Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Fresno County No. F07800411. Edward Sarkisian, Judge.
David McNeil Morse, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Catherine Chatman and Tia M. Coronado, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
OPINION
Wiseman, Acting P.J.
Procedural History
Appellant Elizabeth Ruvalcaba was charged as an accomplice with attempted murder, shooting at an inhabited dwelling, assault with a firearm, and with being an accessory after the fact. Her husband and codefendant Omar Ruvalcaba was charged as the armed principal. During trial, Elizabeth sought and was granted a directed verdict on the attempted-murder count. Following a motion made by the prosecutor, the shooting-into-an-inhabited-dwelling and assault counts were dismissed with respect to Elizabeth. The remaining count went to the jury, which found Elizabeth guilty of being an accessory after the fact, a violation of Penal Code section 32.
At sentencing, the court suspended execution of sentence and granted probation with a number of terms and conditions, including serving 381 days in county jail, which equaled the number of custody credits Elizabeth had already earned.
Factual HISTORY
On April 29, 2007, Roxanne Cervantes called Elizabeth. The two engaged in a heated telephone conversation, which included name-calling. Elizabeth said she was going to come over to Cervantes’s house and “kick [her] ass.” At approximately 10:00 p.m. that same evening, Elizabeth and Omar arrived at Cervantes’s apartment. When Cervantes saw them pull up, she turned out the lights and ordered her children into the back room.
Elizabeth and Omar started banging on Cervantes’s door. Cervantes went to the window and looked out. Elizabeth and Omar told Cervantes to come outside and fight. Cervantes said she would not do that because her children were present. She told them to leave or she would call the police.
Timothy Allen was the manager of the apartment complex. He saw Elizabeth and Omar outside Cervantes’s apartment and heard them beating on her door. He approached the couple and told Omar to keep the noise down or the police would be called. Omar told him, “‘[d]on’t be stepping up on me.’” Allen then turned to talk to some kids on skateboards. He heard two pops and looked back to where Omar and Elizabeth had been. He saw Omar with a gun standing by the passenger side of a silver-colored Honda. He saw a third shot, the muzzle flash, come from Omar’s gun. Allen ran for cover. He testified he heard a total of seven shots. Moments later, he saw the Honda leave at a high rate of speed. Allen returned to the apartment and discovered that Cervantes had been shot in the abdomen. Cervantes also had seen a flash come from where Omar was standing.
Bullet holes were located in the apartment wall and window. Spent.357-caliber Glock SIG shell casings were found on the street near where Omar had been standing. Omar admitted owning a.357-caliber semiautomatic Glock SIG handgun, but claimed it had been stolen a month earlier, although he had failed to report the theft to police.
When interviewed, Elizabeth initially denied hearing any gunshots. She claimed that Omar had not fired a gun and stated that the two of them had left when Cervantes threatened to call the police. Elizabeth said that if Omar had a gun in his possession, she did not see it.
After a pause in the interview, Elizabeth was led to believe that Omar had admitted shooting at the apartment. Following this, she changed her story. She told police that when she and Omar went back to the car, and after she was in the car, but Omar was not, she heard two loud bangs. She believed they were up in the air. After she heard the bangs, Omar opened the passenger car door, which had been closed, and got inside. Elizabeth then drove away.
At trial, Elizabeth denied hearing any gunshots and said that she had lied to protect herself. She said after she learned that Omar had admitted shooting the gun, she knew his plan was falsely to admit the crime in order to get her back home with their kids. She believed her lies would help her own situation. In an attempt to explain the shots seen and heard by the witnesses, she testified that she saw another car leave at the same time they left. Allen confirmed another car had left at about the same time, but he said the car left like a neighbor trying to get out of the area. Elizabeth had not mentioned the other car during her interview with police. Both Elizabeth and Omar claimed throughout the proceedings that Elizabeth did not know Omar had a gun with him that evening.
Although he initially denied having his gun when interviewed by police, Omar admitted he fired the shots at the apartment complex. At trial, Omar claimed he had not fired any shots and that he had falsely confessed so that Elizabeth would not go to prison and his children would not be taken away.
DISCUSSION
Elizabeth claims there is insufficient evidence to sustain her conviction of accessory after the fact because the only evidence suggesting that she intended to help Omar is also consistent with the desire to help her own case. According to Elizabeth, the evidence does not support a finding that she intended to help Omar get away with his crimes. We disagree and affirm.
When an appellant raises a challenge on appeal to the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction, she faces a formidable task. To succeed, she must establish consistent with the rules of appellate review that no rational jury could have concluded as it did. We must evaluate the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution and presume in support of the judgment every fact a jury could have reasonably deduced from the evidence. (See People v. Rayford (1994) 9 Cal.4th 1, 23; People v. Ochoa (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1199, 1206.)
The crime of accessory after the fact includes the following elements: (1) someone other than the accused (a principal) must have completed the commission of a felony; (2) the accused must have harbored, concealed, or aided the principal; (3) with knowledge that the principal committed the felony; and (4) with the intent that the principal avoid or escape arrest, trial, conviction, or punishment. (Pen. Code, § 32; People v. Plengsangtip (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 825, 836.) To prove that Elizabeth was an accessory after the fact, the prosecution was required to show that she rendered aid to Omar, the perpetrator, with the required knowledge and intent. (People v. Elliott (1993) 14 Cal.App.4th 1633, 1641.) Any overt or affirmative assistance to a known felon may fall within these terms, including aiding by actively concealing the perpetrator’s crime. (People v. Duty (1969) 269 Cal.App.2d 97, 104.)
The evidence supports an inference that Elizabeth drove Omar away from the apartment complex with the intent to help him escape. (People v. Scott (1985) 170 Cal.App.3d 267, 270 [driving perpetrator away from scene of crime may lead to conviction of accessory after the fact].) Elizabeth had already expressed a desire to leave the scene and knew police were on the way. She was not armed and had no reason to believe, if her story is true, that she would be prosecuted if she waited for the police to arrive.
Instead, when she heard the gunshots, and she knew Omar was standing outside the car door, she allowed Omar to get into the car and she drove off, enabling him to escape. Although Elizabeth claimed at trial that she did not know it was Omar who had fired the shots, the jury was free to disbelieve her testimony. This is especially true in light of the evidence that the shots were fired while Omar was standing next to the car, coupled with Elizabeth’s attempts to cover Omar’s actions by claiming they left before any shots were fired. In addition, Allen testified that the car Elizabeth was driving took off at a high rate of speed. This supports an inference that Elizabeth was lying when she claimed she did not know that Omar fired the shots. To the contrary, it suggests that Elizabeth knew that Omar fired the shots and that she left the scene rapidly to help Omar get away.
Although the crime of accessory after the fact is not committed “‘by passive failure to reveal a known felony, by refusal to give information to [the] authorities, or by a denial of knowledge motivated by self-interest,’” it is committed when a person lies to police, with knowledge that the crime was committed and with the intent to shield the perpetrator. (People v. Plengsangtip, supra, 148 Cal.App.4th at p. 837, quoting People v. Duty, supra, 269 Cal.App.2d at pp. 103-104, italics and fns. omitted.) In determining whether a defendant had the requisite knowledge and intent to commit this crime, “the jury may consider such factors as [the defendant’s] possible presence at the crime or other means of knowledge of its commission, as well as [her] companionship and relationship with the principal before and after the offense.” (People v. Duty, supra, at p. 104.) We conclude there is sufficient evidence to support the jury’s conclusion that Elizabeth knew about Omar’s complicity and, by driving away from the scene and lying to police about it, intended to shield him from prosecution. The jury was free to reject Elizabeth’s claim that her actions were motivated only by self-preservation. (See, e.g., People v. Nguyen (1993) 21 Cal.App.4th 518, 527, 537–539 [mere passive failure to reveal crime, refusal to give information, or denial of knowledge motivated by self-interest does not constitute crime of accessory].)
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
WE CONCUR: Gomes, J., Dawson, J.