Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Monterey County, Super. Ct. Nos. SS060675A, SS071520A, SS080942B
Duffy, J.
The defendant herein, Alonzo Hale, pleaded guilty, in three separate cases, to two weapons charges and a disturbing the peace charge. He admitted to the trial court that the state’s juvenile court system once found that he committed misconduct that, if committed by an adult, would have been a crime, but he did not concede that the misconduct allowed the court to impose a longer prison sentence and asserted that the court was not allowed to do so. The court disagreed and imposed the longer sentence. He contends on appeal that the court erred in doing so.
We will affirm the judgment.
BACKGROUND
I. Facts
Because defendant pleaded guilty, we derive the facts from documents contained in the clerk’s transcript.
A. Case No. SS060675A
On January 13, 2006, defendant and one Luis Ramos encountered each other on a city street and began fighting. The two combatants gave slightly differing accounts to police of the details that led to the fight, but both explained that they had exchanged insults employed by the mutually hostile Sureno and Norteno gangs. (See People v. Zarazua (2008) 162 Cal.App.4th 1348, 1352.) According to Ramos, defendant identified himself as a Norteno and called him a “scrapa,” a derogatory term for Surenos (ibid.). According to defendant, Ramos said “South, 13,” meaning he belonged to the Surenos, and defendant answered “Norte,” a Norteno challenge to a Sureno (ibid.). Defendant admitted to an officer that he was a Norteno gang member.
B. Case No. SS071520A
On March 4, 2007, defendant was a passenger in a car that was stopped by the police. When they searched him, they found a switchblade knife.
C. Case No. SS080942B
Shortly before midnight on February 18, 2008, the police saw defendant in the front passenger seat of a car. They found a gun under the car’s center console. The gun turned out to be loaded with.22-caliber bullets.
II. Convictions and Sentence
On October 31, 2006, the Monterey County District Attorney filed an information in case number SS060675A charging defendant with disturbing the peace by fighting (Pen. Code, § 415, subd. (1)) and alleging that the crime was committed for the benefit of a street gang (§ 186.22, subd. (d)). The district attorney further alleged that he had suffered a prior conviction pursuant to section 667.5, subdivision (b), and had suffered in the juvenile court an adjudication that constituted a strike under section 1170.12, subdivision (c)(1). The juvenile adjudication was for assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, with a criminal street gang enhancement (§ 245, subd. (a)(1), 186.22, subd. (b)(1)).
All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.
On August 3, 2007, the district attorney filed an amended information in case number SS071520A charging defendant with the possession of a switchblade (§ 653k) and alleging that the crime was committed for the benefit of a street gang (§ 186.22, subd. (d)). Again, the district attorney alleged that as a juvenile, he had suffered a prior strike conviction pursuant to section 1170.12, subdivision (c)(1).
On September 14, 2007, defendant entered into a plea agreement in case numbers SS060675A (the disturbing-the-peace case) and SS071520A (the switchblade case) that included probation. He pleaded guilty to the charges and admitted the allegations. On October 25, 2007, the superior court placed defendant on probation in those two cases, but required him to serve 23 days in county jail in addition to the time he had already spent in custody there.
On February 21, 2008, the district attorney filed a complaint in case number SS080942B charging defendant with possessing a loaded firearm in a public place. (§ 12031, subd. (a)(1).) The district attorney also presented gang allegations. (§§ 186.22, subd. (b)(2), 12031, subd. (a)(2)(C).)
On March 19, 2008, defendant entered into a complex plea agreement in which he admitted that he had violated probation in case numbers SS060675A (the disturbing-the-peace case) and SS071520A (the switchblade case). In case number SS080942B (the firearm case), the complaint was amended to add a strike allegation pursuant to section 1170.12, subdivision (c)(1), based on his prior juvenile adjudication. He pleaded guilty to the firearm charge (apparently agreeing that it was punishable as a felony under section 12031, subdivision (a)(2)(C), though the record is unclear on this point) and admitted, in effect, that the prior juvenile petition was sustained in an adjudication by the juvenile court. But he contended that the prior conviction did not constitute a strike under the “Three Strikes” law.
On May 2, 2008, the trial court ruled that defendant’s juvenile adjudication constituted a strike. On May 21, 2008, it sentenced him to seven years in prison. As relevant here, in case number SS080942B (the firearm case) it imposed the mitigated term of 16 months, doubled to 32 months pursuant to the Three Strikes law because defendant was a second-strike offender by reason of his juvenile adjudication. (See § 18.)
DISCUSSION
I. Validity of Applying Juvenile Adjudication under Three Strikes Law
Defendant claims that the trial court violated the due process and jury-trial guarantees preserved respectively in the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, sections 7, subdivision (a), and 16 of the California Constitution, when it allowed his juvenile adjudication to be treated as a strike under the Three Strikes law and thereby caused his prison sentence to be lengthened. He argues that because he was not afforded a jury trial as a juvenile, imposing an adult prison sentence based wholly or in part on a juvenile adjudication cannot satisfy the foregoing constitutional norms.
Defendant couches this argument in two distinct claims. “First, as a matter of due process, the juvenile adjudication cannot constitute a strike since the state promised appellant that his juvenile proceedings would not be deemed criminal in nature. Second, the juvenile adjudication may not be used as a strike since appellant had no right to a jury trial in juvenile court.” The first claim fails because even if the state made that promise it did not break it—it did no more than to apply the juvenile adjudication to punish defendant as an adult offender with a distinctly onerous history of committing acts amounting to crimes. Accordingly, we reject defendant’s first claim at the threshold. His second claim we treat at length in the discussion that follows.
Defendant also claims that if we do not address his claims on the merits, then his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to preserve them by raising them before the trial court.
We will address defendant’s claims on the merits (In re Sheena K. (2007) 40 Cal.4th 875, 887, fn. 7), and hence need not address his ineffective assistance of counsel claim.
We recognize that a claim similar or identical to defendant’s is awaiting resolution in our Supreme Court. (People v. Nguyen (2007) 152 Cal.App.4th 1205, review granted Oct. 10, 2007, S154847.) For our part, we adhere to precedent and conclude that neither due process nor jury-trial guaranties are infringed by the trial court’s consideration of defendant’s juvenile adjudication, notwithstanding that a juvenile court judge, not a jury, adjudicated the juvenile delinquency petition. With regard to due process, “A juvenile has the right to notice of the charges against him or her, the right to counsel, the privilege against self-incrimination, the right to confrontation and cross-examination, the protection against double jeopardy, and the allegation must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” People v. Superior Court (Andrades) (2003) 113 Cal.App.4th 817, 834.) Accordingly, “ ‘juvenile adjudications, like adult convictions, are so reliable that due process of law is not offended’ ” in this context. (Id. at p. 832.)
Nor was there any infringement of the constitutional rights to a jury trial. Neither the federal nor the California constitutions afford a minor a right to have a delinquency petition adjudicated by a jury (McKeiver v. Pennsylvania (1971) 403 U.S. 528, 545 (plur. opn. of Blackmun, J.); see id. at p. 551 (conc. opn. of White, J.) [agreeing with the plurality but speaking only of due process]; see also id. at p. 557 (conc. opn. of Harlan, J.); People v. Superior Court (Carl W.) (1975) 15 Cal.3d 271, 274.) But criminal defendants are statutorily entitled to trial by jury in superior court on the question whether they suffered a juvenile adjudication that qualifies as a strike. (People v. Superior Court (Andrades), supra, 113 Cal.App.4th at p. 833.) In our view, to the extent that any jury trial guaranty is implicated by Three Strikes prior-offense litigation, it is satisfied by the procedural protections that cloak juvenile delinquency proceedings combined with the statutory right to jury trial in adult court on the truth of strike allegations. As this court stated in Andrades, supra, at page 833, when “ ‘ “a juvenile receives all the process constitutionally due at the juvenile stage, there is no constitutional problem (under which Apprendi focused)” ’ ”—a focus that includes the Sixth Amendment’s jury-trial right as applied to the states by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) 530 U.S. 466, 476-477)—“ ‘ “in using that adjudication to support a later sentencing enhancement.” ’ ” Defendant, therefore, was not deprived of the protection of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution or article I, section 16 of the California Constitution.
Defendant calls to our attention U.S. v. Tighe (9th Cir. 2001) 266 F.3d 1187, 1194, and State v. Brown (La. 2004) 879 So.2d 1276, 1290. This court is not required to follow the precedents of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of Louisiana. A “holding of the federal court, although entitled to respect and careful consideration, would not be binding or conclusive on the courts of this state.” (Bank of Italy etc. Assn. v. Bentley (1933) 217 Cal. 644, 653.) Nor are we bound by legal analyses provided by the reviewing courts of other states. (See Mary M. v. City of Los Angeles (1991) 54 Cal.3d 202, 243.) “[W]e are bound to follow the decisions of our Supreme Court” as opposed to those of other states. (Kirby v. Sega of America, Inc. (2006) 144 Cal.App.4th 47, 61 [declining to follow an analytical approach adopted by the Missouri Supreme Court].) Hence, to the extent that Tighe and Brown provide reasoning contrary to that of People v. Superior Court (Andrades), supra, 113 Cal.App.4th 817, we decline to rely on them for guidance. Nor, contrary to defendant’s urging, is People v. Towne (2008) 44 Cal.4th 63, authority for the proposition he advances. Towne did state that when a finding of unsatisfactory parole or probation performance can be established only by evidence of conduct as opposed to a conviction the constitutional right to trial by jury attaches. (Id. at p. 82.) But it did not address the subject at hand. (See id. at pp. 70-71.) It is axiomatic that cases are not authority for propositions not considered. (People v. Avila (2006) 38 Cal.4th 491, 567.) Towne does not help defendant.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
I CONCUR: Mihara, Acting P. J.
McAdams, J.
I respectfully dissent.
For the reasons stated in our majority opinion in People v. Nguyen, review granted October 10, 2007 (S154847), I find the use of defendant’s juvenile prior adjudication under the Three Strikes Law unconstitutional under Apprendi v. New Jersey (2000) 530 U.S. 466, 490 and I would reverse. See also the dissenting opinion of Justice Zelon in People v. Del Rio (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 439, 441-444.