Opinion
G062499
09-13-2024
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. PAUL DE LA CRUZ BARRERA, Defendant and Appellant.
Richard Jay Moller, under appointment by the Court of Appeal for Defendant and Appellant. Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Assistant Attorney General, Lynne G. McGinnis and Alan L. Amann, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, No. 05CF3817 Scott A. Steiner, Judge.
Richard Jay Moller, under appointment by the Court of Appeal for Defendant and Appellant.
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Assistant Attorney General, Lynne G. McGinnis and Alan L. Amann, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
OPINION
SANCHEZ, J.
In 2007, at the age of 15 years old, defendant Paul De La Cruz Barrera pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting first degree murder. He was 14 years old when he committed the offense. The court sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison.
In December 2021, Barrera filed a petition for resentencing pursuant to Penal Code former section 1170.95. The matter proceeded to an evidentiary hearing, where the court denied Barrera's petition.
Effective June 30, 2022, section 1170.95 was renumbered section 1172.6, with no change in text. (Stats. 2022, ch. 58, § 10.)
We reverse. Certain comments the court made at the hearing indicate it may have used the wrong burden of proof in denying Barrera's petition. The burden on the People is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Barrera was guilty of murder notwithstanding any changes in the law since Senate Bill No. 1427 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.) was enacted. (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015; Senate Bill 1427.) However, the court's comments indicate it was applying something akin to a substantial evidence standard. We will reverse and remand the matter with directions to apply the correct legal standard.
Because the court did not determine Barrera's petition under the correct standard of proof, we decline to decide whether substantial evidence supports the court's ruling. There is, in effect, no proper ruling for us to review. The court could change its ruling upon applying the proper standard, and thus it would be premature for us to review any substantial evidence issues at this time.
Given the absence of proper trial court findings in this case, this statement of facts is provided without prejudice to the court making any contrary findings that it may deem appropriate. We note that the record in this case contains many contradictions, such that some of the facts recited here may be contradicted by other evidence.
In the evening of June 19, 2005, Luis Estudillo, Honorio Herrera, and Barrera were cruising around Santa Ana in Estudillo's vehicle. Barrera was 14 years old at the time.
According to Herrera, he and Barrera were active participants in the "Krazy Proud Criminals" (KPC) criminal street gang. The area in which they were driving was "right in the heart of" territory claimed by the Logan Street criminal street gang, a rival gang. Estudillo, Herrera, and Barrera were "looking for anybody from Logan." Barrera, riding in the back passenger seat, knew that Herrera, the front seat passenger, had a handgun: when he entered the car, he had seen Estudillo give it to him. Barrera described the gun as a black semiautomatic handgun.
Estudillo, Herrera, and Barrera drove past two pedestrians, including the victim E.P., walking along the street. Estudillo "hit up" the two of them, meaning he yelled at them for their gang affiliation. The pedestrians responded that they were "not from anywhere." At that point, Estudillo stopped the vehicle and ordered Herrera to get out of the car and shoot the two pedestrians. Herrera got out of the car. Barrera, seated behind Herrera, climbed out of the car in order to "get down," meaning to beat up or assault, the two pedestrians, and to "back up" Herrera, meaning to support Herrera in case anything went wrong. Barrera and Herrera approached the two pedestrians, and, from about 30 feet away, Herrera raised his gun and shot E.P., killing him. Herrera yelled out, "KPC," and the two returned to their car and got in, and the three fled the scene. Barrera said to Herrera, "You got him," and Herrera stated his agreement.
According to Barrera, one of the pedestrians threatened to kill them for being in Logan Street territory.
In his March 2007 plea of guilty to first degree murder, Barrera admitted the following: "[O]n 6/19/05 I [aided] &abetted Honorio Herrera &Luis Estudillo in the willful, deliberate, &premeditated murder of [E.P.] &I was 14 years old at the time I committed the offense." Barrera was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison.
In December 2021, Barrera filed a Penal Code section 1172.6 petition for resentencing. The parties stipulated that Barrera had set forth a prima facie case for relief, and the matter proceeded to an evidentiary hearing. The evidence at the hearing consisted of a preliminary hearing transcript and a transcript of a police interview with Barrera. Following the hearing, the trial court denied the petition, reasoning that the evidence would support a murder conviction and that Barrera's confession also supported the murder conviction. Barrera filed a timely notice of appeal.
DISCUSSION
Barrera filed this appeal as a substantial evidence challenge to the court's denial of his petition for resentencing. The Attorney General responded by arguing that substantial evidence does support the judgment, but the Attorney General flagged an issue not initially raised by Barrera: that the court employed the wrong standard in evaluating the evidence in this case. In his reply brief, Barrera agreed with that contention. We do too.
At an evidentiary hearing pursuant to Penal Code section 1172.6, subdivision (d)(3), "the burden of proof shall be on the prosecution to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the petitioner is guilty of murder or attempted murder under California law as amended by the changes to [Penal Code] section 188 or 189 made effective January 1, 2019." (Italics added.) The statute goes on to state: "A finding that there is substantial evidence to support a conviction for murder, attempted murder, or manslaughter is insufficient to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the petitioner is ineligible for resentencing." (Ibid.) This makes perfect sense, as the substantial evidence standard imposes a low evidentiary burden, whereas beyond a reasonable doubt imposes a high evidentiary burden.
Initially, the court seemed to have the correct standard in mind. At the hearing, the court noted that the prosecution's burden was too "prove the murder beyond a reasonable doubt."
However, later comments cast doubt on whether the court consistently applied that standard. For example, in commenting that the natural and probable consequences is no longer a valid theory, the court stated the conviction would not be valid "unless the evidence still supports a conclusion that the defendant can be convicted of murder beyond a reasonable doubt." (Italics added.) Subsequently, the court mused whether, given the evidence in the record, "[C]ould that [murder] case be made to a jury? . . . [I]t could." (Italics added.) The court went on, "But I don't think I even need to rely on an argument that the murder could be proved in this case beyond a reasonable doubt because of the statement in [Barrera's confession form]." (Italics added.) The notion of what the evidence supports, or what factual conclusions could be drawn, is the grist of a substantial evidence analysis. What the court needed to do is make findings about what the facts actually were, not what they could be.
The last statement recounted above raises yet another issue that the parties agree on: the confession in this case does no work toward resolving whether Barrera was guilty of murder under current standards. He confessed to aiding and abetting premeditated murder. But at the time he made that confession, he may have decided to confess because of his exposure to aider and abettor liability under the natural and probable consequences doctrine, which is no longer a valid theory. At the time of his confession, the state of the law was that "under the natural and probable consequences doctrine, an aider and abettor is guilty not only of the intended crime, but also 'for any other offense that was a "natural and probable consequence" of the crime aided and abetted.'" (People v. McCoy (2001) 25 Cal.4th 1111, 1117.) And his confession contains no specific facts or admissions that go beyond the natural and probable consequences doctrine.
In People v. Chiu (2014) 59 Cal.4th 155, which predated and was superseded by Senate Bill 1437, our high court held for the first time that a defendant could not be liable for premeditated first degree murder based on a theory of natural and probable consequences. The confession in this case, however, was in 2007.
That confession falls well short of determining the outcome of the petition for resentencing. (See People v. Eynon (2021) 68 Cal.App.5th 967, 977 ["By pleading guilty, the defendant admitted every element of the charged offense, including malice. [Citation.] But the defendant did not admit facts supporting liability on any particular theory, and the generic pleading encompassed theories-such as natural and probable consequences and felony murder-that did not require the defendant to have acted with malice. [Citation.] Accordingly, the guilty plea did not constitute an admission that the defendant acted with malice"].) As our high court recently explained in People v. Curiel (2023) 15 Cal.5th 433, a direct aider and abettor to murder must himself have the intent to kill and must also "know the direct perpetrator intends to commit the murder or life-endangering act and intend to aid the direct perpetrator in its commission. It is this mental relationship to the perpetrator's acts that confers liability on the aider and abettor." (Id. at p. 468.) Nothing in Barrera's confession establishes these elements.
Murder was charged generically in this case as well.
Having concluded that the court erred by relying on the wrong evidentiary standard and by reading too much into Barrera's confession, we decline to address whether a hypothetical proper finding by the court would be supported by substantial evidence. On remand, the court may decide that, under the proper evidentiary standard, it is not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Barrera is still guilty of murder. It would be inappropriate for us to guess at what the court's conclusion will be, and thus we have nothing to analyze under the substantial evidence standard.
To highlight this uncertainty with an example, the Attorney General relies on Barrera's statement in his interview with detectives that Estudillo had explicitly stated they were going to do a drive-by shooting. That would arguably be substantial evidence that Barrera intended to aid in a murder. But is it true? Immediately after that statement, one of the interviewing detectives accused Barrera of lying and said he knew that Estudillo never made such a statement. We express no opinion on how that conflict in the evidence should be resolved, we simply observe that interpreting the evidence in this case is not cut and dry and we cannot presume that the trial court will deny the petition on remand.
DISPOSITION
The order denying Barrera's petition for resentencing is reversed. The matter is remanded with directions to reassess Barrera's petition consistent with this opinion.
WE CONCUR: O'LEARY, P. J., MOORE, J.