Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. No. GA075722, Candace J. Beason, Judge.
Barbara A. Smith, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
RUBIN, J.
On the night of September 25, 2008, Pasadena Police Officer Kevin Arbuckle went to investigate a domestic violence report at the home where Luis Echevarria lived with his fiancée, Alyssa Flores, and Flores’s daughter from another relationship. Flores was three-months pregnant with Echevarria’s child. Flores said she and Echevarria were arguing about disciplining Flores’s daughter, when Echevarria grabbed her by the hair, then later slapped her in the face. Arbuckle saw that the area around Flores’s right eye was red and swollen. Flores told Arbuckle that Echevarria had a history of domestic violence.
This information comes from the preliminary hearing transcript.
Echevarria was arrested and charged with corporal injury to a cohabitant (Pen. Code, § 273.5, subd. (a)), along with an allegation that he had a previous conviction for battery upon a cohabitant (Pen. Code, § 243, subd. (e)(1)) within the last seven years (Pen. Code, § 273.5, subd. (e)). The information alleged that Echevarria had a prior conviction for making criminal threats (Pen. Code, § 422) that qualified as a strike conviction under the Three Strikes law (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 1170.12, subds. (a)-(d).) The information also alleged that Echevarria had three prior convictions that qualified for the one-year sentence enhancement under Penal Code section 667.5, subdivision (b): the terrorist threat conviction, and convictions for allowing someone to fire a gun from a car he was driving (Pen. Code, § 12034, subd. (b)) and for possession for sale of a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11351).
Trial got underway in April 14, 2010. A prosecution motion to allow evidence that Echevarria was a repeat domestic violence offender was granted. The court noted that Flores, who was still represented by counsel, intended to invoke her Fifth Amendment right to not testify. Two days later, after a jury had been selected, Echevarria accepted the following plea deal. In exchange for his no contest plea to the one count of corporal injury to a cohabitant, he would receive a high-term sentence of five years, and the remaining allegations would be dismissed. As a result, instead of serving 80 percent of his time because of the Three Strikes allegation, Echevarria would serve only 50 percent of his time. With custody credits added in, he would therefore be released in two and a half years. Had he not accepted the plea, and had he been convicted of all counts and allegations, Echevarria could have served 11 years. The court recited these facts to Echevarria, advised of him his rights, and took a waiver of those rights, before accepting the plea.
According to Echeverria’s appellate counsel, the correct high term for the offense is four years, not five, a mistake that has already been corrected.
About three weeks later, Echevarria moved to withdraw his plea, contending that he was receiving only a morning dose, not the evening dose, of some unspecified medication during the trial, and therefore did not fully understand the nature of his plea. The trial court denied the motion. At the hearing on that motion, the trial court said it had fully explained everything to Echevarria when he entered his no contest plea, that Echevarria said he was changing his plea freely and voluntarily because he believed it was in his best interests, and that there was no basis for the motion.
Echevarria filed a notice of appeal. On May 19, 2011, his appointed counsel filed a brief pursuant to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436 (Wende) in which no issues were raised. The brief included a declaration from counsel that she had reviewed the record and had sent Echevarria a letter advising him that such a brief would be filed and that he could file a supplemental brief if he chose to. That same day, this court sent Echevarria a letter advising him that a Wende brief had been filed and that he had 30 days to submit a brief raising any issues he wanted us to consider. Echevarria did not file a supplemental brief.
We have examined the entire record and are satisfied that Echevarria’s attorney has fully complied with her responsibilities and that no arguable issues exist. (Smith v. Robbins (2000) 528 U.S. 259; Wende, supra, 25 Cal.3d 436.)
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
WE CONCUR: BIGELOW, P. J., FLIER, J.