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People v. Rodriguez

California Court of Appeals, Second District, First Division
Aug 8, 2023
No. B323011 (Cal. Ct. App. Aug. 8, 2023)

Opinion

B323011

08-08-2023

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. FELIPE MANUEL RODRIGUEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

Judith Kahn, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Kenneth C. Byrne and Blake Armstrong, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.


NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, No. TA152178, Ricardo R. Ocampo, Judge. Affirmed.

Judith Kahn, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Kenneth C. Byrne and Blake Armstrong, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

WEINGART, J.

Defendant Felipe Manuel Rodriguez killed Samantha Tarango, hid her body and evidence linking him to the murder in a compartment in the cargo bed of a stolen pickup truck, drove the truck to another location, and then set the truck on fire. An information filed by the People charged Rodriguez with murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a); count 1), and arson (§ 451, subd. (d); count 2). The information further alleged as to the murder count that Rodriguez personally used a knife in the commission of the crime (§ 12022, subd. (b)(1)). A jury found Rodriguez guilty on both counts and found the special allegation as to the murder count true.

All unspecified statutory references are to the Penal Code.

On appeal, Rodriguez challenges two aspects of the sentence imposed by the trial court. He contends the court violated section 654 when it imposed multiple punishment for the murder and arson convictions because both crimes were committed with a singular objective: "the desire to be rid of" Tarango. He further asserts the trial court erred in imposing fines and fees without first conducting a hearing to determine his ability to pay. We reject these contentions and affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Considered in the light most favorable to the judgment, the evidence (which included DNA and other forensic analysis) showed that Rodriguez murdered Tarango by stabbing and strangling her. One of the knife thrusts ruptured Tarango's jugular vein-without immediate medical care, such a stab wound quickly results in death. Tarango's body, which was wrapped in a black plastic bag, was thereafter loaded into a large toolbox storage unit in the bed of a stolen Ford F-150 truck along with a zip tie, a cloth mask, a disposable plastic glove, and a bloody knife. Rodriguez then drove the truck to an intersection in Compton under a bridge less than a mile away, took off his bloodstained shirt and also placed it in the truck's storage unit, and set the truck on fire before abandoning it. Authorities responded to the blaze, extinguished the flames, and had the vehicle towed. Tarango's corpse and the other items in the toolbox were discovered once the truck was in the tow yard.

The evidence further showed Rodriguez contacted an individual residing in Compton; Rodriguez asked this individual to delete video from surveillance cameras at the person's residence, and to not provide the video to law enforcement. The requested destruction did not occur, as police served this individual with a search warrant and obtained the video. As relevant here, the video showed Rodriguez and Tarango before they both went off camera. It then showed the stolen F-150 truck backing into a driveway with nothing protruding from the cargo bed, and later driving away with a bike sticking up out of the cargo bed. Finally, the video showed Rodriguez returning to the location on a bike, without the truck, and wearing a different shirt.

Cell tower data corroborated that Rodriguez was at the location where Tarango was last seen and in the truck traveling away from that location, before Rodriguez's mobile phone was turned off and disconnected from the network.

At sentencing, the trial court found numerous circumstances in aggravation (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 4.421(a-b)), and no circumstances in mitigation. The court sentenced Rodriguez to an aggregate sentence of 28 years to life in state prison, with credit for time already spent in custody. On count 1 (murder), Rodriguez was sentenced to 25 years to life, plus one year pursuant to the weapon enhancement. On count 2 (arson), Rodriguez was sentenced to the middle term of two years, to run consecutively. Additionally, as relevant here, the court imposed a $2,000 restitution fine (§ 1202.4, subd. (b)), a $2,000 parole restitution fine (§ 1202.45) that was stayed, a $30 criminal conviction assessment (Gov. Code, § 70373), and a $40 court operations assessment (§ 1465.8, subd. (a)(1)).

This timely appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

A. The Trial Court Did Not Err by Imposing Punishment for Both the Murder and Arson Counts

"Section 654 precludes multiple punishments for a single act or indivisible course of conduct." (People v. Hester (2000) 22 Cal.4th 290, 294.) Section 654, subdivision (a) provides in relevant part: "An act or omission that is punishable in different ways by different provisions of law may be punished under either of such provisions, but in no case shall the act or omission be punished under more than one provision...." (§ 654, subd. (a).)

"The trial court has broad latitude in determining whether section 654, subdivision (a) applies in a given case." (People v. Garcia (2008) 167 Cal.App.4th 1550, 1564.) Whether a course of criminal conduct is divisible depends on the intent and objective of the actor. (People v. Jackson (2016) 1 Cal.5th 269, 354.) Whether a defendant's actions constitute a single punishable act or multiple punishable acts is a fact-specific determination based upon whether the defendant harbored a separate intent and objective for each separate act or omission. (People v. Harrison (1989) 48 Cal.3d 321, 335.) If all the defendant's actions were intended to accomplish only a single objective, a trial court may find that the defendant had only that single objective and may therefore be punished only once. (Ibid.) "However, if the defendant harbored 'multiple or simultaneous objectives, independent of and not merely incidental to each other, [he] may be punished for each violation committed in pursuit of each objective even though the violations shared common acts or were parts of an otherwise indivisible course of conduct. [Citation.]' [Citation.]" (People v. Jones (2002) 103 Cal.App.4th 1139, 1143.) Objectives may be separate "when the objectives were either (1) consecutive even if similar or (2) different even if simultaneous." (People v. Britt (2004) 32 Cal.4th 944, 952.) "[M]ultiple crimes are not one transaction where the defendant had a chance to reflect between offenses and each offense created a new risk of harm." (People v. Felix (2001) 92 Cal.App.4th 905, 915.)

" 'Errors in the applicability of section 654 are corrected on appeal regardless of whether the point was raised by objection in the trial court ....' [Citation.]" (People v. Hester, supra, 22 Cal.4th at p. 295.) When reviewing a claim that "section 654 bars the imposition of multiple sentences, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the judgment and affirm the trial court's sentencing decision-whether express or implied-if it is supported by substantial evidence." (People v. Vasquez (2020) 44 Cal.App.5th 732, 737.) When a trial court sentences a defendant for two crimes, without staying execution of sentence for one, it implicitly finds the acts involved more than one objective. (People v. Osband (1996) 13 Cal.4th 622, 730-731.) Ultimately, "[i]f the trier of fact determines the crimes have different intents and motives, multiple punishments are appropriate." (People v. Saffle (1992) 4 Cal.App.4th 434, 439.)

Rodriguez asserts that because the parties did not address section 654 before the trial court and the court made no express factual findings regarding that section, our review should be de novo. (See People v. Valli (2010) 187 Cal.App.4th 786, 794 [appellate court "review[s] de novo the legal question of whether [§] 654 applies"].) We reject this argument as it ignores People v. Osband, supra, 13 Cal.4th at pp. 730-731 and People v. Vasquez, supra, 44 Cal.App.5th at p. 737.

Rodriguez argues the trial court erred in punishing him for both murder and arson because those crimes were committed during an indivisible course of conduct and pursuant to a singular objective: "the desire to be rid of the victim." Rodriguez further argues there was an indivisible course of conduct because "the arson was impulsively perpetrated to facilitate the murder." We disagree. Substantial evidence supports the trial court's implied finding that the murder and arson involved separate objectives and were divisible in time. Rodriguez's intent or objective in murdering Tarango was to end her life. His intent or objective in committing arson after he had fatally stabbed and strangled Tarango, concealed her body and other evidence of the murder in the truck, and drove the truck to another location before setting it on fire, was to conceal the murder and destroy evidence in the hope that he would not get caught.

Rodriguez primarily relies on Neal v. State of California (1960) 55 Cal.2d 11, disapproved on another ground in People v. Correa (2012) 54 Cal.4th 331, 334, but that case is distinguishable. In Neal, the defendant severely burned two victims by throwing gasoline into their bedroom and igniting it. (Id. at p. 15.) The defendant was convicted of both attempted murder and arson. (Ibid.) Our Supreme Court found that the defendant's convictions both "rest[ed] upon [the] defendant's act of throwing gasoline into the bedroom of [the victims] and igniting it" (id. at p. 18), and that "the arson was the means of perpetrating the crime of attempted murder" (id. at p. 20). Accordingly, the Supreme Court found it violated section 654 to separately punish both crimes. (Id. at p. 20.) Unlike the defendant in Neal, Rodriguez's stabbing and strangulation of Tarango was separate and distinct from his act of arson-both in time and in objective. The arson in this case was not part and parcel of the murder. It was an independent act that occurred separately after Rodriguez stabbed and strangled Tarango to death in a different location and was designed to spoliate evidence. The trial court therefore did not err in sentencing Rodriguez separately for his two distinct crimes.

Because we find Rodriguez's murder and arson convictions distinct acts with separate objectives such that section 654 does not apply, we need not reach his argument that should section 654 apply, remand is required for the trial court to consider its discretion to stay the sentence on the murder count and impose sentence on the arson count. (See § 654, subd. (a).)

B. Rodriguez's Duenas Argument is Forfeited

Rodriguez also contends that, under People v. Duenas (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1157 (Duenas), the trial court violated his federal constitutional rights by imposing over $2,000 in fees and fines without first determining his ability to pay them. Duenas was filed in January 2019; Rodriguez was sentenced nearly three and half years later in August 2022. Rodriguez did not cite Duenas or raise any issue with his purported inability to pay in the trial court, nor did he submit any evidence of an alleged inability to pay. His challenge to the ordered payments is therefore forfeited. (See, e.g., People v. Aguilar (2015) 60 Cal.4th 862, 864 [the defendant's failure to object to trial court fees precluded appellate challenge]; People v. Avila (2009) 46 Cal.4th 680, 729 [the defendant's failure to assert that court must consider inability to pay when imposing restitution fine and failure to adduce evidence of inability to pay forfeits challenge].)

We further reject Rodriguez's claim that the failure to object to the fees and fines without requesting a hearing on his ability to pay them constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. "To establish a violation of the constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel, a defendant must show both that his counsel's performance was deficient when measured against the standard of a reasonably competent attorney and that counsel's deficient performance resulted in prejudice to [the] defendant in the sense that it 'so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result.'" (People v. Kipp (1998) 18 Cal.4th 349, 366, quoting Strickland v. Washington (1984) 466 U.S. 668, 686 [104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674].) "A court reviewing the conduct of counsel must in hindsight give great deference to counsel's tactical decisions." (People v. Holt (1997) 15 Cal.4th 619, 703.)

Assuming for the sake of argument that Duenas was correctly decided, Rodriguez fails to show how his counsel's failure to request an ability to pay hearing fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. We can only speculate as to counsel's reasons for not requesting such a hearing; we further note that Rodriguez was sentenced to a lengthy prison term when he was approximately 40 years old, such that one can presume Rodriguez had the ability to satisfy the imposed fine and fees through his prison wages and future earnings. (See People v. Aviles (2019) 39 Cal.App.5th 1055, 1076.)

We have previously disagreed with Duenas (People v. Kingston (2019) 41 Cal.App.5th 272, 279-281), and the issue is currently pending before the Supreme Court. (People v. Kopp (2019) 38 Cal.App.5th 47, review granted Nov. 13, 2019, S257844.)

When the record fails to disclose why counsel acted or failed to act, "unless counsel was asked for an explanation and failed to provide one, or unless there simply could be no satisfactory explanation, [an ineffective assistance of counsel] claim must be rejected on appeal." (People v. Kraft (2000) 23 Cal.4th 978, 1069.) Here, counsel might not have requested a hearing because Rodriguez was in fact able to pay. Rodriguez likewise cannot establish prejudice from his counsel's failure to request such a hearing because the record does not indicate he is unable to pay the $2,070 at issue. His ineffective assistance of counsel claim therefore fails. (People v. Keene (2019) 43 Cal.App.5th 861, 864-865.)

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed.

We concur: ROTHSCHILD, P. J., CHANEY, J.


Summaries of

People v. Rodriguez

California Court of Appeals, Second District, First Division
Aug 8, 2023
No. B323011 (Cal. Ct. App. Aug. 8, 2023)
Case details for

People v. Rodriguez

Case Details

Full title:THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. FELIPE MANUEL RODRIGUEZ…

Court:California Court of Appeals, Second District, First Division

Date published: Aug 8, 2023

Citations

No. B323011 (Cal. Ct. App. Aug. 8, 2023)