Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Super. Ct. No. SF099547A
ROBIE, J.
A jury found defendant Antoine Laneir Slaughter guilty of crimes and enhancements arising out of a brutal attack on his former live-in girlfriend that lasted approximately 19 hours. Specifically, the jury found him guilty of: (1) torture; (2) rape by force or fear; (3) corporal injury to a former cohabitant; (4) dissuading a witness by force or threat; (5) false imprisonment by violence; and (6) obstructing or delaying a peace officer. The jury also found that defendant: (1) personally used three dangerous or deadly weapons (a bat, bed rail, and vacuum) during the commission of the torture, rape, corporal injury, witness dissuasion, and false imprisonment; (2) personally inflicted great bodily injury in the commission of the rape; and (3) inflicted great bodily injury under circumstances involving domestic violence in the commission of the rape, corporal injury, witness dissuasion, and false imprisonment.
The court found true a prior strike conviction and a prior serious felony conviction and sentenced defendant to prison for 68 years 4 months.
On appeal, defendant contends: (1) there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s findings that he used the weapons and inflicted great bodily injury in the commission of the rape, witness dissuasion, and false imprisonment; and (2) the court erred in the sentence it imposed. Disagreeing with these contentions, we affirm the judgment.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In February 2004, defendant and C. met at a QuikStop market and started dating. C. moved in with defendant a few days later. During their relationship, defendant hit her when he thought she was dating another man and had sex with her after she told him “no.” She never reported these incidents to police because she “loved him.”
In September 2005, C. ended the relationship and moved out. She began dating another man, although she continued speaking with defendant.
On March 10, 2006, defendant telephoned C. and asked her to help him find a birthday present for his father. She agreed, and he picked her up in his car. After they finished shopping, defendant picked up his son from school at about 3:30 p.m. or 4:00 p.m. Unannounced, defendant then drove them all back to his house.
At the house, defendant called C. into the garage. She complied although she had a feeling “something was going to happen.” Defendant followed her into the garage and closed the door. He accused her of having sex with his cousin. C. denied the allegation, although it was true. Defendant then grabbed her neck and hit her on the face, causing her to fall to the ground. She could not get up because defendant kept kicking and punching her. He then hit her on her back with a baseball bat causing the bat to break, hit her on her legs with a bed rail, “body slammed” her onto the cement floor, and hit her with a vacuum cleaner pole causing it to bend. C. was in “[e]xcruciating pain,” her back and one finger were fractured, and her face was swollen. She was unable to walk.
About 20 to 30 minutes later, defendant told C. to go inside the house to the bathroom. While C. was crawling to the bathroom, defendant took away her cellular phone. She was scared and thought she was going to die. Inside the bathroom, defendant “back-hit” C. on her lip. He ordered her to undress and “pop it” for him. While C. was undressing, defendant called his son to the bathroom and told him C. was a “ho” and to “just laugh about it.” Although C. was in tremendous pain, she danced naked in front of them while they laughed.
“Pop it” is a dance move in which a person “shake[s] [ones] butt.”
Eventually, defendant’s son went to his grandmother’s house, and defendant ordered C. to go to the dining room. He made her watch a videotape he had secretly made of the two of them having sex.
Defendant then ordered C. to go to his son’s bedroom. He followed her and started watching a pornographic movie while masturbating. He asked her if they could have anal sex. When she said “no,” he went to change the lock on the door and made a telephone call. It was dark outside.
After defendant hung up the telephone, C. heard a knock on the door and two women (one of whom was the girlfriend of defendant’s cousin) came to the house. Defendant told them C. was in the bedroom. The women entered the bedroom and told C. she was lucky because they would not beat her up as she was “already messed up.”
At 2:45 a.m. on March 11, 2006, Stockton police officers came to defendant’s house in response to a call that somebody inside had been beaten. They banged loudly on the front door and windows but left after six or seven minutes because nobody answered the door. Defendant had told C. if she told police the truth he would kill her.
Later, defendant resumed watching a pornographic movie and masturbating in the bedroom. He then got on top of C. and stuck his penis in her vagina. Crying, she repeatedly told him “no” and that it hurt. Defendant “just kept doing it” until he ejaculated on her thigh. Minutes later, at noon, the police returned to the house. When officers told defendant they were going to break down the door, defendant told C. that if she said something, he was “going to break [her] jaw.” The officers had to help C. out of the bedroom because she still could not walk. When they brought defendant out of the bedroom, he told C. to tell police “it wasn’t him” and “that he didn’t do it.” C. believed she would have died if the officers had not come.
DISCUSSION
I
Sufficient Evidence Supports The Jury’s Findings That Defendant Used The Weapons And Inflicted Great Bodily Injury In The Commission Of The Rape, Witness Dissuasion, And False Imprisonment
Defendant contends there is insufficient evidence that he used the weapons and inflicted great bodily injury in the commission of the rape, witness dissuasion, and false imprisonment. We disagree.
Whether a defendant used a weapon or inflicted great bodily injury in the commission of an offense is a question of fact for the jury to decide. (See People v. Masbruch (1996) 13 Cal.4th 1001, 1007 (Masbruch) [firearm use].) “Reversal on this ground is unwarranted unless it appears ‘that upon no hypothesis whatever is there sufficient substantial evidence to support the [enhancements].’” (People v. Bolin (1998) 18 Cal.4th 297, 331.)
The California Supreme Court has held that the phrase “‘in the commission of’” for purposes of weapon-use enhancement statutes must be “‘broadly construed.’” (Masbruch, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 1007.) This expansive interpretation has also prevailed in cases interpreting great bodily injury enhancements. (See, e.g., People v. Carroll (1970) 1 Cal.3d 581, 584-585.)
Masbruch provides an example of the evidence needed to uphold a jury’s finding of a weapon-use enhancement. There, the defendant asserted he “did not ‘use’ the gun ‘in the commission of’ the sex offenses because he displayed it only at the outset of his criminal activity, approximately one hour before he committed the sex offenses, and he left [the victim] several times during the interim to commit crimes in other parts of the house.” (Masbruch, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 1006.) The Supreme Court disagreed, explaining as follows: “In considering whether a gun use occurred, the jury may consider a ‘video’ of the entire encounter; it is not limited to a ‘snapshot’ of the moments immediately preceding a sex offense. Thus, a jury could reasonably conclude that although defendant’s presence with the victims was sporadic, the control and fear created by his initial firearm display continued throughout the encounter.” (Masbruch, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 1011.)
Masbruch applies here. Looking at a “video” of the entire encounter instead of a “snapshot” of the moments immediately preceding the rape, witness dissuasion, and false imprisonment, the following facts appear: Defendant isolated C. in the garage and accused her of infidelity with his cousin. When C. denied it, defendant repeatedly beat and kicked her with his hands and feet. He then hit her on her back with a baseball bat, hit her on her legs with a bed rail, “body slammed” her onto the cement floor, and hit her with a vacuum cleaner pole. Defendant’s actions left C. in “[e]xcruciating pain” with a fractured back and finger. She was unable to walk. “Having thereby incapacitated his victim[], defendant was free to commit whatever crimes he desired at his leisure and in any location.” (Masbruch, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 1011.) And he did. On their way to the bathroom, he took away her cellular phone and when they reached the bathroom he “back-hit” C. on her lip. In the bedroom hours later, he raped her despite her repeated protests. Minutes later when police arrived, defendant told C. that if she said something, he was “going to break [her] jaw.” C. believed that if the officers had not come, she would have died.
On these facts, a jury reasonably could find that the control and fear created by defendant when he beat C. with the bat, bed rail, and vacuum pole and inflicted great bodily injury on her continued through the 19-hour ordeal and that defendant utilized the weapons and inflicted the injuries as an aid in the crimes of rape, witness dissuasion, and false imprisonment. (See Masbruch, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 1011.) Thus, broadly construing the enhancements as we must, the evidence is sufficient to support the jury’s findings that defendant used the weapons and inflicted great bodily injury in the commission of these crimes.
Given the evidence we have recounted, it is not dispositive as defendant contends it is, that he “brought [C.] a glass of water, offered to bring her food, and accepted her refusal when he asked to have sex with her the first time.”
II
The Court Did Not Err In Sentencing Defendant
Under subheadings entitled “The Sentence was Internally Inconsistent” and “The Sentence Must be Vacated,” defendant makes the following four contentions: (1) the court’s imposition of consecutive sentences for rape and corporal injury was an implicit finding that these crimes were separate and therefore precluded the court from imposing “spousal abuse” enhancements on the rape conviction; (2) the court’s imposition of consecutive sentences for false imprisonment and witness dissuasion was an implicit finding that these crimes were not part of a continuous transaction and therefore precluded the court from “imposing enhancements which occurred during the commission of the spousal abuse”; (3) the court’s imposition of sentence for the enhancements of weapons use and great bodily injury on the witness dissuasion count must be stricken because the crime involved conduct that occurred after the police arrived and was thus separate from the events that occurred before the police arrived; and (4) “if this Court finds that all of the offenses (with the possible exception of the witness dissuasion charge . . .) were committed pursuant to a single objective, as part of one continuous transaction, then sentences on all of the remaining counts, save the rape charge, enhancements, and prior conviction must be stayed pursuant to [Penal Code] section 654.” We disagree with all four contentions.
The first three contentions rest on an argument we have already rejected, namely, there was insufficient evidence defendant used the weapons and inflicted great bodily injury in the commission of the rape, witness dissuasion, and false imprisonment. Having rejected this argument, we will not order the enhancements stricken as defendant would have us do.
This leaves defendant’s fourth contention, which fails as well. Defendant’s contention for a stay rests on his argument that “if the invocation of the [great bodily injury enhancement and weapons use enhancement] is to be justified as to the rape charge, it can only be on the basis that all of the acts, from the initial beating to the final act of rape, constituted one continuous transaction, with the single objective of assaulting [C]. If this Court should so find, then all remaining counts must be stayed pursuant to [Penal Code] section 654.”
The premise on which defendant makes his argument is incorrect. As we have already discussed, there was substantial evidence to uphold the enhancements because a jury reasonably could find that the control and fear created by defendant when he beat C. and inflicted great bodily injury on her continued through the rape and that defendant utilized the weapons and the infliction of injury as an aid in completing the crimes, including rape. That is not the same as finding substantial evidence to uphold the enhancements because all of defendant’s actions against C. had the “single objective of assaulting [C.]” As defendant’s argument is based on that premise, the argument fails.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: SIMS, Acting P.J., DAVIS, J.