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People v. Martinez

Court of Appeals of California, Second District, Division Five.
Nov 12, 2003
B163291 (Cal. Ct. App. Nov. 12, 2003)

Opinion

B163291.

11-12-2003

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. ENRIQUE GONZALEZ MARTINEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

W.C. Melcher, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Ana R. Duarte and Yun K. Lee, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.


Defendant and appellant Enrique Gonzalez Martinez (Martinez) was convicted of attempted second degree robbery (Pen. Code, §§ 211, 664) and assault (§ 240). Sentenced to a total of ten years in prison for the offenses and sentence enhancements, Martinez contends on appeal that his six-month sentence for assault should have been stayed under section 654 rather than ordered to run concurrently with the remainder of his sentence. We affirm.

On April 28, 2002, Jose Corona (Corona) and his four-year-old son were retrieving a carpet brush from the trunk of Coronas car behind the apartment building in which they lived when Martinez approached and demanded money. Martinez threatened to "mess [Corona] up" if Corona did not give him money. Corona refused, claiming to have no funds.

Martinez shouted profanity-laced threats of physical injury at Corona and threatened him with a screwdriver, still demanding money. Corona, holding his sons hand, walked backwards and tried to calm Martinez. Corona left the trunk of his car open as he backed away. Martinez said that if Corona did not give him money, he would break the rear window of the car. Corona picked up his son and entered the apartment building.

Once inside his apartment, Corona asked his wife to call the police. He then watched from his balcony as Martinez tried to remove the spare tire and some tools from the cars trunk and then attempted to enter the passenger compartment. At that point, Corona left his apartment and returned to his car to try to stop Martinez from damaging it. While Martinez focused on the locked car doors, Corona closed the trunk.

Martinez said angrily, "You come down again. Well, come mother f____r. Lets mess each other up right now." Corona told Martinez to calm down and leave because the police had been summoned. Martinez said, "I could care less. I want to f____ you up." Martinez swung a metal rod over his head at Corona. Corona retreated and pulled a tube from a nearby trash can to defend himself. Martinez fled but was soon apprehended by the police.

Martinez was convicted of attempted second degree robbery and assault. The jury found that he had personally used a deadly and dangerous weapon—a screwdriver—during the attempted robbery. The trial court sentenced Martinez to ten years in prison for the attempted robbery and the sentence enhancements. The court imposed a six-month sentence for the assault and ordered it to run concurrently with the sentence for attempted robbery.

Martinezs sole contention on appeal is that section 654 requires his sentence for assault to be stayed. Section 654 bars punishment under multiple statutory provisions when a defendant engages in an indivisible course of conduct involving a single criminal objective. (Neal v. State of California (1960) 55 Cal.2d 11, 19.) "The divisibility of a course of conduct depends upon the intent and objective of the defendant. If all the offenses are incidental to one objective, the defendant may be punished for any one of them, but not for more than one. On the other hand, if the evidence discloses that a defendant entertained multiple criminal objectives which were independent of and not merely incidental to each other, the trial court may impose punishment for independent violations committed in pursuit of each objective even though the violations shared common acts or were parts of an otherwise indivisible course of conduct." (People v. Liu (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1119, 1135 (Liu).)

"The question whether the defendant entertained multiple criminal objectives is one of fact for the trial court, and its findings on this question will be upheld on appeal if there is any substantial evidence to support them." (Liu, supra, 46 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1135-1136.) Although Martinez argues that the offenses involved a single criminal transaction and a single intent, substantial evidence supports the trial courts implicit ruling that the attempted robbery and the assault were not part of an indivisible course of conduct motivated by a single goal.

The record supports the conclusion that the assault and the attempted robbery were motivated by separate criminal objectives. The goal of the attempted robbery was to relieve Corona of his funds—Martinez repeatedly demanded money, threatened to injure Corona with a screwdriver if Corona did not hand over his funds, and said he would damage Coronas car unless Corona gave him money. The assault, in contrast, appears to have been motivated by Martinezs intent to hurt Corona. Martinez invited a physical confrontation, stated his desire to injure Corona, and swung a metal rod at him. At no time in this second encounter did Martinez demand money or demonstrate any intent other than to physically harm Corona. The assault was reasonably interpreted as motivated by anger and the desire to injure Corona rather than as the continuation of the earlier attempted robbery.

The evidence is also sufficient to support an implied finding that the two offenses were transactionally distinct. The attempted robbery ended when Corona denied having any money and left the scene. The assault took place later, after Corona had returned and shut his cars trunk to prevent Martinez from stealing items from the car.

When a perpetrator chooses to inflict physical injury on the victim after an unsuccessful robbery attempt, punishment for both offenses does not violate section 654. (People v. Sandoval (1994) 30 Cal.App.4th 1288, 1299-1300 (Sandoval).) In Sandoval, the victim, Moore, "had refused to actually hand over the money. The attempted robbery was complete at this point. [¶] It was only after this that Sandoval, from point blank range, determined for his own purposes to punish Moore, or to assuage his own thwarted desires by seeking other and different gratification, by firing directly into Moores chest." (Ibid.) The Sandoval defendant was properly sentenced for both the attempted robbery and the attempted murder because the physical attack on the victim was a separate and gratuitous act of violence independent of the attempted robbery. (Id. at p. 1300.)

Because the evidence supports the trial courts implied findings that the offenses were transactionally divisible, motivated by different criminal objectives, and not merely incidental to one another, Martinezs concurrent sentence for assault does not violate section 654. (See Sandoval, supra, 30 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1299-1300; Liu, supra, 46 Cal.App.4th at p. 1135; People v. Coleman (1989) 48 Cal.3d 112, 162-163 [assault not incidental to robbery when it is committed after the robbery is complete and can be attributed to separate objective]; In re Chapman (1954) 43 Cal.2d 385, 390 [assault committed after robbery is complete is separately punishable].)

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

We concur: TURNER, P.J., and ARMSTRONG, J. --------------- Notes: All further statutory references are to the Penal Code.


Summaries of

People v. Martinez

Court of Appeals of California, Second District, Division Five.
Nov 12, 2003
B163291 (Cal. Ct. App. Nov. 12, 2003)
Case details for

People v. Martinez

Case Details

Full title:THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. ENRIQUE GONZALEZ MARTINEZ…

Court:Court of Appeals of California, Second District, Division Five.

Date published: Nov 12, 2003

Citations

B163291 (Cal. Ct. App. Nov. 12, 2003)