P. v. Robinson
Filed 9/27/07 P. v. Robinson CA2/1
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION ONE
THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. DAVID L. ROBINSON, Defendant and Appellant. | B188948 (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. YA060017) |
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Eric C. Taylor, Judge. Affirmed.
David McNeil Morse, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Margaret E. Maxwell and Robert David Breton, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
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During August, September and October 2004, David L. Robinson (dubbed the Dreadlocks Bandit by at least one local newspaper) committed almost two dozen bank robberies in Los Angeles County. On each occasion, Robinson either passed a note to a teller or simply demanded money, threatened to kill the teller, and said he had a gun or held his hand in a pocket to suggest he had a weapon. Following his arrest on October 30, he admitted during a videotaped interview that he had robbed an unknown number of banks to obtain money to buy crack. Robinson was tried and convicted of 20 counts of robbery and two counts of attempted robbery, and he admitted he had suffered six prior serious felony convictions (all for robbery), each of which qualified as a strike. (Pen. Code, 211, 664, 667, subds. (a), (b)-(i).) He was sentenced to state prison for a determinate term of 660 years to be followed by 22 indeterminate terms of 25 years to life (or 550 years to life). Robinson appeals, challenging only one of his robbery convictions. We affirm.
DISCUSSION
Robinson contends there is insufficient evidence to support his conviction of the crime charged in count 28, the September 28, 2004 robbery of the Golden Security Bank on West Valley Boulevard in Alhambra, because (he claims) there was no reliable identification by the victim and no clear admission of that crime by him. We disagree.
A.
An identification need not be positive to sustain a conviction. A witnesss lack of positiveness as to identity goes to the weight of the evidence, and testimony that a defendant resembles a robber or looks like the same man may be sufficient to constitute substantial evidence. Weaknesses and inconsistencies in identification testimony are matters to be argued to the jury, and the jurys findings will not be disturbed on appeal unless the identification testimony is inherently improbable or factually impossible under the circumstances. (People v. Allen (1985) 165 Cal.App.3d 616, 623; People v. Barranday (1971) 20 Cal.App.3d 16, 22; People v. Bozigian (1969) 270 Cal.App.2d 373, 378.) A defendants identity may be established entirely by circumstantial evidence. (People v. Barnum (1957) 147 Cal.App.2d 803, 805.)
B.
A teller who worked at the Golden Security Bank on September 28 (Tina Lam) testified that a tall Black man with long twisted or braided hair, a long face, and a beard, who was wearing a hat, came into the bank. Lam identified the man in a photograph taken by the banks security camera (Exhibit 38), and testified that he was holding something like [a] newspaper. When she asked how she could help him, the man said, I have a gun and gave her a note stating, Give me the money now. Lam opened a drawer and gave the man some $20 bills. Dissatisfied, he demanded hundreds. She complied and handed over about $2,000. The man ran off.
Lam was not sure of her identification at trial, but said the robber looked [a] little like Robinson. She explained that Robinsons build and facial features looked familiar although at trial his hair was shorter and he had no beard.
C.
During Robinsons videotaped interview by the police (which was played for the jury), a Torrance detective and an FBI special agent showed Robinson a series of surveillance photographs and asked him to identify himself. Robinson identified himself in all but one of the photographs (the one from a September 8, 2004 robbery at the City National Bank) and the interview transcript confirms that Robinson said at one point (and only one point), That, no, thats not me. With regard to the Golden Security Bank robbery, the interview transcript shows the following exchange:
[Detective]: Then heres Golden . . . Security & Loan on Valley Boulevard in Alhambra. Why Alhambra?
[Robinson]: I really dont know.
[Detective]: Just, where you going?
[Robinson]: Just, you know, Im high. Just, I was looking for something.
[Detective]: Okay. Heres another . . . .
After the detective went through all the photographs once, the FBI agent suggested they go through them again to make sure that we covered them all -- and said, if you dont mind, if you could initial each one if its the one that you . . . in fact did . . . . [I]f any of these are not you, just let me know, okay? Robinson then initialed all but one of the photographs (he initialed the photograph from Golden Security Bank).
D.
Lams in-court identification was fully explored by defense counsel, and carefully considered by the jury -- which requested and received a read-back of Lams testimony. Her inability to positively identify Robinson in court is easily explained by the change in Robinsons appearance and must be balanced against two critical facts -- (1) that she identified the robber as the man shown in Exhibit 38, and (2) that Robinson initialed the photograph of himself to confirm that it was, in fact, a picture of him.
To avoid this conclusion, Robinson insists the taped interview does not include a sufficiently precise and unequivocal admission of the Alhambra robbery. We disagree. The only reasonable inference from the transcript is that Robinson -- having been warned by the FBI agent to make sure that [he was] not just signing something, just to sign something, and to tell the agent if he was not the person depicted -- took full responsibility and credit for all but one of the robberies.
Moreover, Robinsons guilt of this particular robbery is proved also by his involvement in the other similar robberies which were part of one continuous two-month spree. The victims were all bank tellers; the robber was always a tall, Black man who did not use a weapon but suggested he had one, handed notes to his victims, demanded money or cooperation, insisted on $20 and $100 bills, and wore a beard and distinctive dreadlocks for most of the robberies.
This was not a close case.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.
VOGEL, J.
We concur:
MALLANO, Acting P.J.
ROTHSCHILD, J.
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