Opinion
B301634
02-19-2021
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. RONNIE PARHAM, Defendant and Appellant.
A. William Bartz, Jr., under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Noah P. Hill, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Heidi Salerno, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. KA119487) APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Stanley Blumenfeld, Judge. Affirmed. A. William Bartz, Jr., under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Noah P. Hill, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Heidi Salerno, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
In what can be described as a road rage incident, defendant and appellant Ronnie Parham (defendant) brandished a gun and threatened a woman who was trying to maneuver around his car, which was stopped in the middle of the street. A jury convicted him of making criminal threats and defendant admitted he previously sustained a prior conviction within the meaning of the Three Strikes law (Pen. Code, §§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 1170.12). Defendant made a Romero motion to strike the prior strike crime and the trial court denied the motion, reasoning defendant had a history of violence, his criminal history was escalating, and there was no evidence to suggest his asserted substance abuse problem played any role in the criminal threats offense. We consider whether the trial court's denial of the Romero motion was an abuse of discretion.
Undesignated statutory references that follow are to the Penal Code.
People v. Superior Court (Romero) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497 (Romero).
I. BACKGROUND
In August 2018, the victim of the criminal threats offense was driving her car and pulled behind defendant's vehicle, which was stopped in the middle of the road in front of her. After waiting in vain to see if defendant's car would move, the victim started to drive around defendant's car. Defendant got out of his car and angrily asked the victim why she couldn't wait, telling her this was his street. Defendant then pounded on the hood of the victim's car and moved toward her passenger-side window, yelling she was a "bitch." The victim became afraid and called 911.
Defendant then returned to his car and retrieved a handgun. He approached the front bumper on the passenger side of her car, raised his hands while holding the gun in his left hand, and said, "Do you want some of this, bitch?" The victim thought defendant was going to kill or hurt her, and she managed to drive around his car and fled the scene. She initially saw defendant driving behind her, but he was gone after she turned down a street and waited for the police to arrive—not far from where she lived.
The police later arrested defendant and the Los Angeles County District Attorney charged him with making criminal threats (§ 422, subd. (a)). A trial jury found him guilty, and defendant separately admitted the truth of an allegation that he sustained a conviction for robbery in 1998, which qualified as a prior serious or violent felony conviction under the Three Strikes law.
While in jail, defendant called an acquaintance who witnessed him threatening the victim. Defendant told the acquaintance he "fucked up" and "lost it out there." He added: "There is no excuse for my fucking shit."
Before sentencing, defendant filed a Romero motion asking the trial court to strike or dismiss the alleged prior strike crime in the interests of justice. He argued the 1998 offense was remote in time—occurring some 20 years earlier—and leniency was warranted because he suffered from a substance abuse problem. The prosecution opposed the motion, arguing defendant's criminal history (including committing the criminal threats offense while on probation for another offense) revealed he had not "changed his ways or actions as a result of . . . prior punishment" and defendant chose not to seek drug treatment in earlier years when he had the opportunity to do so.
The trial court denied the Romero motion and imposed an 11-year prison sentence. The court stated it spent a "fairly good amount of time looking at [defendant's] entire picture," including information provided by the parties concerning the 1998 robbery alleged as the prior strike crime. The court found, as to the argument concerning defendant's history of drug abuse, that the defense presented little information about the extent of the problem, and even if the problem were significant there was still "no information that would suggest drug use was at all involved" in the criminal threats offense for which defendant was being sentenced. As to the remoteness of the prior strike crime, the court cited authority that holds sentencing courts should not simply look to the passage of time but to whether the defendant in question has continued to engage in criminal conduct in the interim. The trial court concluded the prior crime had not "'wash[ed] out'" when considering the facts of that crime (what the court characterized as "a pretty serious robbery that looked pretty fearful for the victim") and defendant's multiple offenses (including probation violations) since the year 2000, which involved violence and appeared to be escalating.
The court summarized the pertinent history as follows: "[S]o he's discharged from parole on November 21 of 2000. [¶] His next brush with the law where he is convicted is for an offense on March 9 of 2010, which is some ten years or less from his being paroled. And he's convicted of a firearm offense. After being a felon—convicted of a felon[y], he has a concealed firearm. And he is sentenced to 16 months. [¶] And then he also commits another offense just a couple of months later on May 13 of 2010 . . . . [a] sales of methamphetamine offense. [¶] . . . [¶] So he's actually sentenced as a three-strike offender in 2010 and he gets released . . . from prison on January 7 of 2015 and discharged from parole on August 6 of 2015 . . . . [¶] So that means that he spent a substantial period of time in prison and he's released on parole on August 6 of 2015. And then I'm going to overlook the July 4th infraction with fireworks. But on September 14 of 2016 at the age of 37, . . . about a year after he's discharged from parole, he commits another serious offense. It was a misdemeanor, but it is a domestic violence with a traumatic condition under Penal Code section 273.5. [¶] He's placed on summary probation on May 2nd of 2017. And a little more than a year later, he commits the crime in this case."
II. DISCUSSION
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's Romero motion. The remoteness of the prior robbery conviction was offset by defendant's continued and violent criminal history (including a prior Three Strikes sentence that did not dissuade him from further criminal conduct) and the facts of the criminal threats offense (which involved brandishing a firearm defendant should not have had, as he well knew from his prior carrying a concealed firearm conviction). The trial court also had adequate reason to conclude, on the record presented, that there was no reason to believe any drug abuse problem from which defendant suffered contributed to the criminal threats offense or provided reason for leniency.
"Under section 1385, subdivision (a), a 'judge . . . may, either of his or her own motion or upon the application of the prosecuting attorney, and in furtherance of justice, order an action to be dismissed.' 'In Romero, [our Supreme Court] held that a trial court may strike or vacate an allegation or finding under the Three Strikes law that a defendant has previously been convicted of a serious and/or violent felony, on its own motion, "in furtherance of justice" pursuant to . . . section 1385(a).' [Citation.]" (People v. Carmony (2004) 33 Cal.4th 367, 373 (Carmony).)
When deciding whether a prior conviction should be stricken pursuant to Romero, a trial court must consider whether the defendant falls outside the "spirit" of the Three Strikes sentencing scheme by looking to the nature and circumstances of the present offense of conviction; the nature and circumstances of prior serious or violent felony convictions; and the particulars of the defendant's background, characteristics, and prospects. (People v. Williams (1998) 17 Cal.4th 148, 161 (Williams).)
We review for abuse of discretion a trial court's decision not to dismiss a prior felony conviction allegation under section 1385. (Carmony, supra, 33 Cal.4th at 374.) The standard is deferential. (Id. at 378; People v. Myers (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 305, 310 ["Where the record demonstrates that the trial court balanced the relevant facts and reached an impartial decision in conformity with the spirit of the law, we shall affirm the trial court's ruling, even if we might have ruled differently in the first instance"].) In this case, the trial court did just what the Myers court holds is required for affirmance.
The trial court was quite familiar with the sentencing record made by the parties and entertained fairly extensive argument from counsel. The court acknowledged defendant sustained the prior strike crime some 20 years earlier but found this was counterbalanced by defendant's criminal conduct in the interim—conduct that was violent, involved a firearm, appeared to be escalating, and violated the terms of probationary orders. With this history, the court could appropriately conclude defendant's persistent recidivism put him within the spirit of the Three Strikes sentencing scheme; it is certainly not a history that reveals his situation is an extraordinary one justifying reversal on appeal. (See, e.g., Williams, supra, 17 Cal.4th at 163 [that 13 years passed between the defendant's prior strike crimes and his current felony was "not significant" because the defendant "did not refrain from criminal activity during that span of time, and he did not add maturity to age"].) The trial court also emphasized the seriousness of the robbery that served as the predicate strike crime (which involved snatching a necklace off a young woman's neck) and the seriousness of the criminal threats offense (which involved brandishing a firearm)—both salient considerations. (Williams, supra, at 163 [observing there was nothing about the defendant's present felony or his prior strike crimes that was favorable to his position; the record was "devoid of mitigation" and the defendant "'had been taught, through the application of formal sanction, that [such] criminal conduct was unacceptable—but had failed or refused to learn his lesson'"].) And the trial court was correct that there was little if any evidence suggesting any substance abuse problem defendant had contributed to the criminal threats offense—or, even if it did, could not have been addressed in the years prior if defendant had sought treatment. (See, e.g., Carmony, supra, 33 Cal.4th at 378- 379 [finding the "little" the defendant had done to address his substance abuse problem a relevant factor supporting denial of a Romero motion].)
The sole heading in defendant's opening brief seeks reversal of the trial court's Romero determination and the brief's conclusion is in accord: "Based on the foregoing argument, appellant is requesting the court's ruling on the Romero motion to be reversed." Interspersed with argument on the Romero motion, however, appears to be a passing contention that the trial court should have stricken the five-year, section 667, subdivision (a)(1) enhancement defendant received for sustaining a prior serious felony conviction. The point is insufficiently raised and disregarded for that reason. (Opdyk v. California Horse Racing Bd. (1995) 34 Cal.App.4th 1826, 1830; People v. Ladd (1982) 129 Cal.App.3d 257, 262.) Were we to entertain it, we would reject it for the same reasons given in connection with our discussion of the factors supporting denial of the Romero motion. --------
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
BAKER, Acting P. J. We concur:
MOOR, J.
KIM, J.