Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County Super.Ct.No. RIF133054. J. Thompson Hanks, Judge.
John L. Dodd, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
No appearance on behalf of Plaintiff and Respondent.
OPINION
RAMIREZ, P.J.
A jury convicted defendant of selling cocaine base (Health & Saf. Code, § 11352(a)) and possessing cocaine base for sale. (§ 11351.5.) In bifurcated proceedings, the trial court found, as to each conviction, that defendant had suffered a prior drug conviction (§ 11370.2(a)), two prior convictions for which she served prison terms (Pen. Code, § 667.5(b)) and eight strike priors. (Pen. Code, § 667(c) & (e)(2)(a).) Following denial of her Romero motion, she was sentenced to prison for 25 years to life.
All further statutory references will be to the Health and Safety Code unless otherwise indicated.
People v. Superior Court (Romero) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497.
Defendant appealed, and upon her request this court appointed counsel to represent her. Counsel has filed a brief under the authority of People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436 and Anders v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 738 [87 S.Ct. 1396, 18 L.Ed.2d 493] setting forth a statement of the case, a summary of the facts, and potential arguable issues, and requesting this court to undertake a review of the entire record.
We offered the defendant an opportunity to file a personal supplemental brief, which has been read and considered.
FACTS
On November 1, 2006, a Riverside City Police Officer saw defendant, who was standing in an alley in a high-drug area and was facing another woman, pull her hand away from the other woman’s hand, which was palm up. At the time he saw their hands, they were three to four inches apart from each other. The other woman examined an object that was in her hand, looked toward the officer’s patrol car, cupped her hand, turned it over and put something into defendant’s right pocket. The entire maneuver appeared to the officer to be a hand-to-hand drug transaction. Defendant put her hand into her left pocket and the officer approached and asked her to remove it. Defendant had a white paper bindle in her hand. The officer asked her what it was and she said it was nothing, while crumbling it in her hand. Four or five white rocks fell out of the bindle onto the ground and defendant crushed them into powder with the soles of her shoes. There were cocaine rocks in the bindle and one larger one in defendant’s right hand pocket, weighing a total of 2.2 grams. Defendant also had on her person a razor blade, which is often used by dealers to cut rock cocaine into smaller rocks to sell, a one-inch square baggie and $57, divided up by denomination and placed in different areas on her person. She did not appear to be under the influence and had no devises in her possession for consuming rock cocaine, other than a Brillo Pad, which can be used in conjunction with a pipe to smoke the drug. The other woman had neither money nor drugs on her. After her arrest, defendant waived her Miranda rights and said the drugs found on her were for personal use. The officer told defendant that the other woman had no money and had told him that she had been trying to get some rock. Defendant told the officer, “If I hook people up for free, like a favor, later I get a favor.” Defendant never said that the cocaine found on her was not hers or that the other woman had given it to her. Based on his training and experience, the officer replied that the rock cocaine was possessed for sale. A prosecution expert testified that street level rock cocaine dealers frequently have small amounts of drug on them at any one time so if they are arrested, they won’t be charged with possession for sale. It was also his experience that such dealers, upon being arrested, claim the drugs they have on them are merely for personal use. He also testified that to “hook [someone] up” meant to get them drugs. He had never seen anyone ingest drugs in the area where defendant was arrested. He opined that defendant possessed the rock cocaine for sale. The parties stipulated that defendant knew the substance in her possession was rock cocaine.
Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436 (Miranda).
A. Defendant’s Contentions.
Defendant contends there was insufficient evidence presented that she intended to sell the cocaine base. However, the facts, as stated above, more than sufficiently support the jury’s verdicts.
Defendant contends that “The evidence admitted at trial was a violation of the statutes.” She does not specify what evidence or what statutes. In support of her position, she cites People v. Redmond (1969) 71 Cal.2d 745, 755, United States v. Trung Huu Truong (10th Cir. 2005) 425 F.3d 1282, and United States v. Williams (2d Cir. 2001) 247 F.3d 353. Nothing in those cases assists defendant’s position.
Defendant contends that the trial court erred in denying her Romero motion. The trial court stated that it had considered and weighed the facts that defendant did not have an extensive juvenile record or a number of parole violations, that her prior drug conviction and her eight strikes had occurred in 1988 and 1989, respectively, and that the current offense was nonviolent and involved a small quantity of drugs. Still, the trial court concluded, defendant was not outside the spirit of the “Three Strikes” law. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in so concluding. (People v. Williams (1998) 17 Cal.4th 148, 161) Defendant committed the same crime for which she was convicted here in 1988. She had been given probation for those offenses. The following year, she was convicted of eight counts of robbery and one count of attempted robbery, during all of which she used a firearm. These convictions arose from her robbing bank customers at three different ATM machines during one evening. According to the prosecutor, defendant and her cohorts stuck a gun to the head or torso of each victim as he or she attempted to use the ATM. For these crimes, she was sentenced to prison for 13 years. She was paroled in 1996 and discharged from parole in 1999. That same year, she committed a petty theft, for which, due to the robbery priors, she was convicted of a felony under Penal Code section 666. She was sentenced to prison for five and one-half years. She was paroled in 2004 and discharged from parole in 2005. At that point, she moved from Compton to Riverside. These crimes were committed the following year, when defendant was 39 years old. Thus, despite the passage of 18 years since her life of crime began and two significant stints in prison, defendant has still not learned how to lead a crime-free life. Defendant is precisely the type of repeat offender for whom the Three Strikes law was intended.
Finally, defendant contends that a statement was improperly admitted at trial, which was misleading to the jurors and was used “for trial impeachment.” As before, she does not specify what that statement was. First, no statements were used to impeach defendant because she did not testify. The only inculpatory statement defendant made which was admitted at trial was that she gave the other woman the drugs for free in anticipation of the woman doing something for her in the future. Contrary to defendant’s assertions, this statement was neither improperly admitted nor misleading to the jury. It was made after defendant had waived her Miranda rights and agreed to talk to the officer. It was both an admission of a party and an admission against interest, (Evid. Code, §§ 1220, 1230) and therefore admissible.
We have now concluded our independent review of the record and find no arguable issues.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: McKINSTER, J., MILLER, J.