Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
Alameda County Super. Ct. No. C150189
Judge of the Alameda County Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.
Defendant Walter Ozell Cooper, Sr., appeals his jury-trial conviction on 13 counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under the age of 14 (Penal Code, § 269, subd. (a)(1)) by committing rape against his daughter (Daughter). (§ 261, subd. (a)(2)), as well as four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with an unrelated minor, C. (§ 261.5, subd. (c)). We affirm.
Further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise noted.
Background
At 3:27 a.m. on November 28, 2004, 47-year old defendant Walter Cooper went to the Emergency Room at Highland Hospital in Oakland, complaining of itching in his private parts and penile discharge. Defendant presented with such an unusually high level of penile discharge that he was advised to return for a follow up examination to ensure complete resolution of his symptoms. Defendant was treated and given medications for gonorrhea and chlamydia. Later that day, defendant’s then 16-year old “girlfriend,” C., presented at the hospital stating that her boyfriend had tested positive for gonorrhea and chlamydia. C. told hospital staff she was 18 years old. C. did not report any symptoms on the physical examination but was given medication for gonorrhea and chlamydia.
On January 9, 2005, defendant took his then 11-year old daughter Daughter to the Emergency Department at the Children’s Hospital in Oakland, where she presented with severe abdominal and shoulder pain. Daughter’s pain was significant, continuous, and causing her distress because she could not sleep lying down. Daughter was admitted so medical staff could try to determine what was causing her pain. When questioned by medical staff, Daughter denied that she had been sexually active. Daughter was discharged on January 11, but at that point medical staff were still uncertain what was causing her distress and had not yet received results from tests on Daughter’s urine sample.
Daughter’s test results came back on January 13 and revealed she was infected with gonorrhea and chlamydia. Hospital staff contacted defendant, advised him that Daughter may have an arthritic condition, and asked him to bring Daughter back to the hospital immediately. Defendant told hospital staff that he was out of town and arranged for Daughter to be taken into the hospital by her older cousins Crystal and Vivian, whom Daughter referred to as her aunts. Social worker Amanda Lanyi interviewed Daughter at the hospital on the evening of January 13, 2005. In an age appropriate manner, Lanyi told Daughter she needed to receive medical care because she was infected with gonorrhea and chlamydia, explained what those infections were, and inquired if she was having sex with anybody. Initially Daughter denied having sex, then said she was having sex with a boy in her class at school but she did not know his name or his age. Subsequently, after speaking alone with her Aunt Crystal, Daughter told Lanyi that she had sex with her father on more than 10 occasions.
Daughter was readmitted to hospital for treatment of gonorrhea and chlamydia. By then, the untreated sexually transmitted infections had spread from the lower part of her reproductive system up through the abdominal cavity causing Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, a more serious, systemic infection accounting for Daughter’s severe pain and distress. Daughter was also treated for trichmonas, another sexually transmitted disease that is a parasite. Daughter received a series of antibiotics administered intravenously to treat the different infections she had, and was ultimately discharged on January 20, 2005.
Defendant was arrested on January 14, 2005. Following a preliminary hearing, an information was filed on June 23, 2005, accusing defendant in counts 1-13 of aggravated sexual assault of a child under the age of 14, namely, rape of his daughter Daughter, one count for each month between December 2003 and December 2004. In counts 14-17, defendant was accused of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, C., one count for each month between September and December 2004. A jury trial commenced on February 6, 2006. Defendant testified in his own defense and denied that he ever had sex with his daughter. On March 16, 2006, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. On April 13, 2006, the trial court sentenced defendant to 15 years to life on each of counts 1 and 2, to be served consecutively. The court imposed concurrent sentences of 15 years to life on each of counts 3-13. The trial court also imposed a further two years imprisonment on count 14 and ordered similar two-year terms on counts 15-17 to run concurrently. The total term of imprisonment imposed by the trial court was 32 years to life. Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal on April 20, 2006.
Count 18, accusing defendant of a lewd act upon a child, in violation of section 288, subdivision (a), was dismissed on August 26, 2005, for insufficient evidence.
Discussion
On three grounds, defendant contends that his convictions lack sufficient evidence. First, defendant contends that his convictions for rape (counts 1-13) must be reversed for insufficient evidence of fear or duress. Second, defendant contends that the evidence of time and place is insufficient to support the rape convictions on counts 2-12. Third, defendant contends that his convictions for unlawful sexual intercourse (counts 14-17) must be reversed because there was insufficient evidence to negate his defense that he held a reasonable belief that C. was 18 years old.
In any challenge to a conviction based on the insufficiency of the evidence, our review is highly deferential. We determine “ ‘whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’ [Citations.] We examine the record to determine ‘whether it shows evidence that is reasonable, credible and of solid value from which a rational trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.’ [Citation.] Further, ‘the appellate court presumes in support of the judgment the existence of every fact the trier could reasonably deduce from the evidence.’ [Citation.]” (People v. Moon (2005) 37 Cal.4th 1, 22.) Thus, “[a]lthough we must ensure the evidence is reasonable, credible, and of solid value, nonetheless it is the exclusive province of the trial judge or jury to determine the credibility of a witness and the truth or falsity of the facts on which that determination depends. (Citations.)” (People v. Jones (1990) 51 Cal.3d 294, 314 (Jones).) And so “if the verdict is supported by substantial evidence, we must accord due deference to the trier of fact and not substitute our evaluation of a witness’s credibility for that of the fact finder. [Citations.]” (Ibid.) As we further explain below, defendant cannot prevail on any of his claims of insufficiency of the evidence under this standard.
A. Evidence of Fear or Duress
(1)
Because the trial testimony of defendant’s daughter Daughter is highly pertinent to defendant’s claim there is insufficient evidence of fear or duress to support the rape convictions, we recount it in some detail: Daughter was born in July 1993, and was a 12-year old sixth grader when she testified in February, 2006. Daughter spent the early years of her life in Texas before at some point moving to Oakland, where she lived with defendant and her stepmother. A couple of years ago Daughter went to live with her grandmother in New Orleans after defendant beat her. The beating took place at her cousin’s house in Alameda. Defendant beat Daughter because she was mopping the floor in the kitchen after he told her to sit on the sofa in the living room. He became enraged and started knocking things over, then he started hitting Daughter in the face with a yellow bag. Daughter covered her face with her hands. Defendant pushed her up against the wall then pushed her down on the sofa, where he again hit her two or three times with the bag. Daughter’s brother said something to her father and they both went outside. Subsequently a police officer came to the apartment and Daughter told him what happened. She also told the police officer that a month before defendant hit her in the face with a belt. Daughter was afraid of her father when he hit her with the belt and when he beat her at her cousin’s house. Defendant was arrested after this incident at the cousin’s house and Daughter went to live with her grandparents in New Orleans.
Some time afterwards, just before Christmas 2003 Daughter came back to Oakland to live with her father and stepmother. A few days after Daughter’s return, her father started having “sex fun” with her. Defendant woke Daughter up when he came into her bedroom in the middle of the night. He asked Daughter if she wanted to have “sex fun” and she replied, “I don’t care.” She did not want to have “sex fun,” but she did not want to say “no” because she feared that he would beat her the way he did before she went to New Orleans. Defendant said he was going to the bathroom to “freshen up” and Daughter went back to sleep. She woke again when she heard defendant come out of the bathroom. Her stepmother was asleep in the living room. Defendant came back into Daughter’s room, lay on the bed, and got on top of her. He pulled up Daughter’s robe and pushed his “little thing,” or penis out of his boxer shorts. Defendant put his penis inside her “cat”—her vagina. Defendant did not insert his penis all the way in. It hurt, so Daughter yanked back. Defendant told her to “just relax,” but Daughter was scared; she was afraid defendant would beat her if she told him to stop. Defendant moved his thing inside her, then Daughter saw white stuff come out of his penis. Defendant put the white stuff in a towel and told Daughter to “go to the bathroom and freshen up.” Daughter noticed some blood near her “cat” and her privates were hurting.
Defendant had “sex fun” with Daughter on other occasions. It happened twice in a unit upstairs from C.’s place. C. is defendant’s other girlfriend. It also happened in another house in Oakland where defendant was doing some painting work. And it happened many times at the house where Daughter lived with defendant and her stepmother. Defendant stopped having “sex fun” with Daughter after she went to the hospital. Before then, defendant had “sex fun” with Daughter every week, in fact she said “[i]t was, like, every day.” During this time, after defendant was done having “sex fun” he told Daughter not to tell anyone because if she did he would go to jail and she would be put in a foster home. Daughter was afraid that might happen.
On cross-examination, Daughter stated that on the second occasion her father did not ask her if she wanted to have “sex fun”: “He saying stuff, like you want to have sex and I said okay.” On the third occasion, defendant asked Daughter if she wanted to have “sex fun” and she said “Yes.” Daughter said that what happened on the first, second and third nights is the same that happened every single night until she went to the hospital. Daughter said it hurt every time. She also said she could feel that defendant did not put his thing all the way in, that it was “not that far” in but she could not say how far. Defendant made “sighing sounds” while he was moving back and forth inside her but never touched her anywhere else.
When Daughter first went to the hospital, she had sharp pains in her stomach, which hurt her so much that she had been unable to sleep for several nights beforehand. Before she went to the hospital a second time, defendant told Daughter that the doctors “might have found out about us having sex and stuff . . . and if they do say a boy from Alameda did it, and if they keep asking you more questions and stuff, say you don’t want to say nothing else.” Defendant told Daughter that if she said a boy from Alameda did it he would give her three wishes. At the hospital Daughter learned she had chlamydia and dysemia but she did not know what they were. After her cousin Crystal told Daughter that her disease was like AIDS, Daughter decided she “didn’t want to die and . . . be away from my family,” so she admitted that her father and C. had been having sex with her. Daughter stated that on two occasions at C.’s apartment, she and C. had “sex fun”—on direct examination Daughter said they “got on top of each other and we both stick our fingers inside each other”; on cross-examination Daughter said C. got on top of her and they “rock[ed] back and forth” but she did not recall touching each others’ private parts. Daughter went to the hospital when she was in fifth grade at the E. Morris Cox school, where she had spent about half of fourth grade after returning from New Orleans.
(2)
“Rape is an act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a person not the spouse of the perpetrator . . . [w]here it is accomplished against a person’s will by means of force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury on the person or another.” (§ 261, subd. (a)(2).) Duress means “a direct or implied threat of force, violence, danger, hardship, or retribution sufficient to coerce a reasonable person of ordinary susceptibilities to (1) perform an act which otherwise would not have been performed or, (2) acquiesce in an act to which one otherwise would not have submitted.” (People v. Leal (2004) 33 Cal.4th 999, 1004.) “Duress cannot be established unless there is evidence that ‘the victim[’s] participation was impelled, at least partly, by an implied threat.’ ” (People v. Espinoza (2002) 95 Cal.App.4th 1287, 1321.) Evidence of an implied threat may include “the relationship between the defendant and the victim and their relative ages and sizes.” (People v. Senior (1992) 3 Cal.App.4th 765, 775.) Also relevant is “the position of dominance and authority of the defendant and his continuous exploitations of the victim.” (People v. Cardenas (1994) 21 Cal.App.4th 927, 940.) “A threat to a child of adverse consequences, such as suggesting the child will be breaking up the family or marriage if she reports or fails to acquiesce in the molestation, may constitute a threat of retribution and may be sufficient to establish duress, particularly if the child is young and the defendant is her parent.” (People v. Cochran (2002) 103 Cal.App.4th 8, 15 (Cochran).)
Cochran, supra, 103 Cal.App.4th 8, a case from Division One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, is particularly instructive. There, the defendant was arrested after posting on the internet photographs of his daughter engaged in various sexual acts. “The daughter testified the sexual relationship with her father began in the summer before the search, when she started the fourth grade. He filmed her with the video camera only one time. She was not afraid of him. Sometimes he would hurt her ‘[j]ust a little bit, but not that much,’ and when she told him it hurt, he would stop. Afterwards, Cochran would give her money, things for school or candy. He told her not to tell anybody because he would get into trouble and would go to jail. She was sometimes sad and sometimes mad about the things Cochran was doing to her.” (Cochran, supra, 103 Cal.App.4th at p. 12.) The court found this to be sufficient evidence of duress: “ ‘The total circumstances, including the age of the victim, and [her] relationship to defendant are factors to be considered in appraising the existence of duress.’ [Citation.] Other relevant factors include threats to harm the victim, physically controlling the victim when the victim attempts to resist, and warnings to the victim that revealing the molestation would result in jeopardizing the family. [Citations.] [¶] The fact that the victim testifies the defendant did not use force or threats does not require a finding of no duress; the victim’s testimony must be considered in light of her age and her relationship to the defendant.” (Id. at pp. 13-14.)
Moreover, the Cochran court rejected the defendant’s reliance on its earlier decision in People v. Hecker (1990) 219 Cal.App.3d 1238 (Hecker), the same case defendant relies on here. In Hecker, supra, the defendant molested his 12-year-old stepdaughter. She testified she was never consciously afraid the defendant would harm her and that, with the exception of one incident where he held her head down during oral copulation, he never used physical force. She did not report the incidents because she felt “ ‘guilty’ ” and did not want to be responsible for breaking up her mother’s marriage. (Hecker, supra, 219 Cal.App.3d at p. 1242.) She testified she felt “pressured psychologically” and “subconsciously afraid.” (Ibid.) However, “there was no evidence [the defendant] was aware of and sought to take advantage of such fear.” (Id. at p. 1250.) The Hecker court concluded that “ ‘[p]sychological coercion’ without more does not establish duress.” (Ibid.) In line with that conclusion, the Hecker court rejected the People’s argument that duress was established by the victim’s testimony that the defendant urged her not to report the molestations because it would ruin his marriage and naval career, stating “such testimony establishes merely the threat of hardship directed at ‘later disclosure of the sex acts and not [the failure to perform] the sex acts themselves.’ (Citation.)” (Hecker, supra, 219 Cal.App.3d at p. 1251, fn. 7.)
The Cochran court, however, retreated from its position in Hecker, stating that “this language in Hecker is overly broad.” (Cochran, supra, 103 Cal.App.4th at pp. 14-15.) The court continued: “The very nature of duress is psychological coercion. A threat to a child of adverse consequences, such as suggesting the child will be breaking up the family or marriage if she reports or fails to acquiesce in the molestation, may constitute a threat of retribution and may be sufficient to establish duress, particularly if the child is young and the defendant is her parent. We also note that such a threat also represents a defendant’s attempt to isolate the victim and increase or maintain her vulnerability to his assaults.” (Cochran, supra, 103 Cal.App.4th at p. 15.) The Cochran court also observed that the victim engaged in the sex acts only because she was directed to by her father, that she sometimes complained that the activity hurt, and that though the victim “testified she was not afraid of Cochran, that he did not beat or punish her and never grabbed or forced her, she also testified she was mad or sad about what he was doing to her, that he gave her money or gifts when they were alone together, and that he told her not to tell anyone because he would get in trouble and could go to jail.” (Ibid.) The court concluded that this was sufficient to establish duress because the victim was young and isolated, the defendant was her father, and there was an implicit threat that if she reported the activity it would break up the family. (Id. at p.16.)
Similarly in this case, there is sufficient evidence to establish duress or fear. Defendant was Daughter’s father, and more than that the only parent she had really ever known — in defendant’s own words “since 11 months old, I was her mama and her daddy.” Defendant was a grown adult male and Daughter was a female child and only 10 years old when the abuse began. (People v. Senior, supra, 3 Cal.App.4th at p. 775 [evidence of an implied threat may include “the relationship between the defendant and the victim and their relative ages and sizes”]); People v. Cardenas, supra, 21 Cal.App.4th at p. 940 [“the position of dominance and authority of the defendant and his continuous exploitations of the victim” are relevant to duress].) As noted, defendant first had sexual intercourse with Daughter in December 2003 when Daughter was only 10 years old. Moreover, this happened within days of Daughter’s return from a yearlong separation from her father occasioned by the fact that he beat her about the face because she disobeyed him. Daughter testified she did not want to have “sex fun,” with her father but was afraid to say “no” because she feared that he would beat her the way he did before she went to New Orleans. Even after Daughter told defendant that it hurt when he put his penis inside her and she “yanked back” with the pain, defendant told her to “just relax.” This made Daughter scared; and she was afraid defendant would beat her if she told him to stop. Additionally, once defendant established a pattern of having ‘sex fun’ with his daughter, he told Daughter not to tell anyone because if she did he would go to jail and she would be put in a foster home. Daughter stated she was afraid that might happen. Indeed, defendant’s very use of the term ‘sex fun’ can be viewed as a form of “psychological coercion” intended to pressure his vulnerable young daughter into doing something she had no wish to do. (Cochran, supra, 103 Cal.App.4th at p. 14.)
Moreover, the power of defendant’s psychological coercion over Daughter is evident in her response to defendant’s instructions before she went back to the hospital the second time — instructions prompted by defendant’s concern that his sexual abuse of his daughter was about to be discovered. Before she went to the hospital a second time, defendant told Daughter that the doctors “might find out about us having sex and if they do say a boy from Alameda did it, and if they keep asking you more questions and stuff, say you don’t want to say nothing else.” And defendant had previously threatened Daughter with what would happen if his abuse was uncovered — he would go to jail and she would be put in a foster home. At the hospital, Daughter followed defendant’s instructions to the letter, telling hospital staff that she had sex with a boy in her class but she could not remember his name or age. It was only after Crystal told Daughter that her infection was like AIDS and Daughter thought she might die that she admitted her father had sexual intercourse with her.
In sum, the fact that Daughter was only 10 years old at the time of the first offense, coupled with defendant’s position of dominance and authority as her father and only parent, his history of physical violence against Daughter, and his threats that discovery of the abuse would result in him going to jail and Daughter going into foster care, together constitute substantial evidence on which a reasonable trier of fact could have concluded that Daughter submitted to sexual intercourse under fear or duress. (Cochran, supra, 103 Cal.App.4th at pp. 13-14 [duress appraised under the totality of the circumstances, including age of the victim, her relationship to defendant, and “warnings to the victim that revealing the molestation would result in jeopardizing the family”].)
B. Evidence of Time and Place Regarding the Rape Offenses
Defendant states that he does not dispute the sufficiency of the evidence regarding count 1, which was alleged to have occurred somewhere between December 1 and December 31, 2003. However, he asserts that the “sufficiency problems arise with respect to the remaining counts, alleged to have occurred between January 1 and December 31, 2004.” In this regard, he contends that the evidence here does not meet the standards for “generic” child-victim, sexual-abuse testimony developed by our Supreme Court in Jones, supra, 51 Cal.3d 294. We disagree.
In Jones, supra, the Supreme Court noted that “[c]hild molestation cases frequently involve difficult, even paradoxical, proof problems. A young victim[,] . . . assertedly molested over a substantial period by a parent or other adult residing in his home, may have no practical way of recollecting, reconstructing, distinguishing or identifying by ‘specific incidents or dates’ all or even any such incidents.” (Jones, supra, 51 Cal.3d at p. 305.) The Supreme Court stated that “any . . . evidentiary standards we develop should attempt to assure that the resident child molester is not immunized from substantial criminal liability merely because he has repeatedly molested his victim over an extended period of time.” (Ibid.) Accordingly, the Supreme Court concluded that “in determining the sufficiency of generic testimony, we must focus on factors other than the youth of the victim/witness. Does the victim’s failure to specify precise date, time, place or circumstance render generic testimony insufficient? Clearly not. As many of the cases make clear, the particular details surrounding a child molestation charge are not elements of the offense and are unnecessary to sustain a conviction. (Citations.) [¶] The victim, of course, must describe the kind of act or acts committed with sufficient specificity, both to assure that unlawful conduct indeed has occurred and to differentiate between the various types of proscribed conduct (e.g. lewd conduct, intercourse, oral copulation or sodomy). Moreover, the victim must describe the number of acts committed with sufficient certainty to support each of the counts alleged in the information or indictment (e.g., ‘twice a month’ or ‘every time we went camping’). Finally, the victim must be able to describe the general time period in which these acts occurred (e.g., ‘the summer before my fourth grade,’ or ‘during each Sunday morning after he came to live with us’) to assure the acts were committed within the applicable limitation period.” (Jones, supra, 51 Cal.3d at pp. 315-316.)
Daughter’s testimony easily meets the Jones standard. First, Daughter described the kind of acts committed with sufficient specificity both to assure that unlawful conduct indeed has occurred and to identify that unlawful conduct as sexual intercourse. She described how defendant put his “thing,” or penis, into her “cat,” or vagina, did not put it all the way in, and moved it back and forth inside her. Second, Daughter described the number of acts committed with sufficient certainty to support each of the counts alleged. Daughter testified defendant had “sex fun” with her every week, adding, “It was, like, every day.” Whether Daughter intended that comment literally or metaphorically, it constitutes evidence of sustained and continuous sexual abuse. On that basis, the People charged defendant with one count of rape for each month during which the abuse occurred. This does not reflect insufficiency of the evidence—rather, it reflects sensible charging by the prosecution. (See Jones, supra, 51 Cal.3d at p. 314 [“It must be remembered that even generic testimony . . . outlines a series of specific, albeit undifferentiated, incidents each of which amounts to a separate offense, and each of which could support a separate criminal sanction. (Of course, prosecutors should exercise discretion in limiting the number of separate counts charged. No valid purpose would be served by charging hundreds or thousands of separate counts of molestation, when even one count may result in a substantial punishment.)”].) Third, Daughter was able to describe the general time period in which the acts occurred. She testified that the first act of sexual intercourse took place around Christmas within days of returning from her grandmother’s home in New Orleans. This starting point was given additional specificity and corroboration by the testimony of Daughter’s 33-year old cousin, who stated that Daughter returned from Louisiana on Christmas Eve of 2003. And defendant’s abuse of his daughter clearly ended when Daughter went straight into foster care after being discharged from the hospital on January 20, 2005. In sum, we conclude the evidence here was sufficient to sustain each of the counts charged. (Jones, supra, 51 Cal.3d at p. 316 [where victim specified the type of conduct involved, its frequency, and confirmed that such conduct occurred during the limitation period, “Nothing more is required to establish the substantiality of the victim’s testimony in child molestation cases.”].)
C. Evidence of Unlawful Sexual Intercourse
Defendant contends that there is insufficient evidence to sustain the convictions in counts 14-17 for unlawful sexual intercourse with C. because he entertained a reasonable, good-faith belief that she was 18 years old. He asserts that he did not discover she was under 18 years of age until he called her parents in December 2004 to ask their permission to marry her. This contention is without merit.
A defendant’s reasonable and good-faith belief that a sexual partner is 18 years of age or older is a defense to the charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. (People v. Hernandez (1964) 61 Cal.2d 529, 536.) Defendant points to evidence in the record showing that C. told several persons that she was at least 18 years old, including defendant. However, in determining a claim of insufficiency of evidence in a criminal case we examine on “the entire record” to see if “a rational trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. (Citations.)” (Jones, supra, 51 Cal.3d at p. 314.) And we must “view the evidence in the light most favorable to the People and must presume in support of the judgment the existence of every fact the trier could reasonably deduce from the evidence. (Citation.)” (Ibid.)
Viewing the record as a whole, there was testimony from Daughter’s cousin and her Aunt Vivian, who said they did not believe C. was 18 years old (Vivian said she “looked like a baby”). Also, Vivian testified that she heard directly from C.’s aunt that C. was only 16 years old. However, when Vivian told defendant that C. was “no more than 16,” defendant stated that he “would be the judge of that” and would find out how old C. was by himself. Further, Leon Ward, appellant’s co-worker, testified to a conversation he overheard between defendant and C. just before Halloween of 2004. Defendant had been called to intervene in a fight between C. and Crystal. After defendant collected C. from the household, Ward heard defendant tell C. that if Crystal or her sisters hit her, they could go to jail because C. was a minor. Defendant was asked about this conversation at trial, and he testified that what he told C. was to cause a commotion if any of the sisters jumped her because if the police came they would go to jail because they were not minors. However, especially in light of the mountain of evidence that defendant had molested other young girls in the past, a rational trier of fact was entitled reject defendant’s testimony and any concomitant inference that he would have abstained from sexual intercourse with C. if he had only known she was under 18-years of age, and infer to the contrary that he did not hold a good faith belief that C. was 18-years old. In sum, “view[ing] the evidence in the light most favorable to the People and . . . presum[ing] in support of the judgment the existence of every fact the trier could reasonably deduce from the evidence[,]” we conclude there is substantial evidence in the record to support a finding by a rational trier of fact that defendant did not harbor a reasonable, good-faith belief that C. was at least 18-years of age. (Jones, supra, 51 Cal.3d at p. 314.) Accordingly, the convictions on counts 14-17 for unlawful sexual intercourse must be affirmed.
Daughter’s cousin T.C. testified defendant had sex with her when she was between 10 and 12-years old. T.C.’s daughter M. testified that when she was about 9 or 10-years old, defendant asked her to play a “hugging and kissing” game in which he would suck her breasts as he had done to her aunties. V.C. testified defendant had sex with her when she was 10-years old. A., a 17-year old from Louisiana, testified that she lived with her mother and defendant in Oakland when she was 10-years old. Defendant came into her room one night, told her that he could help her breasts grow, and rubbed her breasts for 5-10 minutes. After A. told her mother, her mother called the police.
Disposition
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: McGuiness, P. J., Siggins, J.