P. v. J
06:17:2014
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<b>P. v. J</b><br />
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<br />
Filed 11/1/10 P. v. J CA2/8<br />
<b> </b><br />
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<b>NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS</b><br />
<b> </b><br />
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California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115<b>.</b><br />
<br />
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA<br />
<br />
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT<br />
<br />
DIVISION EIGHT<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable">
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<td valign="top" width="336">
<br />
THE PEOPLE,<br />
<br />
Plaintiff and Respondent,<br />
<br />
v.<br />
<br />
PJ,<br />
<br />
Defendant and Appellant.</td>
<td valign="top" width="336">
<br />
B217774<br />
<br />
(Los Angeles County<br />
Super. Ct. No. SA064654)</td>
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</tbody>
</table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. Eldon Fox, Judge. Affirmed.<br />
<br />
A. William Bartz, Jr., under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.<br />
<br />
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters and Susan D. Martynec, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.<br />
<br />
__________________________<br />
<br />
PJ appeals from the judgment entered after she pleaded no contest to five counts of drug possession, contending the trial court erred by denying her motion to withdraw her plea. We affirm the judgment.<br />
<br />
<b>FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY</b><br />
<br />
Acting on a tip from a confidential informant who bought drugs from PJ at her Beverly Hills apartment, and who later agreed to buy more drugs from her with money that had been pre-marked for identification, Buena Park Police Detective Tom Carney obtained and executed a search warrant for J’s apartment, where he found: 16.5 grams of marijuana, 6.21 grams of heroin, 762 milligrams of methamphetamine, 4.6 grams of cocaine, more than 100 alprazolam (xanax) pills, 50 ecstasy pills, 36 carisoprodol (the muscle relaxant Soma) pills, 17 hydrocodone pills, 16 diazepam/valium pills, 13 methadone pills, 5 adderal pills (a dextroamphetamine compound used to treat ADHD), 4 oxycodone pills, and 1 citalopram (the antidepressant Celexa) pill. Also found were 3 digital scales, 75 hypodermic needles, pay/owe sheets, client lists, empty Ziploc baggies of various sizes, and about $40,000 in cash. Included in the cash was $340 of the $350 in pre-marked bills given to the confidential informant. J told Carney she was the only person living in the apartment.<br />
J was charged with five counts of possessing the following drugs for the purpose of sale: (1) cocaine; (2) methamphetamine; (3) marijuana; (4) ecstasy; and (5) heroin. At the preliminary hearing, Detective Carney testified to the items found, and offered his expert opinion that, based on the quantities of the drugs found, along with the scales, cash, baggies, pay/owe sheets, and the pre-marked bills, that J possessed the drugs with the intent to sell them.<b><b>[1]</b></b><br />
The trial court denied J’s motions to identify the confidential informant and quash the search warrant. She later agreed to plead no contest to all five counts in exchange for a sentence of 3 years of formal probation and 180 days in either county jail or a residential drug treatment program. Before that sentence was imposed, J moved to withdraw her plea, contending that her lawyer, Alec Rose, gave her wrong information about what her sentence might be if she went to trial. According to J’s declaration, Rose told her the best result she could hope for would be conviction of simple possession instead of possession for sale. In that case, he supposedly said, the court still had discretion to sentence her to prison instead of a treatment program. Under Proposition 36, however, had she been convicted of simple possession, the trial court would have been required to send her to a diversion program, after which the charges would be dismissed. Because she believed she had a good defense that she possessed those drugs for her personal use only, not for sale, J contended she would have gone to trial had she known the true facts about her likely sentence.<b><b>[2]</b></b><br />
The motion was also brought on an alternate ground as to the ecstasy possession count: because the information alleged that J possessed ecstasy, but did not allege the actual chemical name of a statutorily-prohibited drug, she had pleaded to a non-existent offense.<b><b>[3]</b></b> The trial court agreed with this issue, allowed her to withdraw the plea as to that count, and then dismissed it. However, it denied the motion as to the other four counts. J contends we must reverse because she received ineffective assistance of counsel when Rose incorrectly explained the consequences of the outcome should she go to trial.<br />
<br />
<b>DISCUSSION</b><br />
<br />
In order to prevail on her claim that she received ineffective assistance of counsel, J must show: (1) her lawyer’s performance was deficient, meaning it fell below an objective standard of reasonableness under prevailing professional norms; and (2) the deficient performance prejudiced her, meaning that without counsel’s errors, a different outcome was reasonably probable. (<i>People v. Montoya</i> (2007) 149 Cal.App.4th 1139, 1146-1147.) Prejudice in this context would be established by evidence that without her lawyer’s incorrect advice, it is reasonably probable that J would not have agreed to a no contest plea. Factors to be considered include: whether Rose actually and accurately communicated the offer to J; the advice he gave, if any; the difference between the terms of the proposed plea bargain and the probable consequences of going to trial as viewed at the time of the offer; and whether J indicated that she was amenable to negotiating a plea bargain. J’s declaration about her intentions is not sufficient, however, and the claim must be corroborated by objective evidence. To that end, we may consider the probable outcome of any trial, if it may be discerned. (<i>In re Alvernaz</i> (1992) 2 Cal.4th 924, 934, 938.) These requirements are designed to prevent an unchecked flow of easily fabricated claims. (<i>Id.</i> at p. 938.)<br />
If we were to assume the truth of J’s declaration, we could agree that she received ineffective assistance of counsel when she was told that a conviction of simple possession for personal use would leave open the possibility of serving prison time. Under Proposition 36, such convictions generally lead to enrollment in a drug treatment program, followed by dismissal of the charges if the program is successfully completed. (Pen. Code, §§ 1210, subd. (a), 1210.1, subds. (a), (e)(1); <i>People v. Esparza</i> (2003) 107 Cal.App.4th 691, 699.) However, J cannot establish that she was prejudiced from this advice, because no objective evidence supports her claim. Instead, there is only her declaration, in which she states that she “always maintained a defense of possession for personal use of all” the drugs found in her apartment, and that she agreed to the no contest plea because she was told that even if her defense was successful, she might still serve jail time. Nothing in her motion explained the merits of her personal use defense or its factual basis. (<i>In re Resendiz</i> (2001) 25 Cal.4th 230, 254, abrogated on another ground in <i>Padilla v. Kentucky</i> (2010) ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 1473, 1484.)<br />
In her opening appellate brief, she points to evidence that Detective Carney also found in her apartment a glass smoking pipe with burn marks and a residue, and a piece of tinfoil that had black residue, both of which suggest she was using the drugs. That evidence appears in a probation officer’s report, which states that the information came from J’s arrest report. There is nothing in the record to identify the nature of the residue found in the pipe and the tinfoil. Assuming for the sake of argument that the residue was from some of the drugs, it suggests at most that J used some of them herself. This is far outweighed by the mass of evidence showing that her primary and overriding purpose was to sell those drugs. This evidence included the wide variety of drugs in her possession, the scales, baggies, pay/owe sheets, client lists, numerous hypodermic needles, and the large amount of cash, which included the pre-marked bills the confidential informant used to buy drugs from her. Combined with Carney’s expert opinion, we see almost no evidence that J possessed those drugs for her personal use, except perhaps incidentally.<br />
In short, we can easily discern the probable outcome of any trial: a conviction of possession for sale on all counts. The trial court told J that her indicated sentence upon such convictions would be seven years. Instead, she received a most lenient sentence of probation and six months in a treatment program. We therefore conclude that even with the correct advice about the sentence J would receive in the unlikely event she convinced a jury she possessed the drugs for only her personal use despite her simultaneous possession of all the other items indicating her intent to sell, it was not reasonably probable she would have gone to trial.<br />
In her reply brief, J contends that Rose provided inadequate representation by advising her to plead guilty to the ecstasy possession count when, as it turned out, that count was dismissed due to a pleading technicality – the information’s failure to allege possession for sale of the particular chemical compound, instead of the drug’s street name. According to J, the 52 ecstasy pills represented the only drug she possessed in a quantity sufficient to suggest her intent was to sell them. Without that evidence, she argues that her case for simple possession was much stronger.<br />
We disagree. Carney testified that all of the drugs were possessed for sale. The baggies, cash, scales, client lists, and pay/owe sheets are highly corroborative of that opinion. There is no evidence that the drug amounts she possessed apart from the ecstasy were insufficient to support a finding that her intent was to sell those drugs. In any event, even if the amount of other drugs was on the low side, when her possession of those drugs is combined with the many other items commonly used by drug sellers, it suggests only that she might have been running low on inventory.<br />
She also argues for the first time in her reply brief that she was prejudiced by Rose’s failure to obtain the disclosure of the identity of Carney’s confidential informant. We reject this argument for the following reasons: (1) it was not raised until the reply brief (<i>People v. Baniqued</i> (2000) 85 Cal.App.4th 13, 29); (2) Rose did move for disclosure of the informant’s identity, but the motion was denied, and J does not explain how or why Rose’s motion was deficient; and (3) disclosure was not required because the police acted on a search warrant issued after the informant made a controlled buy, the informant was not present during the later search and arrest, and J was charged with possession for sale, not the actual sale, of drugs. (<i>People v. Dimitrov</i> (1995) 33 Cal.App.4th 18, 30-31; <i>People v. Alderrou</i> (1987) 191 Cal.App.3d 1074, 1081.)<br />
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<b>DISPOSITION</b><br />
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The judgment is affirmed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
RUBIN, ACTING P. J.<br />
WE CONCUR:<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
GRIMES, J.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
O’CONNELL, J.*<br />
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<div id="ftn1">
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<b><b>[1]</b></b> Carney’s qualifications as an expert witness are not in dispute.</div>
<div id="ftn2">
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<b><b>[2]</b></b> There is no declaration from Rose in the record. Respondent alternatively contends we should affirm because there is an inadequate record, suggesting that the proper procedural vehicle for resolving this issue is by way of a petition for habeas corpus. As set forth below, we believe the record is sufficient to allow us to resolve the matter on appeal.</div>
<div id="ftn3">
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<b><b>[3]</b></b> Count four of the information alleged that J violated Health & Safety Code section 11378 because she possessed ecstasy for sale. That section applies to certain substances listed in schedules I, II, III, IV, and V of the California Uniform Controlled Substances Act. (Health & Saf. Code, § 11000 et seq.) Those schedules are found, respectively, at Health and Safety Code sections 11054, 11055, 11056, 11057, and 11058. None lists “ecstasy” as a prohibited substance. Ecstasy is made from the chemical compound 3,4-methylenedixoy methamphetamine, which is listed as a controlled substance in schedule I. (Health & Saf. Code, § 11054, subd. (d)(1).) Possession of that compound for sale is prohibited by Health and Safety Code section 11378.</div>
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* Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.</div>
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Description | PJ appeals from the judgment entered after she pleaded no contest to five counts of drug possession, contending the trial court erred by denying her motion to withdraw her plea. Court affirm the judgment. |
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