Opinion
C082767
09-11-2017
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. MICHAEL ADAM JORDAN, Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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. S16CRF0032)
Defendant Michael Adam Jordan pleaded no contest to false identification to an officer, a misdemeanor (Pen. Code, § 148.9, subd. (a)) and was convicted by a jury of receiving a stolen vehicle (§ 496d, subd. (a)). The trial court sustained a strike (§§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 1170.12) and two prior prison term allegations (§ 667.5, subd. (b)) and sentenced defendant to six years in state prison.
Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.
On appeal, defendant contends the receiving conviction should have been sentenced as a misdemeanor pursuant to Proposition 47. We shall affirm.
BACKGROUND
On March 16, 2016, Edward McClain's 2003 Dodge Ram pickup truck was parked in the driveway of his home. When he went outside to take his son to school the next morning, the truck was gone. The keys to the truck, which were kept inside the house, were gone as well.
The truck was discovered by South Lake Tahoe Police Officer Matthew Morrison on March 22, 2016. Defendant was inside the truck at the time.
At sentencing, defendant moved to modify the receiving conviction to misdemeanor receiving stolen property (§ 496, subd. (a)) based on the prosecution's failure to prove that the truck had a value exceeding $950. The trial court denied the motion.
DISCUSSION
Defendant contends the trial court erred in imposing a felony term for the receiving conviction. He argues that following Proposition 47, receiving a stolen vehicle is a misdemeanor unless the value of the vehicle exceeds $950, which was not proven here. We disagree.
The closely related issue of whether unlawful driving or taking of a vehicle (Veh. Code, § 10851) is subject to Proposition 47 is currently before the California Supreme Court. (See, e.g., People v. Page (2015) 241 Cal. App. 4th 714, review granted Jan. 27, 2016, S230793; People v. Orozco (2016) 244 Cal.App.4th 65, review granted Aug. 10, 2016, S235603.)
In November 2014, the voters passed Proposition 47, which reduced a number of felony or wobbler offenses to misdemeanors. (See People v. Rivera (2015) 233 Cal.App.4th 1085, 1091.) Among the crimes reduced to misdemeanors by Proposition 47 are shoplifting where the property value does not exceed $950 (§ 459.5); petty theft, defined as theft of property where value of the money, labor, real or personal property taken does not exceed $950 (§ 490.2); and receiving stolen property where the property value does not exceed $950 (§ 496). (See § 1170.18, subd. (a).) Receiving a stolen vehicle (§ 496d), the crime of which defendant was convicted, is not on the list of felonies reduced to misdemeanors by Proposition 47. (See § 1170.18, subd. (a).) It also was not amended by Proposition 47. Unlike receiving stolen property, even after Proposition 47, felony punishment for receiving a stolen vehicle is not predicated on a particular minimum value for the vehicle in question.
Section 496d, subdivision (a) states in pertinent part: "Every person who buys or receives any motor vehicle, . . . , that has been stolen or that has been obtained in any manner constituting theft or extortion, knowing the property to be stolen or obtained, or who conceals, sells, withholds, or aids in concealing, selling, or withholding any motor vehicle, trailer, special construction equipment, or vessel from the owner, knowing the property to be so stolen or obtained, shall be punished by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 for 16 months or two or three years or a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or both, or by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year or a fine of not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000), or both." --------
Noting that section 496 covers "any property that has been stolen," (§ 496, subd. (a)) and the elements of sections 496 and 496d are nearly identical, defendant asks us to interpret the $950 limit in section 496 to cover section 496d.
To construe Proposition 47 to include receiving a stolen vehicle would violate the cardinal rule of statutory construction. " ' "When statutory language is clear and unambiguous, there is no need for construction and courts should not indulge in it." [Citation.]' [Citation.]" (People v. Hendrix (1997) 16 Cal.4th 508, 512.) Here, Proposition 47 lists a specific series of crimes that qualify for reduction to a misdemeanor separated with the conjunction "or" and ending with the phrase "as those sections have been amended or added by this act." (§ 1170.18, subd. (a).) That list does not include section 496d, receiving a stolen vehicle. The legislative inclusion of certain crimes necessarily excludes others. (People v. Lewis (1993) 21 Cal.App.4th 243, 247.)
Defendant also argues that Proposition 47's purpose, "to ensure that prison spending is focused on violent and serious offenses, to maximize alternatives for nonserious, nonviolent crime, and to invest the savings generated from this act into prevention and [to] support programs in K-12 schools, victim services, and mental health and drug treatment," (Voter Information Guide, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 4, 2014) text of Prop. 47, § 2, p. 70) supports extending the proposition to section 496d.
"But no legislation pursues its purposes at all costs. Deciding what competing values will or will not be sacrificed to the achievement of a particular objective is the very essence of legislative choice--and it frustrates rather than effectuates legislative intent simplistically to assume that whatever furthers the statute's primary objective must be the law. Where, as here, 'the language of a provision . . . is sufficiently clear in its context and not at odds with the legislative history, . . . "[there is no occasion] to examine the additional considerations of 'policy' . . . that may have influenced the lawmakers in their formulation of the statute." ' [Citation.]" (Rodriguez v. United States (1987) 480 U.S. 522, 525-526 [94 L.Ed.2d 533, 538]; accord County of Sonoma v. Cohen (2015) 235 Cal.App.4th 42, 48.) Legislation necessarily involves the weighing of competing objectives and values, and a court in the guise of interpretation should not upset this balance where it is spelled out in the text of a statute. (County of Sonoma, at p. 48.) Proposition 47's purpose does not allow us to rewrite a statute that initiative did not amend.
Defendant also claims it violates equal protection to interpret Proposition 47 to exclude receiving a stolen vehicle when it applies to the theft of a vehicle worth less than $950. (See § 490.2.) He is mistaken; different criminal statutes can punish similar or the same criminal act differently without violating equal protection.
"Neither the existence of two identical criminal statutes prescribing different levels of punishments, nor the exercise of a prosecutor's discretion in charging under one such statute and not the other, violates equal protection principles. [Citation.]" (People v. Wilkinson (2004) 33 Cal.4th 821, 838.) It has therefore long been the case that "a car thief may not complain because he may have been subjected to imprisonment for more than 10 years for grand theft of an automobile [citations] when, under the same facts, he might have been subjected to no more than 5 years under the provisions of section 10851 of the Vehicle Code." (People v. Romo (1975) 14 Cal.3d 189, 197.) Unless the defendant can show that he or she " 'has been singled out deliberately for prosecution on the basis of some invidious criterion,' . . . the defendant cannot make out an equal protection violation. [Citation.]" (Wilkinson, at p. 839.)
Finally, defendant's citation to the rule of lenity, "whereby courts must resolve doubts as to the meaning of a statute in a criminal defendant's favor," (People v. Avery (2002) 27 Cal.4th 49, 57) is inapplicable here because its application is premised on an ambiguity that is not present in this part of Proposition 47. " 'The rule of statutory interpretation that ambiguous penal statutes are construed in favor of defendants is inapplicable unless two reasonable interpretations of the same provision stand in relative equipoise, i.e., that resolution of the statute's ambiguities in a convincing manner is impracticable.' [¶] Thus, although true ambiguities are resolved in a defendant's favor, an appellate court should not strain to interpret a penal statute in defendant's favor if it can fairly discern a contrary legislative intent." (Avery, at p. 58.)
There is nothing ambiguous in Proposition 47's omission of section 496d from its covered crimes. Since Proposition 47 did not change the crime of receiving a stolen vehicle, defendant was subject to felony punishment for it notwithstanding the prosecution's failure to introduce any evidence regarding the truck's value.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
/s/_________
Blease, Acting P. J. We concur: /s/_________
Hull, J. /s/_________
Mauro, J.