Opinion
H047905
05-30-2023
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. MICHAEL ANGELO ESCOBAR, Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
(Santa Cruz County Super. Ct. No. F27742)
BAMATTRE-MANOUKIAN, ACTING P.J.
I. INTRODUCTION
Late in the evening of October 10, 2014, gunshots rang out near The Fish House, a bar and restaurant in Watsonville. Defendant and another member of defendant's gang fired the shots from 9-millimeter firearms while in or near a parking lot that the restaurant shared with a motel. The target of the attack was Ramon Rendon, who was believed to be affiliated with a rival gang. Rendon died near the motel from multiple gunshot wounds. One of the bullets defendant fired hit a bartender inside The Fish House in the shoulder. At the time, the bartender was hugging Jaelyn Zavala, the four-year-old daughter of a restaurant employee, to reassure her during the commotion. The bullet that hit the bartender in the shoulder also hit the child in his arms, and she was later pronounced dead.
Defendant was charged by information with seven offenses: two counts of murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a); counts 1 and 2), street terrorism (§ 186.22, subd. (a); count 3), assault with a semiautomatic firearm (§ 245, subd. (b); count 4), two counts of resisting arrest (§ 69; counts 5 and 6), and conspiracy to commit murder (§ 182, subd. (a)(1); count 7). With regard to the first murder count (involving the death of Zavala), the information alleged that defendant killed Zavala while he was an active participant in a criminal street gang and that the murder was carried out to further the activities of the criminal street gang (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(22)), that defendant killed the victim while lying in wait (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(15)), that defendant personally and intentionally discharged a firearm (§ 12022.53, subds. (b)-(d)), that a principal personally and intentionally discharged and personally used a firearm (§ 12022.53, subds. (b)-(e)(1)), and that the offense was committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in association with a criminal street gang (§ 186.22, subds. (b)(1), (5)). The second murder count (involving the death of Rendon) contained the same allegations as the first count, plus an allegation that defendant committed multiple murders (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3)). The assault with a semiautomatic weapon count also included an allegation that the offense was committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in association with a criminal street gang (§ 186.22, subd. (b)(1)).
Following a jury trial, defendant was found guilty as charged on all counts, and the jury found true each of the enhancements and special circumstance allegations. The court sentenced defendant to two terms of life without possibility of parole and two consecutive sentences of 25 years to life, plus a determinate sentence of 12 years four months. This appeal timely followed.
Defendant's opening brief raises two challenges. He first contends the trial court erred by excluding evidence purporting to show defendant's mental defects, an error he asserts was compounded by allowing the prosecutor to question the defense expert toxicologist about alcohol tolerance without the defense's ability to demonstrate how defendant's purported mental defects may have affected his alcohol tolerance. Second, he asserts that the trial court erred by admitting evidence that defendant was a member of a gang that treats children as acceptable collateral damage. In supplemental briefing, defendant raises two additional issues, asserting that recent legislation regarding sections 186.22 and 1109 require reversal of his conviction or portions thereof.
For reasons that we will explain, we affirm the judgment.
II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
A. Background
Gang affiliation and rivalry framed defendant's actions in the charged offenses. By the time of the shootings in October 2014, defendant had been a member of the "East Las Casitas" street gang for several years. East Las Casitas was a subset of the Norteno gang organization, also known as Northerners, which had numerous members in Watsonville. Another subset of the Nortenos was Northside Watsonville Chicos, which claimed all of Watsonville as its territory. Marcos Robles was a member of Northside Watsonville Chicos. At the time of the shootings, members of East Las Casitas and Northside Watsonville Chicos were known to commit crimes together.
The rival gang of the Nortenos in Watsonville was the Surenos, which also had several subsets in the city. Rendon, the shooting victim near the motel, was at one time a member of a Sureno subset, and though he was believed to have dropped out of the gang by the time of the shootings, he still regularly associated with Sureno members. A Watsonville police officer with extensive gang experience saw Rendon the day before the shootings and warned him that he should be careful about regularly riding his bicycle in public in Watsonville, where Nortenos were more populous.
Members of Norteno subsets controlled narcotics sales in Watsonville; if they found out someone else was selling drugs in an area they controlled, they could utilize violence against that person. If the person selling drugs in a Norteno-controlled area was a Sureno member, this would be considered "double disrespect." Norteno and Sureno members in the area considered the other side enemies in a war, and were often directed to assault or kill rival members on sight, though in some situations, the approval of a higher-ranking member to carry out such an attack might be required. Members of East Las Casitas were considered to be particularly violent; a former member of East Las Casitas testified that the subset was "a different breed" and "killers," and that this was a point of pride for them. Killing a rival from a Sureno subset was considered to benefit both the subset and the larger Norteno organization, because it would mean one fewer enemy to deal with.
B. October 10, 2014
1. Valley Inn
Rendon lived at the Valley Inn, the motel that shared a parking lot with The Fish House. Rendon lived with his girlfriend, who managed the motel and was permitted to live on site. Rendon performed maintenance duties at the motel. Rendon's girlfriend had previous exposure to gangs in Watsonville, engaging in fights while she represented a Norteno gang against Surenos. However, she had stopped associating with the gang. Rendon told his girlfriend that he used to be associated with a Sureno gang, and he had tattoos that she recognized as emblematic of Sureno gangs. Rendon told his girlfriend that he left the gang many years earlier, but she observed Rendon regularly associate with at least a dozen people she identified as Sureno gang members based on their dress and tattoos. By October 2014, Rendon's girlfriend came to suspect that Rendon was selling drugs out of the motel, and she confronted him about this.
On the evening of October 10, 2014, Rendon and his girlfriend were at the motel when a person Rendon's girlfriend identified as a Sureno gang member came to see Rendon at the motel. Other men later joined them. After a while, the men rushed into the room Rendon and his girlfriend shared, slammed the door shut, and yelled to call the police, saying that the Nortenos were there. Rendon's girlfriend called the police, and she heard and saw on a video monitor people kicking the door to the room. She also heard one of the people outside the door yell "puro Northside," which she recognized as a Norteno challenge to fight.
At some point the kicking and yelling stopped, and the people who had been kicking the door walked away. Rendon and the other men left to see if the people were gone, and soon after, Rendon came back to the room and said the people were coming back and that one of them had a gun. Rendon and the other men grabbed a piece of rebar, a stick, and a bat to arm themselves, and returned to the room. The people again kicked the door, almost getting in at one point after breaking the deadbolt. After a few minutes, the kicking stopped again and Rendon again went outside to see if the people left, walking toward The Fish House where the men had headed. Rendon's girlfriend followed Rendon outside.
As Rendon was on the sidewalk approaching a car in the parking lot, a man emerged and came toward Rendon. Rendon turned around and started running. At that point, the man shot Rendon and Rendon fell down. The man then came closer to Rendon and shot Rendon several more times. The man walked away, and Rendon's girlfriend tended to Rendon, feeling a weak pulse. As she did so, she looked up and saw a man standing there. The man asked her if Rendon was a member of a Sureno gang subset called "Poorsiders." When she did not answer, the man kicked Rendon in the foot and then got into a car. Rendon died that evening.
2. The Fish House
The Fish House's bartender arrived to work around 5:00 p.m. on October 10, 2014. He and another employee noticed that the composition of the establishment's normal older, family-type crowd changed as the evening wore on, with a group of younger people congregating in the darkest area of the bar.
Shortly before midnight, the bartender was washing dishes when he heard the owner's adult daughter scream to turn off the music and get out of the restaurant. The bartender saw Zavala, the four-year-old daughter of the owner's daughter, nearby. Zavala had previously spent time at the restaurant when her mother could not obtain child care, and restaurant employees would help care for her. Zavala seemed afraid, so the bartender held her in his arms and told her everything would be fine. The bartender then walked with the child in his arms back to the bar's office area, and as he did so, he heard an explosion-like sound and then felt a warm sensation in his right shoulder, like he pulled a muscle. The bartender told Zavala everything was fine and pulled her away from him, only to see that Zavala was bleeding. Soon thereafter, the restaurant's owner took Zavala away and brought her out to police congregating on the scene, who in turn took Zavala to an ambulance. Zavala was pronounced dead at the hospital that night.
3. The Chase, Apprehension, and Subsequent Investigation