Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Super. Ct. No. BA303705 Curtis B. Rappe, Judge.
Kelly M. Cronin, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, and Mark Suarez, in pro. per., for Defendant and Appellant.
No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.
INTRODUCTION
Defendant Mark Suarez appeals from a judgment of conviction entered after a jury found him guilty of second degree burglary of a vehicle (Pen. Code, § 459) and the trial court found true the allegation defendant suffered three prior convictions within the meaning of Penal Code section 1203, subdivision (e)(4), for one of which he served a prison term (id., § 667.5, subd. (b)). The court sentenced defendant to state prison for the low term of 16 months, plus an additional year for the prior prison term. We affirm.
FACTS
A. Prosecution
On the evening of June 3, 2006, Sergeant Shannon Hale of the Los Angeles Police Department was driving in a marked police car in the area of Broadway Place and 37th Street when she was flagged down by a group of people. Based on information they conveyed to her about a crime having been committed, she drove to a location a block away. She saw defendant and his girlfriend, Reyandra Camorlinga (Camorlinga), standing next to a white truck. Andrew Ibarra (Ibarra) was kneeling on the seat of the truck, apparently placing something behind the seat.
When Sergeant Hale got out of her car, defendant looked at her and then crouched behind the truck. As Sergeant Hale approached defendant, he stood up. Sergeant Hale then noticed a black Honda Civic about five feet in front of the truck. The trunk and passenger door were open, and the passenger window was shattered. There was broken glass in the car and street. Papers and other items were strewn about the car and on the ground; items from the trunk were on the ground.
Sergeant Hale placed handcuffs on defendant. She noticed that defendant’s hands were red, one was swollen, and his knuckles had cuts and nicks and fresh blood on them. Ibarra had no marks on his hands. Sergeant Hale asked defendant for his identifying information. He gave his name as Mark Juarez, a birth date in 1983, and a telephone number. When the sergeant attempted to verify the information, she was unable to. She asked defendant if the information he had given her was true; he admitted he had lied.
Sergeant Hale spoke to Camorlinga, who said that defendant was drunk and broke the window on the Honda Civic. He thought about entering the car but did not do so. Camorlinga got into the truck to change her clothes. When she looked up, she saw defendant and Ibarra walking from the Civic toward the truck with items in their hands.
Kevin Milton (Milton), a security guard at a nearby club, noticed Sergeant Hale and went over to assist her if necessary. He saw defendant gesturing with his hands while talking to Sergeant Hale. He noticed that defendant’s hands were cut and bloody.
When other officers arrived, Milton went to the club and called on the loudspeaker for the owner of the Honda Civic. Stephen Ely (Ely) responded. When he got to the car, he saw that one of the windows had been smashed and items had been taken from the passenger compartment and the trunk. He identified items found by the police inside the truck as having come from his car.
B. Defense
Camorlinga testified that she, defendant and Ibarra went to a party near 37th Street and Broadway Place. As they were walking to the party, they saw a car with a smashed window, and glass on the ground. Sergeant Hale approached them. When she spoke to Camorlinga, she only asked for her name and date of birth. Camorlinga did not tell the sergeant that defendant broke the window of the Honda Civic, or that she changed her clothes in the truck.
Camorlinga testified both for the prosecution and the defense.
Camorlinga is defendant’s girlfriend, and they had lived together for seven years. Defendant is a professional boxer. Because of his training schedule, his hands are regularly scarred and swollen, with cuts and nicks on them. A week before the incident in question, defendant won a fight for which he was paid $50,000. Three months earlier, he won $15,000. Camorlinga and defendant were in no financial difficulty, and he did not need to steal.
DISCUSSION
We appointed counsel to represent defendant on appeal. Counsel filed a brief raising no issues and requesting that we review the record independently pursuant to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436. On February 5, 2008, we notified defendant that he had 30 days in which to raise any issues he wished us to consider. On February 20, 2008, he filed a letter brief in which he raised two issues: a request that we shorten his sentence and a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction.
Defendant requests that we shorten his sentence, in that he has a career waiting for him and just wants “to get out soon as I can to start back on track.” While his desire to get back on track is admirable, the choice of what sentence to impose is a matter within the discretion of the trial court. (See Pen. Code, § 1170 et seq.; 6 Witkin & Epstein, Cal. Criminal Law (3d ed. 2000) Criminal Judgment, § 155, p. 183.) The trial court did not abuse its discretion in imposing the lower term sentence and a one-year enhancement for defendant’s prior prison term, so we cannot shorten it. (See People v. Avalos (1996) 47 Cal.App.4th 1569, 1582.)
Defendant acknowledges his past crimes but claims he did not commit the crime of which he was convicted. He challenges the evidence to support his conviction based on the discrepancy between Sergeant Hale’s and Milton’s testimony as to whether he was handcuffed; his lack of financial problems and therefore lack of motive; the lack of eyewitness or fingerprint evidence; and the lack of evidence that he was in the truck where the stolen items were found or that the stolen items were found on his person.
When the sufficiency of the evidence is challenged, the question on appeal is whether the conviction is supported by substantial evidence, i.e., evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could have found the prosecution sustained its burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. (People v. Hill (1998) 17 Cal.4th 800, 848-849.) “In making this determination, we ‘“must view the evidence in a light most favorable to respondent and presume in support of the judgment the existence of every fact the trier could reasonably deduce from the evidence.”’ [Citation.]” (People v. Rayford (1994) 9 Cal.4th 1, 23; accord, People v. Cuevas (1995) 12 Cal.4th 252, 260-261.) We also must examine the entire record, not merely “‘“isolated bits of evidence.”’” (Cuevas, supra, at p. 261.)
Conflicts in the evidence, lack of motive, and the lack of physical evidence connecting defendant to the crime do not preclude a conviction. Defendant was found at the scene of the car burglary. The car window was broken and defendant’s hands were bloody. Items taken from the car were in his friend’s truck. Defendant’s girlfriend told Sergeant Hale that defendant was drunk and broke the car window, and she saw defendant and his friend walking from the car toward the truck with items in their hands. A reasonable trier of fact could have found this evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was guilty of the car burglary (Pen. Code, § 459; People v. Teamer (1993) 20 Cal.App.4th 1454, 1458), either as the perpetrator or as an aider and abettor (People v. Champion (1995) 9 Cal.4th 879, 928).
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: MALLANO, Acting P.J., ROTHSCHILD, J.