Opinion
C082986
11-13-2017
In re L. L., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. L. L., 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NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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. JJCJVDE20160001418)
In this juvenile delinquency case, the minor (L. L.) contends the juvenile court erred in denying her motion to suppress the statements she made during a police interrogation. Because the judge who sustained the delinquency petition expressly concluded (1) the evidence was sufficient beyond a reasonable doubt even without the minor's inculpatory statements and (2) the minor's statements were unnecessary to substantiate the petition, we conclude any error in the denial of the minor's suppression motion was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, we affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In July 2015, the minor, who was 16 years old, and the victim (A. B.), who was five years old, were both foster children living with Shelia W.. While tidying up her home for her annual inspection, Sheila W. found a pair of bloody underwear in a pocket of the minor's robe. When her husband told her that the victim had said something about blood on the way home from day care, Sheila W. spoke to the victim, and the victim told Sheila W. that the minor had "poked" her. Sheila W. eventually took the victim to the hospital and gave the bloody underwear to the police officer who responded.
After the victim stated on several occasions that the minor had put her fingers inside the victim's vagina, in August 2015 Vallejo Police Detectives Terry Poyser and Joe McCarthy arrested the minor in San Joaquin County and took her back to the police station in Vallejo. There, Detective Poyser interrogated her. At the outset of the interrogation, the detective read the minor her Miranda rights. During the interrogation, the minor initially denied having anything to do with the victim's injury. Later, however, she told Detective Poyser that she "washed [the victim] up with the soap that burns her stuff" and "when [the victim] said it was burning a lot, [the minor] rubbed some Vaseline on [the victim's 'stuff.']" At that time, the minor adamantly denied putting her hand inside the victim. Later in the interrogation, however, she said that she did stick her hand inside the victim while she was "rubbing Vaseline on [the victim's 'stuff,']" but she stopped when the victim said "ouch."
On August 19, 2015, the day after the interrogation, a petition was filed in the juvenile court in Solano County charging the minor with committing a lewd act on a child in violation of Penal Code section 288, subdivision (a). In February 2016, the minor moved to suppress her statements to Detective Poyser as given in violation of her Miranda rights. The minor argued that the admissions she made during the interrogation were involuntary, she did not knowingly and intelligently waive her Miranda rights, and she asserted her right to remain silent on multiple occasions during the interrogation. Finding no merit in the minor's arguments, the juvenile court denied the suppression motion.
The case was tried to the juvenile court in June 2016. Finding that the prosecution had proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt, the court sustained the petition. The judge explained her determination as follows:
"This is a circumstantial case. And in looking at all the circumstantial evidence, the Court reviewed everything together to see what was most reasonable. And to accept the version argued by the defense, there were some unreasonable conclusions the Court would have had to make. There wasn't evidence in support of it.
"I do believe that the earliest reports are the most reliable for the Court: [The victim] innocently mentioning blood, the physical corroboration as argued by the District Attorney, the manner in which the disclosure occurred, the physical corroboration in the sense of the physical injury, which the Court believes did exist from the testimony of the SART nurse, the bloody underwear and then the manner in which those were discovered in a room that both [the minor] and [the victim] had access to. . . . The timing of the event is consistent and reasonable.
"The Court does acknowledge there were some inconsistencies between [the victim's] courtroom testimony versus the original disclosure, but the Court kept in mind the passage of time, the manner with which [the victim] was woken up, a five-year-old, and it doesn't make the Court feel that the story is untrue.
"Then, in addition to that, you have the admissions by [the minor]. Even without those admissions, I think the evidence is sufficient beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the statements provided by [the minor] are indeed consistent. And there was a portion that I hadn't given any import until argued by the District Attorney this afternoon which resonated with the Court as to [the minor] herself mentioning the word 'stick,' which is clearly a fact not injected by anyone else. So even though the Court did not need the admissions to substantiate the petition, I do believe that's persuasive and powerful evidence."
The case was transferred to San Joaquin County for disposition, and in July 2016 the juvenile court there placed the minor on probation with time served (340 days). The minor timely appealed.
DISCUSSION
On appeal, the minor contends the juvenile court prejudicially erred in admitting her statements to the police because she did not knowingly and intelligently waive her Miranda rights, she invoked her right to silence four times before she made the inculpatory statements, her inculpatory statements were made involuntarily, and the People cannot prove the admission of the statements was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
On the last point, the People contend that, given the juvenile court's "express determination that it would still find that [the minor] committed the alleged offense absent her admissions from the interview, any error in the court's failure to exclude [the admissions] was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." We agree.
"[W]henever a confession admitted in a California trial has been obtained by means that render the confession inadmissible under the federal Constitution, the prejudicial effect of the confession must be determined under the federal standard" of harmless error from Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18 . (People v. Cahill (1993) 5 Cal.4th 478, 510.) Under the Chapman standard, "the judgment must be reversed unless the People prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict in the case at hand." (People v. Lewis (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 874, 884.) "The test is not whether a hypothetical jury, no matter how reasonable or rational, would render the same verdict in the absence of the error, but whether there is any reasonable possibility that the error might have contributed to the conviction in this case. If such a possibility exists, reversal is required." (Id. at p. 887.) "[T]he focus is what the jury actually decided and whether the error might have tainted its decision. That is to say, the issue is 'whether the . . . verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error.' " (People v. Neal (2003) 31 Cal.4th 63, 86.)
While the California Supreme Court has recognized "that the improper admission of a confession is much more likely to affect the outcome of a trial than are other categories of evidence," the court has also recognized that "in many instances it will be possible for an appellate court to determine with confidence that there is no reasonable probability that the exclusion of the confession would have affected the result." (People v. Cahill, supra, 5 Cal.4th at pp. 503, 505.) This is one such instance. Here, we need not divine from a silent record what effect the minor's statements to the police might or might not have had on the trier of fact's decision, because the trier of fact was a judge, not a jury, and the judge stated on the record her conclusions that the evidence was sufficient beyond a reasonable doubt "[e]ven without" the minor's statements to the police and that she "did not need the admissions to substantiate the petition."
In arguing prejudice in her opening brief, the minor ignores the judge's statements altogether. When forced to confront those statements in her reply brief because of the People's reliance on them in their brief, the minor asserts only that "[t]he juvenile court's comments -- made after hearing [the minor's] confession -- that it would have made the same decision without hearing the confession [are] not persuasive." The minor does not explain why the judge's statements are "not persuasive," but instead only reiterates how damaging a confession can be. That is not sufficient. The minor does not dispute that the evidence independent of her statements to the police was legally sufficient to sustain the petition. Thus, the judge's statements that she found that evidence sufficient beyond a reasonable doubt "[e]ven without" the minor's statements and that she "did not need the admissions to substantiate the petition" is all that is necessary to justify the conclusion that admission of the minor's statements, if error, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
/s/_________
Robie, Acting P. J. We concur: /s/_________
Hoch, J. /s/_________
Renner, J.
Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 694.