Filed 10/19/26 P. v. Dimacali CA2/4
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION FOUR
THE PEOPLE, B343842
Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No. BA503740)
v.
PHILLIP MARTIN DIMACALI,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County,
James R. Dabney, Judge. Affirmed.
Sylvia W. Beckham, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for
Defendant and Appellant.
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Chief Assistant
Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Wyatt
E. Bloomfield and Chelsea Zaragoza, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff
and Respondent.
INTRODUCTION
Phillip Dimacali, a member of the Highland Park criminal street gang,
was charged with two murders and other related crimes. He was convicted
and now appeals, claiming first that the trial court erred in admitting certain
impeachment evidence on rebuttal, and second that his counsel provided
ineffective assistance by failing to object and forestall the admission of other
impeachment evidence. We see no error and therefore affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I. Rojas Murder
On the evening of November 27, 2021, Steven Rojas went to a family
party in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles with his girlfriend
Edith.1 At around 11:00 p.m., Rojas and Edith left the party to look for
Rojas’s cousin, who had had too much to drink. As they searched, Edith saw
a black car parked across the street and Rojas went to check if someone was
inside. Rojas walked by the car, did not recognize its occupant, and kept
going. He went around the corner and out of Edith’s sight.
Surveillance footage showed what happened next. As Rojas walked
down the sidewalk, he passed a white Toyota Camry. Someone got out of the
vehicle, approached Rojas, and shot him multiple times. Edith heard the
shots and called 911. Rojas died of his wounds the next day.
1 At trial, certain percipient witnesses were identified only by their first
names and the first initial of their surnames. Therefore, we refer to them by
first names here. We intend no disrespect.
2
II. Cisneros Murder
At about 11:00 p.m. on the evening of January 23, 2022, Marlon
Cisneros and his sister Cynthia were walking down Avenue 38 in the Mount
Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, going from their residence to a
local store to buy beer. That portion of Avenue 38 resembles an alley,
without sidewalks, and as they went, a grey Ford Flex with tinted windows
approached them. Cisneros and Cyntha split up and moved to opposite sides
of the street to allow the car to pass between them.
Instead, the vehicle stopped, with Cisneros on the passenger side and
Cynthia on the driver’s side. Cynthia heard someone inside the car ask
Cisneros where he was from, and the question was immediately followed by a
gunshot. The vehicle pulled away. The shot killed Cisneros.
Later that evening, the Flex pulled up in front of the house of Frankie
Hooper, a member of the Avenues gang. Surveillance footage showed
someone inside the vehicle firing at least five shots at the house, and
someone else returning fire.
The Flex pulled away again and parked on a nearby street. It then
followed Irvin Talag, who passed by in his truck on his way to work. Talag’s
truck was equipped with cameras facing both forward and rearward. When
Talag stopped at a stop sign, the driver of the Flex extended his left arm out
of the vehicle and fired two shots. Talag executed a right turn; the Flex
turned left and followed him no further.
III. The Investigation
Although the surveillance footage was not sufficient to identify any
shooter, police were able to identify the Ford Flex as belonging to Dimacali’s
sister, Cheyenne Gallegos. Dimacali had borrowed it from her on the night
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Cisneros was killed. Searches of Dimacali’s social media accounts and phone
revealed that Dimacali had taken a video of the location where Rojas was
murdered, approximately three minutes before the shooting. Dimacali also
sent a text message to a Highland Park associate the day after the Rojas
murder: “Spot em. Got em.” After the Cisneros murder, Dimacali sent
messages to another associate saying he “2 for 1’d em last night . . . solo dolo”
and “gotta up the annie.”2
A search warrant executed at Dimacali’s mother’s house found two
loaded firearms under the couch in the living room. Dimacali’s driver’s
license and vaccination card were also found in the room. Dimacali admitted
ownership of the firearms, neither of which was used in the murders.
Dimacali was arrested on the morning of March 9, 2022. He was the
subject of a Perkins operation3 before being formally interviewed three times.
During the third interview, he confessed to shooting Rojas and Cisneros.
III. Trial
Dimacali was charged with two counts of murder (Penal Code § 187,
subd. (a)),4 one count of shooting at an uninhabited building (§ 247, subd. (b)),
one count of assault with a firearm (§ 245, subd. (b)), and four counts of
possession of a firearm by a felon (§ 29800, subd. (a)(1)). He was tried in
2 Presumably Dimacali meant “up the ante.”
3 In a Perkins operation, a suspect is placed in a cell with an undercover
agent of law enforcement who asks questions designed to elicit information.
The name comes from Illinois v. Perkins (1990) 496 U.S. 292, in which the
United States Supreme Court held that Miranda warnings were not required
in such a scenario.
4 All future statutory references are to the Penal Code.
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December 2024. During the prosecution’s case in chief, the jury heard
testimony from Edith, Cynthia, Talag, Gallegos, a medical examiner, and
various police officers.
The prosecution used gang evidence to explain Dimacali’s motives. The
Highland Park gang’s primary rival is the Avenues gang. During the time of
the Rojas and Cisneros murders, there was a war in progress between
Avenues and Highland Park. Although neither Rojas nor Cisneros was a
gang member, the murders both occurred in territory claimed by the
Avenues. As already noted, the Cisneros murder was immediately followed
by an attack on the house of an Avenues member, Hooper. The prosecution
argued the attacks were driven by Dimacali’s allegiance to Highland Park
and hatred of Avenues.
Against the advice of his trial counsel, Dimacali testified in his own
defense. Dimacali denied killing either Rojas or Cisneros and denied
shooting at Hooper’s house.5 Dimacali claimed his earlier confessions were
lies to divert suspicion from the actual shooters, who were younger than he,
but whom he would not name. Naming them would make him a “snitch” and
endanger his life.
The prosecution introduced further gang evidence in rebuttal, including
testimony from a gang expert that younger gang members commonly take the
blame for the actions of an older member, but older gang members do not
take the blame for actions of a younger member. The expert also testified
that gangs have rules against “drive-by” shootings, so a gang member is
extremely unlikely to fire from a vehicle (as happened when Cisneros was
5 Dimacali admitted to firing shots behind Talag’s vehicle but claimed he
fired in the air rather than at Talag, attempting to get Talag to either drive
faster or move out of his way.
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killed) unless he is alone. Finally, the prosecution introduced recordings of
Dimacali’s police interviews, showing Dimacali providing information on
other gang members and suggesting Dimacali’s fear of snitching was not the
reason he failed to name the supposed killers.
The jury returned a verdict finding Dimacali guilty on all counts.
Dimacali was subsequently sentenced to life without possibility of parole plus
25 years on each murder count, 28 years on the count of assault with a
firearm, 2 years on the count of shooting at an uninhabited dwelling house,
and 6 years on each count of possession of a firearm by a felon.6
Dimacali timely appealed.
DISCUSSION
Dimacali challenges only the murder convictions. He focuses his
challenge on the rebuttal phase of the trial, claiming the trial court
improperly overruled defense counsel’s objections to certain gang evidence,
and defense counsel provided ineffective assistance in failing to object to
other evidence.7 We are not persuaded.
I. Evidentiary Rulings
We review the trial court’s evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion.
6 The 2-year term for shooting at an uninhabited dwelling was to run
consecutively to the 28-year term for assault with a firearm. The 6-year
terms for possession of a firearm by a felon were to run concurrently with the
28-year term for assault with a firearm.
7 Although the first section in Dimacali’s argument discusses the trial
court’s ruling on a motion in limine, he does not argue that the ruling was in
error.
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(People v. Thomas (2021) 64 Cal.App.5th 924, 970.) We find none here.
Dimacali starts by asserting that the prosecutor conducted an improper
cross-examination of Dimacali to “lay a foundation” for rebuttal evidence that
amounts to impeachment on a collateral matter. However, to the extent this
is an independent argument, it is underdeveloped. Dimacali provides a
handful of citations defining “collateral matters” and then quotes People v.
Lavergne (1971) 4 Cal.3d 735, 744: “[a] party may not cross-examine a
witness upon collateral matters for the purpose of eliciting something to be
contradicted.” But this is followed only by a factual description of the cross-
examination of Dimacali, noting various questions and objections both
sustained and overruled. While this may be useful background, it is not
proper argument and we will not consider it. (See People v. Stanley (1995) 10
Cal.4th 764, 793 (Stanley).) Dimacali fails to identify and discuss the alleged
defects in the prosecution’s questioning with any specificity.
Dimacali challenges the court’s admission of two video recordings
showing portions of Dimacali’s police interviews.8 The first showed Dimacali
talking about how the Highland Park gang collects money, identifying the
person who actually received the funds, the person who counted them, and
the two higher-ups who served as “the face” and “the voice” of the gang.
Dimacali argues none of this was relevant. But it was.
On direct examination, Dimacali refused to identify any of the people
he claimed were in the cars with him, or the people he claimed were the
actual shooters. The reason he gave for his refusal was that by informing on
these people, “I could be a victim as well as my family.” He testified that he
had been “entrenched” in the Highland Park gang, and being labeled as a
8 The recordings themselves are not included in the record on appeal; we
have only the transcripts.
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“snitch” or “rat” would put both him and his family in jeopardy. Dimacali
claimed that his desire to avoid snitching on others was the only reason he
confessed to the murders himself.
To test Dimacali’s claims about being entrenched in the gang and his
consequent fear of being labeled a snitch, the prosecutor cross-examined
Dimacali about how the gang collects money through illicit “taxes” on
community members. Dimacali denied any involvement in the process and
any knowledge of the people who did. The first recording directly impeached
that testimony, showing Dimacali as deeply involved with the gang and yet
clearly unafraid of divulging information about other members. It
undermined Dimacali’s credibility on a point near to the heart of the case: his
claimed fear of being labeled a snitch.
The same reasoning applies to the second challenged recording, which
shows Dimacali explaining the operations and motivations of the Mexican
mafia, including the members who controlled the Avenues and Highland
Park gangs. If Dimacali was entrenched enough to know all this and willing
to talk about it, the jury might fairly doubt whether Dimacali was truly
afraid of being labeled a snitch. And since that claimed fear was his only
proffered reason for falsely confessing, evidence to impeach the claim was
directly relevant.
Admission of these recordings was not error.
II. Assistance of Counsel
To establish ineffective assistance of counsel, Dimacali must show an
error so serious that counsel ceased to function as a reasonable professional,
resulting in prejudice to the defense. (Weaver v. Massachusetts (2017) 582
U.S. 286, 299–300.) “[D]eciding whether to object is inherently tactical, and
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the failure to object will rarely establish ineffective assistance.” (People v.
Hillhouse (2002) 27 Cal.4th 469, 502.)
Dimacali argues his counsel should have objected to a line of questions
the prosecutor asked him during cross-examination, beginning with whether
he knew “who was running all the drugs into northeast LA.” Dimacali denied
any such knowledge, and now complains counsel’s failure to object gave the
prosecutor an opening to introduce evidence of his knowledge on rebuttal.
But defense counsel did object to that initial question, the objection was
overruled, and Dimacali does not challenge that ruling on appeal. The
questions to which defense counsel did not object posed Dimacali a
hypothetical—if he did know who was running drugs into northeast Los
Angeles, would he tell? Dimacali responded that he would not. Counsel had
no reason to object to these questions and answers, as they directly supported
Dimacali’s story—he was scared to be labeled a snitch.
Next, Dimacali suggests his counsel should have objected to more of the
police interview recordings played during rebuttal: recordings of Dimacali
discussing the drug trade, auto theft rings, graffiti, the leadership and
politics of the Highland Park gang, and various other gang-related activity.
There are two problems with this argument. First, it is not clear an objection
to these clips would have been proper or effectual, and Dimacali provides no
focused discussion on that point. (See Stanley, supra, 10 Cal.4th at p. 793.)
Second, as the Attorney General observes, defense counsel had a clear
tactical reason not to object: Dimacali’s recantation of his confession hinged
on the claim that he falsely confessed rather than be labeled a snitch. The
predicate to that claim was that he was deeply involved in the gang, had
friends and relations to protect, and something to fear. These recordings
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supported that point.
Finally, Dimacali faults counsel for expressly declining a limiting
instruction from the court related to a video recording mentioned in the
previous section; the one that showed Dimacali discussing the operations and
motivations of Mexican mafia members. The court offered to instruct the jury
that the recording was admitted for the sole purposes of impeachment. But
there are apparent tactical reasons to decline such an offer. In the recording
at issue, Dimacali appears to be somewhat removed from the things he
discusses, making statements like “I don’t know him” and “I’m not a member”
and comparing his own prison designation as “just regular Inmate Dimacali”
to other inmates designated as mafia members. An instruction that the
recording was only offered for impeachment purposes might have the reverse
of the intended effect by calling the jury’s attention to the recording and
inviting them to ponder how the recording might impeach Dimacali.
III. Conclusion
This case was well tried by the court below and both trial counsel.
Because we find no error in the first instance, we need not discuss Dimacali’s
arguments regarding cumulative error or prejudice.
DISPOSITION
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
ZUKIN, P. J.
We concur:
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MORI, J. TAMZARIAN, J.
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