Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Contra Costa County Super. Ct. No. J0101498
Siggins, J.
Angelina M. appeals the jurisdictional and dispositional orders of the juvenile court. She argues there was no substantial evidence that she acted willfully and maliciously when she started a fire in a school bathroom. Thus, she argues the evidence was insufficient to prove she committed arson. We disagree and affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Early one morning Pittsburg Central Junior High Principal Eric Peyco was told there was a fire burning in a girls’ bathroom at the school. He ran to the scene and no one was inside the bathroom when Peyco arrived. A wall-mounted plastic paper towel dispenser was on fire and the room was full of “very strong acrid smoke.” He and others put the fire out and called the fire department.
The next day, Peyco spoke to Angelina, a 12-year-old student at the school, who denied knowing anything about the fire. After Peyco talked with Angelina’s friend S.P., he again spoke with Angelina, who then admitted that she started the fire. Angelina said that she used a lighter to set a note on fire, and the note ignited a paper towel hanging from the dispenser. Angelina claimed she tried to put the fire out and she thought it was out when she left the bathroom.
Pittsburg Police Officer Mark Lambert inspected the school bathroom. He observed that the walls and ceiling were charred and a paper towel dispenser was melted. In Officer Lambert’s first conversation with Angelina, she told him she had intentionally set a note from her boyfriend on fire and dropped it on the bathroom floor, from where it ignited paper towels hanging from the dispenser. Angelina claimed she pulled the burning towels out of the dispenser and dropped them on the floor before she left the bathroom. She did not see the towels “burn up into the dispenser.” Officer Lambert then talked with S.P., and a few weeks later he spoke to Angelina a second time. Angelina said she used S.P.’s lighter, but S.P. “did not light anything on fire” and “that it was [Angelina] that burned the letter” and “lit the paper towels on fire from the dispenser . . . .”
A juvenile petition alleged Angelina committed arson. At the contested jurisdictional hearing, the People offered the testimony of Principal Peyco and Officer Lambert, and the parties stipulated that Randall Champion, a fire department investigator, would opine that “if the paper[] towels had been lit on fire and disconnected from the paper towel dispenser and placed on the floor, it is not possible for those paper towels to have caused the paper towel dispenser to catch fire.” The defense rested on the state of the evidence.
Champion’s report was admitted into evidence and the parties also stipulated that Champion would testify consistent with his written report. The county appeals clerk has filed a declaration that the report cannot be found in the superior court file.
The juvenile court sustained the allegation of arson, maintained Angelina’s preexisting dependency status, and placed her on one year nonwardship probation. Angelina timely appealed.
The People had attempted to rely on S.P.’s statement to Officer Lambert that both she and Angelina were lighting paper towels on fire. The court expressly stated it was not considering this “so-called adoptive admission” when it concluded the arson charge had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt and sustained the petition.
DISCUSSION
“A person is guilty of arson when he or she willfully and maliciously sets fire to or burns or causes to be burned . . . any structure, forest land, or property.” (Pen. Code § 451.) Angelina argues she did not commit arson because she did not willfully and maliciously set fire to the school bathroom. But the evidence was sufficient to conclude that she did.
Penal Code section 451, subsection (d) further provides that “arson of property does not include one burning or causing to be burned his or her own personal property unless there is an intent to defraud or there is injury to another person or another person’s structure, forest land, or property.” This subsection is not applicable here, because even assuming Angelina first set fire to her own property (the note), injury to school property also resulted from her conduct.
“The word ‘willfully,’ when applied to the intent with which an act is done or omitted, implies simply a purpose or willingness to commit the act, or make the omission referred to. It does not require any intent to violate law, or to injure another, or to acquire any advantage.” (Pen. Code, § 7, subd. (1).) “Maliciously” is defined to “import[] a wish to vex, defraud, annoy, or injure another person, or an intent to do a wrongful act, established either by proof or presumption of law.” (§ 450, subd. (e).) “ ‘Property’ means real property or personal property, other than a structure or forest land.” (§ 450, subd. (c).)
Arson is a general intent crime. (People v. Atkins (2001) 25 Cal.4th 76, 79, 84.) “Thus, there must be a general intent to willfully commit the act of setting on fire under such circumstances that the direct, natural, and highly probable consequences would be the burning of the relevant structure or property.” (Id. at p. 89.) “The statute does not require an additional specific intent to burn a ‘structure, forest land, or property,’ but rather requires only an intent to do the act that causes the harm.” (Id. at p. 86.) By contrast, a person who sets fire to another’s property recklessly, rather than willfully and maliciously, is guilty of unlawfully causing a fire. (Id. at p. 89; Pen. Code, § 452.) “For example, such reckless accidents or unintentional fires may include those caused by a person who recklessly lights a match near highly combustible materials.” (Atkins, supra, at p. 89.)
In considering whether the evidence was sufficient to conclude Angelina willfully and maliciously set the fire, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution and determine whether “ ‘any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’. . . ‘Although it is the [trier of fact’s] duty to acquit a defendant if it finds the circumstantial evidence susceptible of two reasonable interpretations, one of which suggests guilt and the other innocence, it is the [trier of fact], not the appellate court that must be convinced of the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. [Citation.] “ ‘If the circumstances reasonably justify the trier of fact’s findings, the opinion of the reviewing court that the circumstances might also reasonably be reconciled with a contrary finding does not warrant a reversal of the judgment.’ ” ’ ” (People v. Catlin (2001) 26 Cal.4th 81, 139; see also In re Andrew I. (1991) 230 Cal.App.3d 572, 577.)
There is no reasonable dispute over whether Angelina deliberately lit a fire in the girls’ restroom at her junior high school. By her own admission, while she was in the restroom, she set fire to a note from her boyfriend. (See People v. Atkins, supra, 25 Cal.4th at p. 89; People v. Fry (1993) 19 Cal.App.4th 1334, 1339 [arson statute does not require “specific intent to burn a particular piece of property”]; see also People v. Morse (2004) 116 Cal.App.4th 1160, 1163 [“no intent to destroy property is needed for arson”].)
Defense counsel argued in the juvenile court that while Angelina’s conduct was negligent or reckless, she did not commit arson because she did not act willfully and maliciously. The court rejected the contention and found the arson charge true beyond a reasonable doubt. Substantial evidence supports the court’s decision. Angelina gave several different explanations of her role in starting the fire. She first denied knowing anything about it. Then, she told the school principal the fire started when she used a lighter to burn a note that ignited a paper towel hanging from the dispenser. Later, Angelina told Officer Lambert that she set the note on fire and dropped it on the floor where it ignited paper towels hanging from the dispenser. Finally, she told Officer Lambert that she used her friend’s lighter to light the note and the paper towels on fire. Angelina’s inconsistent accounts of the events coupled with her implausible explanation that burning towels removed from the dispenser or the burning note on the floor caused the dispenser to burn were enough to allow the court to conclude she acted willfully and maliciously. In any event, there was substantial evidence that the fire was the “direct, natural and highly probable consequence” of her admittedly intentional burning of the note from her boyfriend. Substantial evidence supports the court’s order sustaining the allegation of arson.
DISPOSITION
The orders of the juvenile court are affirmed.
We concur: McGuiness, P.J., Pollak, J.