Filed 6/30/26 P. v. Fuentes CA4/3
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION THREE
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent, G065484
v. (Super. Ct. No. 96NF0476)
ALEJANDRO FUENTES, OPINION
Defendant and Appellant.
Appeal from a postjudgment order of the Superior Court of
Orange County, Richard M. King, Judge. Affirmed.
Reed Webb, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for
Defendant and Appellant.
No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
Alejandro Fuentes appeals from the denial of his petition for
resentencing under Penal Code section 1172.6.1 The trial court denied the
petition after issuing an order to show cause and conducting a hearing. Based
on the court’s review of Fuentes’s original trial record and additional exhibits
offered by the prosecution and Fuentes, the court concluded beyond a
reasonable doubt Fuentes was “guilty of murder under California law as
amended by the changes to [s]ection 188 or 189 . . . made effective January 1,
2019.”
Fuentes appealed. Appointed appellate counsel for Fuentes filed
a brief citing to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436, Anders v. California
(1967) 386 U.S. 738, and People v. Delgadillo (2022) 14 Cal.5th 216, and
requested we conduct an independent review of the entire record. To assist
with that review, counsel also identified a potential issue, which is whether
the trial court erred in admitting testimony from a codefendant’s separate
trial. Fuentes was given an opportunity to file a supplemental brief but did
not do so.
We have examined the entire record and appellate counsel’s brief
and find no reasonably arguable issue. (People v. Delgadillo, supra,
14 Cal.5th at p. 232.) We therefore affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
“Late on the evening of February 16, 1996, various members of
the Monos gang were drinking at the corner of Grace and Cypress in La
Habra. At some point during the festivities, founding members
[Esquivel] . . . and Edgar Cervantes . . . filtered away and drove to a residence
1 All further statutory references are to this code.
2
on Idaho Street. They returned to Grace Street around 4[:00] a.m. [Fuentes]
and Jose Gonzales . . . arrived around the same time in another car.
“Robert Holguin was also present at the street party. Fueled by
liquid courage, he announced his preference for the Monos’ sworn enemies,
the West Side La Habra gang. The statement prompted an argument, and
Holguin grabbed [Esquivel] by the throat. This sign of disrespect earned him
a severe beating from the assembled Monos members. [Esquivel] ordered
Mario Heredia . . . and [Fuentes] to drive Holguin home. But Holguin
apparently refused to leave the vehicle and was still in the car when they
returned.” (People v. Fuentes (Dec. 3, 1999, G022382, G024982) [nonpub.
opn.] (Fuentes).)
“Eager for a rematch, [Holguin] immediately grabbed [Esquivel]
by the throat. The Monos, [Fuentes] among them, quickly administered
another beating. [Fuentes] and [Cervantes] dragged the battered Holguin to
the corner of Grace and Cypress and deposited him there.[2]
“[Fuentes] drove a contingent of Monos members to a nearby
store. There, [Esquivel] announced they had to return and ‘finish what we
started, or it will be one of us tomorrow.’ On the way back, [Esquivel] stopped
and retrieved a ‘Tec-9’ handgun from another member’s residence.[3] The
group returned to Grace Street around 4:30 a.m.
2 The facts set forth in Fuentes, supra, (Dec. 3, 1999, G022382,
G024982) indicate “[Fuentes] and [Cervantes] dragged the battered Holguin.”
This sentence contains a typographical error. The record indicates a witness
identified Fernando Avina, not Cervantes, as the man who accompanied
Fuentes.
3 In Cervantes’s trial, Heriberto Vallejo testified Cervantes spoke
to Vallejo about the incident while they were in a court holding cell.
Cervantes told Vallejo they stopped at Cervantes’s brother’s house to get a
3
“Looking out her apartment window, [a woman] saw Holguin
lying face down on the street corner. [She] and her husband . . . saw
[Esquivel] walk towards Holguin. Four men were in a car near the corner.
One of the passengers left the vehicle and handed something to [Esquivel].
The pair knelt down and [Esquivel] fired at Holguin. When [the husband]
looked up, the car and the men were gone.[4]
“Monos member Jose Jimenez told investigators a slightly
different tale. He claimed several men, including [Fuentes], climbed out of a
car when they returned to the street corner. The group encircled Holguin,
and [Esquivel] shot him. They went back to their car and left the scene.
“La Habra Police Officer Rodney Ballard responded to a call
reporting gunshots and found Holguin near the corner of Grace and Cypress.
Another officer was already at the scene. Brass shell casings littered the body
and surrounding area. Monos graffiti marked a block wall near the body.
Surveying the scene, Ballard commented, ‘[I]t looked like somebody had been
executed.’
“Around 5[:00] a.m., [Cervantes, Esquivel, Avina, Gonzales], and
[Fuentes] arrived at [a woman]’s residence. Another gang member,
[Cervantes’s brother], came by with his girlfriend. [Cervantes, Esquivel, and
Gonzales] took off their T-shirts and put them in a pile. [Avina] wrapped a
gun inside the shirts. [Cervantes, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend] left
Tec-9 gun from Cervantes’s brother. Cervantes said he chambered a round
and handed the gun to Esquivel. Cervantes told Vallejo that Fuentes then
drove them to where Holguin was and Esquivel shot Holguin. At Cervantes’s
parole hearing in 2024, Cervantes denied getting the gun from his brother’s
house and did not indicate he had touched the gun.
4 “An autopsy revealed Holguin had over a dozen bullet entry
wounds and exit wounds.”
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with the shirts. [Esquivel] and Robert Corona . . . stayed behind. [Esquivel]
had a shiny handgun tucked inside his waistband. About a half-hour later,
[Esquivel]’s girlfriend arrived and picked him up.
“That night[,] Heriberto Vallejo . . . , [Cervantes, Corona, and
Avina] heard that witnesses were talking to the police about the murder.
They went to [Fuentes]’s residence but he was not at home. They gathered at
the crime scene to discuss their predicament. On a return trip to the Fuentes’
residence, [Fuentes’s brother] was advised to tell his brother to flee to Mexico
or keep quiet—or his family would suffer the consequences.
“[La Habra Police] Officer Russ Bauer testified as the
prosecution’s gang expert at trial. Bauer explained the internal hierarchy of
gang structure, i.e., a core leadership group, active members who follow
orders, and an associate level consisting of persons not yet ‘jumped in’ to
formal gang membership. According to Bauer, an associate member may or
may not participate in serious criminal activities and his personal loyalties
may outweigh any commitment to the gang itself. Finally, the ‘wannabe’ level
consists of individuals who merely adopt gang dress and mannerisms.
“To join the gang in a criminal activity, a participant must at
least be at the associate level. Based on [Fuentes]’s involvement with other
members, Bauer opined he was an active associate of the Monos gang. The
gang would never have allowed him to be present during the beating of
Holguin if he did not occupy a position of trust. Bauer also concluded the
murder was committed for the benefit of the Monos street gang.
“Fuentes did not testify at trial. Friends testified [Fuentes]
worked and helped pay the family mortgage. He did not hang out with gang
members or participate in gang activities.” (Fuentes, supra, G022382,
G024982, last fn. omitted.)
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Fuentes was tried separately from codefendants Cervantes and
Gonzales. A jury found Fuentes guilty of second degree murder and found the
firearm enhancement and criminal street gang enhancement allegations true.
The trial court sentenced Fuentes to prison for a term of 15 years to life and
imposed one year for the firearm enhancement.
In a 1999 opinion, another panel of this court upheld Fuentes’s
convictions. (Fuentes, supra, G022382, G024982.)
At his parole hearing in 2021, Fuentes stated that after they left
Holguin on the corner, [Esquivel] told Fuentes to go back so [Esquivel] could
“get more crystal meth.” [Esquivel] then told Fuentes to park the car about
“60 to 70 feet” from where Holguin was. [Esquivel] got out of the car, asked
for the gun, and shot Holguin. Fuentes also told the parole commissioners
that even if he had known they were going to go back to kill Holguin or had
been given the gun and told to shoot Holguin, at that time in his life, Fuentes
would have done so.
In 2019, Fuentes filed a petition for resentencing pursuant to
section 1172.6. The trial court appointed counsel to represent Fuentes. The
prosecution conceded Fuentes made a prima facie showing for relief, and the
court issued an order to show cause. At the evidentiary hearing on Fuentes’s
petition, the prosecution submitted copies of the reporter’s transcripts from
Fuentes’s original trial, Fuentes’s parole hearing transcript, portions of
transcripts from codefendant Cervantes’s trial, and a map. Fuentes
submitted a supplemental La Habra Police Department report, Cervantes’s
parole hearing transcript, and other exhibits.
The trial court took the matter under submission and issued a
minute order denying Fuentes resentencing relief finding “the prosecution
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proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that [Fuentes] is guilty of murder” under
present California law.
Fuentes filed a timely notice of appeal.
DISCUSSION
Fuentes’s appellate counsel suggests we consider whether the
trial court erred in admitting the testimony of Vallejo from Cervantes’s
separate trial. Fuentes objected to the admission of such statements.
“Under section 1172.6, subdivision (d)(3), evidence from ‘any prior
hearing or trial’ may be admitted at the evidentiary hearing, with a
restriction that the evidence must also be ‘admissible under current law.’”
(People v. Ramos (2025) 112 Cal.App.5th 174, 184.) The trial court here
admitted into evidence the transcripts of Vallejo’s testimony from Cervantes
and Gonzales’s trial. In admitting such testimony, the court found the
testimony to be declarations against Cervantes’s interest and admissible
under Evidence Code section 1230. A trial court’s rulings regarding
evidentiary objections are reviewed for an abuse of discretion. (People v.
Ramirez (2022) 13 Cal.5th 997, 1095, 1115; People v. Rowland (1992)
4 Cal.4th 238, 264.) The record indicates the court properly considered the
requisite factors for admissibility under Evidence Code section 1230. Nothing
in the record here suggests the court abused its discretion by admitting the
evidence of Vallejo’s testimony.
After an independent review of the entire appellate record and
appellate counsel’s brief, we find no reasonably arguable issues. We therefore
affirm the trial court’s order denying Fuentes postjudgment relief.
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DISPOSITION
The postjudgment order denying Fuentes’s petition for
resentencing under section 1172.6 is affirmed.
MOTOIKE, P. J.
WE CONCUR:
MOORE, J.
SANCHEZ, J.
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