduct applies equally to paramours.
Nunez's stated that he feared he might face a threat from the men on the lawn based on earlier calls he received, or that Omar might have a weapon in his pocket, or that the other man present was running for a weapon; he argues all these factors cumulatively formed the basis for his imperfect self-defense claim. But imperfect self-defense is based on a genuinely held, but unreasonable subjective belief in an imminent threat of harm. (Manriquez, supra, 37 Cal.4th at p. 581.) It therefore furnishes no support for Nunez's heat of passion defense based on a reasonable person's reaction to the circumstances.
In any event, even assuming arguendo that the trial court erred in modifying the instruction as it did here, the error was harmless under any standard. (Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24; People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836.) It is not reasonably probable that there would have been a more favorable verdict if the instruction had not been given. There was no evidence that anything said contributed to obscuring Nunez's reason in a way that would also "'cause an "'ordinary [person] of average disposition . . . to act rashly or without due deliberation and reflection.'"'" (People v. Lasko (2000) 23 Cal.4th 101, 108.) We are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that, absent the instruction, the jury would not have found either Omar's or Angelica's words constituted adequate provocation for voluntary manslaughter.
2. Section 654
Nunez contends the trial court erred by imposing a consecutive sentence of one year eight months as one-third the midterm for his kidnapping conviction in count 3. Nunez asserts a stay of punishment for the kidnapping offense was necessary under section 654. He argues the only reasonable view of the evidence is that his act of stabbing Angelica, for which he was convicted in count 2 of domestic battery, was for the purpose of facilitating her kidnapping. Thus, according to Nunez, counts 2 and 3 were merely incidental to each other, with the former perpetrated only to accomplish the latter under a single criminal objective to spirit her away. He insists section 654 therefore precluded punishment under statutory provisions for both battery and kidnapping.
Section 654, subdivision (a), provides that "[a]n act or omission that is punishable in different ways by different provisions of law shall be punished under the provision that provides for the longest potential term of imprisonment, but in no case shall the act or omission be punished under more than one provision."
The Supreme Court has long held that section 654 may bar multiple punishment not only for a single act, but also for an indivisible course of conduct motivated by a single intent or objective. (People v. Latimer (1993) 5 Cal.4th 1203, 1207-1209; Neal v. State of California (1960) 55 Cal.2d 11, 19.) If multiple offenses "were incident to one objective, the defendant may be punished for any one of such offenses but not for more than one." (People v. Correa (2012) 54 Cal.4th 331, 336.) Nevertheless, simultaneous objectives that are independent of each other may warrant separate punishment in the court's discretion, though the violations share one or more underlying acts or a course of conduct. (People v. Beamon (1973) 8 Cal.3d 625, 639.)
"Whether section 654 applies in a given case is a question of fact for the trial court, which is vested with broad latitude in making its determination. [Citations.] Its findings will not be reversed on appeal if there is any substantial evidence to support them. [Citations.] We review the trial court's determination in the light most favorable to the respondent and presume the existence of every fact the trial court could reasonably deduce from the evidence." (People v. Jones (2002) 103 Cal.App.4th 1139, 1143.)
Here, the court found that Nunez's "crimes and their objectives were predominantly independent of each other," and therefore declined his request for a stay under section 654 and instead imposed consecutive sentences.
Substantial evidence supports the trial court's determination, to which we must give wide latitude. (People v. Hutchins (2001) 90 Cal.App.4th 1308, 1312.) The court reasonably could conclude the stabbing was motivated by an intent to punish or even kill Angelica for spending time with another man. As Nunez later told her, "I warned you that you are for me and I told you that I was going to kill you." He expressed disbelief that she "had gone out with somebody like Omar," which the court could infer sparked in Nunez feelings of anger and a desire to inflict pain on her the moment he saw them together.
Indeed, Nunez testified that he "became blocked" upon seeing the pair, which the court could infer prompted him to lash out at her in jealousy, rather than as part of plan to carry her away. Supporting this view, the court could conclude that stabbing violently at a victim's chest did not reflect a singular, overarching intent and objective to kidnap the person. To the contrary, it would likely make kidnapping more difficult by requiring him to physically lift and carry away his injured victim, rather than directing her to move under her own power at knife point.
Similarly, the court could infer that whatever malign purpose drove Nunez during the course of kidnapping Angelica, it was no longer an intent to kill or further injure her. He told her he was taking her to the hospital, and though he did not do so, he did not inflict further physical harm when she pretended to faint. The court could conclude his kidnapping actions reflected an intent to keep his victim alive to wield power over her forcefully, distinct from his former intent to wound or dispatch her.
Nunez argues that the Attorney General should be estopped from arguing the existence of separate intents for each crime supported the trial court's section 654 ruling. Nunez interprets comments the prosecutor made in opposing Nunez's motion during trial to dismiss a great bodily injury enhancement on the kidnapping charges as being antithetical to the prosecutor believing there were separate intents in the act of stabbing and the ensuing kidnapping. The purpose of our review, however, is to evaluate the trial court's decision, not the prosecutor's argument. As discussed, substantial evidence supports the trial court's finding of multiple intents and objectives.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
GOETHALS, J. WE CONCUR: IKOLA, ACTING P. J. THOMPSON, J.