Opinion
E043600
4-24-2008
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. RAUL GONZALEZ, JR., Defendant and Appellant.
H. Reed Webb, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
A jury found defendant and appellant Raul Gonzalez, Jr. guilty of making criminal threats. (Pen. Code, § 422.) In a bifurcated proceeding, a trial court found true the allegations that defendant had previously served two prison terms (§ 667.5, subd. (b)), that he had previously been convicted of a serious felony (§ 667, subd. (a)), and that he had one prior strike conviction. (§§ 1170.12, subd. (c)(1), 667, subd. (c) & (e)(1).) The court sentenced defendant to a total state prison term of nine years. Defendant filed a Notice of Appeal, but did not specify any grounds upon which the appeal was based. We affirm.
FACTS
Brenda Gonzalez (the victim) was defendants girlfriend. They were in a relationship for about five months before they broke up in June or July 2006. On August 1, 2006, defendant went to the victims parents home. The victim and her six-year-old daughter were inside the home. Defendant had been calling the victim, wanting to see her, but she was scared since he had threatened her before. The victim tried to stay quiet to make it seem like no one was home. Defendant knocked on the doors and windows, trying to get in the house. He was angry and wanted to find out if another man was with the victim inside the house. Defendant broke the screen window to try to get inside the house, but then left. The victim was scared so she called the police. Defendant returned about 10 minutes later and tried to talk to the victim again. He yelled at her to open the door because he wanted to see if someone was inside with her. Defendant threatened to hurt her and to kill her. He also broke the window with his fist. The victim called the police again and said that she had already called, that no one showed up, and that her boyfriend came back again and broke the window.
Deputy Phillip Rice responded to the scene. He observed that the victim was very scared and nervous. She showed him the broken screen and window. She told him what happened and that defendant had threatened to hurt and kill her. While Deputy Rice was there, defendant called the victim on the phone and said he was going to kill her. She reported this threat to the deputy.
Later that day, defendants mother went to the victims house and told her that she (the victim) needed to leave for a couple weeks. She warned the victim that if she did not leave, defendant was going to kill her. The victim subsequently went to stay with her uncle in Las Vegas and remained there until she was summoned to court.
The victim testified that during their relationship defendant was physically violent with her, usually when she wanted to go home and he did not want her to leave. One time, he slapped her in the face when she wanted to leave. On another occasion, when she tried to leave, he grabbed her and threw her on his bed. On other occasions, he bit her on her stomach and broke the skin, pushed her on the ground and kicked her on the side of her head, and hit her on the side of her stomach.
At trial, one of defendants former girlfriends, Theresa Ruiz, testified that during their four-year relationship, he was often physically violent with her. Defendant used to hit her with a closed fist. On other occasions, he slapped her, burned her stomach with an iron, bit her nose, and bit her on her back.
Furthermore, during the trial, the court was asked to rule on the admissibility of recently obtained statements made by defendant that were recorded on jailhouse monitoring equipment. The taped phone calls contained some admissions made by defendant. The court resolved the Evidence Code section 352 challenge by ordering certain parts of the tapes to be redacted.
DISCUSSION
Defendant appealed, and upon his request this court appointed counsel to represent him. Counsel has filed a brief under the authority of People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436 and Anders v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 738 [87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493] setting forth a statement of the case, a summary of the facts, and two potential arguable issues regarding the admissibility of Theresa Ruizs testimony about defendants past violent behavior with her, and the admissibility of the tape-recorded phone calls. Counsel has requested this court to undertake a review of the entire record.
We offered defendant an opportunity to file a personal supplemental brief, which he has not done.
We have now concluded our independent review of the record and find no arguable issues.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur:
RICHLI, J.
KING, J. --------------- Notes: All further statutory references will be to the Penal Code, unless otherwise noted.