Opinion
E069772
11-13-2018
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. ALCIDE GALLEY, JR., Defendant and Appellant.
Michael C. Sampson, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Arlene A. Sevidal, Andrew Mestman and Michael D. Butera, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Super.Ct.No. SWF1601299) OPINION APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. David A. Gunn, Judge. Affirmed. Michael C. Sampson, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Arlene A. Sevidal, Andrew Mestman and Michael D. Butera, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Pursuant to a plea agreement, appellant and defendant Alcide Galley, Jr., pled guilty to infliction of corporal injury to a spouse, resulting in a traumatic condition (Pen. Code, § 273.5, subd. (a), count 1), assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury (§ 245, subd. (a), count 2), false imprisonment by violence (§ 236, count 3), and resisting arrest (§ 148, subd. (a)(1), count 4). The trial court placed him on probation for three years under specified conditions. It subsequently found that defendant violated his probation. The court sentenced him to state prison for a total term of three years eight months.
All further statutory references will be to the Penal Code unless otherwise noted.
On appeal, defendant contends that the court should have stayed the sentence on count 3 pursuant to section 654. We affirm.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Because defendant pled guilty pursuant to a plea agreement, there was no preliminary hearing or trial. Accordingly, the factual background is compiled from the factual summaries given by defense counsel and the prosecution at the sentencing hearing, as well as memoranda filed by the parties. The facts are not in dispute. --------
Defendant was a veteran who served 10 years in the military. After returning from combat, he experienced severe depression. He became short-tempered and argumentative and began to isolate himself. It came to the point where his wife (the victim) could no longer live with him, and she told him she wanted a separation. This news caused defendant to overreact emotionally and grab the victim. He pushed her into a corner, then onto a couch, and they both ended up on the floor. Defendant held the victim down with one hand around her throat and started choking her. She had difficulty breathing but was able to talk and calm him down. Defendant eventually let go of her throat, but then held her in a bear hug to prevent her from being able to move. The victim was eventually able to remove herself from his hold after about one hour. She told him to take a shower, and then she left the house and called the police. The police tried to get defendant to come out of the house, but he refused. Defendant was armed with a firearm and contemplated suicide. The police had a 19-hour standoff and had to use tear gas before he finally surrendered.
ANALYSIS
Section 654 Did Not Apply
Defendant contends the trial court erred in failing to stay his sentence on count 3 (false imprisonment) under section 654. He claims three of his offenses (counts 1 through 3) occurred contemporaneously and were therefore an indivisible course of conduct. He further argues that his assault offenses (counts 1 and 2) directly facilitated the false imprisonment. In other words, defendant claims he assaulted his wife for the sole purpose of preventing her from leaving the home. We conclude the court sentenced him properly.
A. Section 654
Section 654, subdivision (a), provides in pertinent part, that: "An act or omission that is punishable in different ways by different provisions of law shall be punished under the provision that provides for the longest potential term of imprisonment, but in no case shall the act or omission be punished under more than one provision. . . ." "Section 654 precludes multiple punishments for a single act or indivisible course of conduct. [Citation.]" (People v. Hester (2000) 22 Cal.4th 290, 294.)
"It is defendant's intent and objective, not the temporal proximity of his offenses, which determine whether the transaction is indivisible. [Citations.] We have traditionally observed that if all of the offenses were merely incidental to, or were the means of accomplishing or facilitating one objective, defendant may be found to have harbored a single intent and therefore may be punished only once. [Citation.] [¶] If, on the other hand, defendant harbored 'multiple criminal objectives,' which were independent of and not merely incidental to each other, he may be punished for each statutory violation committed in pursuit of each objective, 'even though the violations shared common acts or were parts of an otherwise indivisible course of conduct.' [Citation.]" (People v. Harrison (1989) 48 Cal.3d 321, 335 (Harrison).)
In other words, "[d]ifferent criminal acts 'may be divisible even though "closely connected in time and a part of the same criminal venture." ' [Citations.] The question is to be resolved upon the facts of each case. [Citations.]" (People v. DeLoach (1989) 207 Cal.App.3d 323, 338.) "When those facts are undisputed—as they are here—the application of section 654 raises a question of law we review de novo." (People v. Corpening (2016) 2 Cal.5th 307, 312.)
B. Procedural Background
At the sentencing hearing, defendant argued that the infliction of corporal injury (count 1; hereinafter, corporal injury) and assault (count 2) were based on the same conduct of him assaulting and choking his wife. He asserted that the false imprisonment (count 3) consisted of him holding her in a hug for about an hour, but then contended that count 3 was based on the same conduct as counts 1 and 2. Thus, defendant argued that, under section 654, he should be punished only once for the three counts. The prosecutor disagreed, contending that all the acts were separate and not subject to section 654.
The court acknowledged defendant's military service and noted that, after he was in jail for a period of time, he was placed in the Veterans Court Program. However, within two weeks, he cut off his GPS bracelet and became a great danger to the community. The court then agreed with defense counsel that section 654 applied to the corporal injury and assault counts; however, it found that the false imprisonment was a separate act. The court incorporated the prosecutor's comments with regard to section 654 and noted that the victim was held against her will for a lengthy period of time. Moreover, the court found that it was unnecessary for defendant to complete the corporal injury or assault offenses in order to falsely imprison the victim; thus, the false imprisonment was a separate and distinct violation.
The court denied probation because defendant's prior performance on probation was not satisfactory. It then sentenced him to the midterm of three years on count 1, and the midterm of three years on count 2; however, it stayed the sentence on count 2 under section 654. The court sentenced him to a consecutive sentence of one-third the midterm, or eight months, on count 3, for a total sentence of three years, eight months. It also sentenced him to 364 days on count 4, but deemed the time served.
C. Section 654 Did Not Apply to Count 3 (False Imprisonment)
Defendant argues that the false imprisonment occurred during the same course of conduct as the corporal injury and the assault. Specifically, he asserts that his wife told him she wanted a separation and, as a result, he assaulted her by choking her, pushing her, and holding her in a bear hug. Because all of his offenses occurred contemporaneously, his conduct was an indivisible transaction. He also contends that his assault offenses (counts 1 and 2) facilitated the false imprisonment. We disagree.
Defendant was convicted of willfully inflicting corporal injury resulting in a traumatic condition. (§ 273.5, subd. (a).) He was also convicted of committing assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury. (§ 245, subd. (a)(4).) As defense counsel argued at the sentencing hearing, the corporal injury and assault offenses were "based on the exact same conduct, that was [defendant] assaulting his wife and choking her." He pushed the victim into a corner, then onto a couch, and they both ended up on the floor. He then held her down with one hand around her throat, thereby choking her. However, once he released his hold on her throat, the assault was over. Furthermore, as defense counsel conceded, the false imprisonment was based on defendant "grabbing her, [and] holding her . . . in a hug." The court noted that defendant held the victim against her will for a "lengthy period of time" to prevent her from moving. Moreover, as the court concluded, it was not necessary for defendant to assault the victim or inflict corporal injury on her, in order to falsely imprison her. Thus, defendant's course of conduct was divisible. The court properly concluded that his conduct consisted of separate and distinct acts.
Defendant claims that "the assaultive conduct was the only conduct that could have supported the 'violence' requirement of the false imprisonment conviction." We disagree. "False imprisonment is the unlawful violation of the personal liberty of another." (§ 236.) The offense becomes a felony when it is "effected by violence, menace, fraud, or deceit." (§ 237.) " 'Violence' " in this context is not defined as assault, but rather " ' "the exercise of physical force used to restrain over and above the force reasonably necessary to effect such restraint." ' " (People v. Matian (1995) 35 Cal.App.4th 480, 484.) Defendant's conduct of grabbing the victim and holding her in a hug for an hour exceeded the force reasonably necessary to restrict her from leaving the home. (See People v. Castro (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 137, 143 [the defendant grabbed the victim, turned her around, and pulled her toward his car; a court found the act of pulling her toward him was "an act more than what was required to stop her and keep her where she was located" and his conduct amounted to felony false imprisonment].) Thus, defendant's conduct of restraining the victim in a bear hug for an hour established the force required to rise to the level of felony false imprisonment. In other words, contrary to defendant's claim, the violence requirement for the felony false imprisonment conviction was met by conduct other than "the assaultive conduct" in counts 1 and 2.
Defendant also argues that he assaulted his wife for the sole purpose of facilitating the false imprisonment. However, his own characterization of the facts presented to the trial court belies this claim. Defense counsel prefaced the account of the incident by saying that defendant was diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, he was exhibiting symptoms of being argumentative, hypersensitive, and overreactive, and he was kept for about 14 days on a Welfare and Institutions Code section 5150 hold, prior to the current incident. Therefore, when the victim told him she wanted a separation and she wanted him to leave if he did not leave her alone, defendant "overreacted to that" by grabbing her, pushing her, and choking her. By his own account, defendant had an emotional reaction and assaulted her, with the apparent intent to inflict corporal injury upon her in retaliation for her threat to separate from him. He eventually let go of her throat. However, he then grabbed her and kept her in a bear hug for an hour, in order to prevent her from leaving. Thus, it appears that defendant harbored " 'multiple criminal objectives,' which were independent of and not merely incidental to each other." (Harrison, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 335.)
In sum, the undisputed facts indicate that defendant's actions constituted a divisible course of conduct, and that he harbored the intents to inflict injury upon the victim and to prevent her from leaving the house. Therefore, the court properly declined to stay his sentence on count 3 under section 654.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
McKINSTER
Acting P. J. We concur: MILLER
J. SLOUGH
J.