Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Super. Ct. No. 04F08512
ROBIE , J.
A jury found defendant Kenya Monique Allen guilty of assault with a deadly weapon and found she inflicted great bodily injury after she ran into Michelle Dixon with her automobile. The trial court sentenced defendant to six years in prison.
On appeal, defendant contends there was insufficient evidence to support the verdict, the court erred in its instructions, and the court erred in refusing to disclose personal juror identifying information. We disagree and therefore affirm the judgment.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The relevant facts may be summarized briefly. After a night out on the town in a luxury car that Dixon rented, defendant and Dixon got into a heated argument because defendant blamed Dixon, a friend of a friend, for the loss of defendant’s coat, for which Dixon refused to pay. As Dixon was trying to get her car (not the rental car) out of their mutual friend’s garage, defendant drove her automobile up the driveway and pinned Dixon against the garage. Dixon suffered a lacerated liver, a cut intestine, and various broken bones.
At trial, defendant testified that she was “gonna mess up [Dixon’s] rented car” by crashing her own car into it, but “jerked the steering wheel to the right to avoid” the collision because she did not want to “mess up” her car too. As a result, she lost control of her car, and although she “stepped on the brakes,” her car “went up really fast” and pinned Dixon to the wall.
DISCUSSION
I
Sufficiency Of The Evidence
Assault is a general intent crime that does not require a specific intent to injure the victim or a subjective awareness of the risk that an injury might occur. (People v. Williams (2001) 26 Cal.4th 779, 788, 790.) “Rather, assault only requires an intentional act and actual knowledge of those facts sufficient to establish that the act by its nature will probably and directly result in the application of physical force against another.” (Id. at p. 790.)
Defendant contends “[n]o evidence was presented during the course of the trial from which it could be found that [she] did an act with a deadly weapon that by its nature would directly and probably result in the application of force to a person.” This argument, however, is based entirely on defendant’s own testimony to the effect that when she tried to avoid crashing into Dixon’s rental car, she lost control of her car and accidentally struck Dixon.
We have repeatedly explained that when a criminal defendant claims insufficiency of the evidence to support her conviction, she bears the burden of affirmatively demonstrating that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, is insufficient to support the conviction. (See, e.g., People v. Sanghera (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 1567, 1572-1574.) Viewing the evidence here in the light most favorable to the prosecution, defendant’s self-serving testimony that she did not mean to hit Dixon is of no significance. The jury was under no obligation to believe her and instead could have reasonably believed based on all of the evidence before it -- including Dixon’s testimony that defendant had a “satisfied” look on her face after the impact -- that defendant meant to strike Dixon with her car because defendant thought Dixon was responsible for the loss of defendant’s coat. (See, e.g., People v. Darcy (1951) 101 Cal.App.2d 665, 670 [it is the jury’s “sole province in the domain of questionable facts to declare the truth”].) Accordingly, defendant’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence fails.
II
Instructional Error
Relying on People v. Williams, supra, 26 Cal.4th 779, defendant contends the trial court erred in instructing the jury on the mental state necessary for assault. Defendant’s argument fails because the instruction the court gave was entirely consistent with Williams.
In Williams, the jury was instructed on the elements of assault as follows: “‘1. A person willfully and unlawfully committed an act that by its nature would probably and directly result in the application of physical force on another person; and [¶] 2. At the time the act was committed, such person had the present ability to apply physical force to the person of another.” (People v. Williams, supra, 26 Cal.4th at p. 783.) The Supreme Court concluded the instruction was “potentially ambiguous” because “merely requiring the jury to find that a defendant willfully and unlawfully committed an act that by its nature would probably and directly result in physical force being applied to the person of another may permit a conviction premised on facts the defendant should have known but did not actually know,” which would be improper. (Id. at p. 790.)
The instruction given here did not suffer from the same shortcoming as the one in Williams. On the contrary, the trial court specifically instructed the jury that one of the elements of assault with a deadly weapon was that “when the defendant acted, she was aware of facts that would lead a reasonable person to realize that her act by its nature would directly and probably result in the application of force to someone.” (Italics added.) Because that instruction properly described the mental state required for assault under Williams, defendant’s claim of instructional error is without merit.
III
Personal Juror Identifying Information
Any person may petition the trial court for access to the personal identifying information of jurors in a criminal proceeding based on facts sufficient to establish good cause for the release of the information. (Code Civ. Proc., § 237, subd. (b).) In addition, a criminal defendant in particular may petition the court for such information “for the purpose of developing a motion for new trial.” (Id., § 206, subd. (g).) This latter provision does not authorize a “fishing expedition,” however; the defendant must still show “good cause” for disclosure. (People v. Wilson (1996) 43 Cal.App.4th 839, 852; Code Civ. Proc., § 206, subd. (g) [all requests for personal juror identifying information must be considered pursuant to Code Civ. Proc., § 237].) A trial court’s ruling on a petition for access to the personal identifying information of jurors is reviewed on appeal for abuse of discretion. (People v. Jones (1998) 17 Cal.4th 279, 317.)
Here, defendant’s motion for access to the personal identifying information of the jurors who convicted her was based on a declaration from her attorney, in which he claimed that in a discussion with the jury foreperson after the verdict, the foreperson told him “that she was the last ‘hold out’ in reaching a finding of guilt” and “that she was eventually persuaded by the other jurors that [defendant]’s intent to hit [Dixon’s rental car], by itself, was sufficient to find the intent necessary to for [sic] the intent to cause harm to the victim.” Based on that conversation, defendant sought the personal identifying information of all the jurors “to ascertain what discussions were had relative to transferred intent and whether in fact such doctrine was applied and use[d] to convict [defendant]. Clearly, if it was, [defendant] would be entitled to a new trial.”
The trial court denied defendant’s motion, concluding that defendant had not “established a prima facie showing of good cause for disclosure of juror identifying information.” We agree.
A jury’s verdict may not be impeached by inquiry into the jurors’ mental processes, and evidence of how the jurors understood the trial court’s instructions is not competent. (People v. Steele (2002) 27 Cal.4th 1230, 1261; see also Evid. Code, § 1150 [no evidence is admissible concerning the mental processes by which a verdict was determined].)
Here, it appears defendant wanted to identify the jurors so she could ask them about “what discussions were had relative to transferred intent” and about “whether . . . such doctrine was applied and use[d] to convict [her].” Clearly any statements elicited from the jurors on the latter point would have been inadmissible in support of a new trial motion as evidence of the mental processes by which the verdict was determined. As for any juror statements on the former point, even assuming they would have been admissible, defendant fails to explain how such statements properly could have been used to justify a new trial. Plainly, defendant’s position is that the jury wrongfully “applied the princip[le] of transferred intent in convicting [her].” But defendant fails to explain how evidence that the jurors discussed transferred intent could have established a basis for a new trial without contravening the rule that a verdict may not be impeached by inquiry into the jurors’ mental processes. In the absence of any such explanation, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s denial of her motion for the personal identifying information of the jurors.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: SCOTLAND , P.J., RAYE , J.