P. v. Rodriguez
Filed 4/25/13 P. v. Rodriguez CA2/6
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for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 SIX
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
ANTHONY RODRIGUEZ,
Defendant and Appellant.
2d Crim. No. B240119
(Super. Ct. No. BA385961)
(Los Angeles County)
Anthony
Rodriguez appeals from the judgment entered after a plea of no contest to
denying his motion under Pitchess v.
Superior Court (1974) 11 Cal.3d 531 (Pitchess),
and that the calculation of his presentence conduct credits under former
section 4019 violated his right to equal protection of the law. We affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
At
11:15 p.m. on June 25, 2011, Police Officer Isaias
Medrano and his partner Officer Morales responded to a report of a robbery at 27th Street and Hoover in Los Angeles. The suspects were described as three male
Hispanic gang members and that one suspect was armed with a gun. As the officers drove on 27th Street, approximately one block
from the robbery location, Officer Medrano saw Rodriguez in the street. Rodriguez looked at the officers and ran
away. Medrano turned on the spotlight of
his patrol car and watched where Rodriguez was going. Rodriguez ran through a gate into a yard,
knocked on the door of a residence, and spoke briefly with a resident. The officers continued to follow Rodriguez
with the spotlight. While still in the
yard, Rodriguez pulled a gun out of his waistband, and dropped it into a
planter. Rodriguez was arrested and the
officers found a loaded automatic handgun in the planter.
Rodriguez
was charged with having a concealed
firearm (former § 12025, subd. (a)(2)), carrying a loaded firearm
(former § 12031, subd. (a)(1)), and unlawful firearm activity (former
§ 12021, subd. (e)). Also, a prior
conviction for a serious or violent felony was alleged.
On
December 1, 2011, Rodriguez moved to
suppress evidence that a gun was found in a planter because the police officers
had no reasonable suspicion to detain him or probable cause to arrest him. On December 5, Rodriguez filed a
personnel records of Officers Medrano and Morales regarding fabrication
of evidence, filing false police reports, and numerous other acts of purported
misconduct. An attorney's declaration
supporting the motion stated that Rodriguez intended to use the documents to
show that the officers filed a false police report and themselves placed the
gun in the planter. On January 9, 2012, the trial court denied the Pitchess motion and, on February 23, the court denied the
suppression motion.
Thereafter,
Rodriguez entered a plea of no contest to the
prior strike conviction was stricken.
The trial court sentenced Rodriguez to three years in prison.
Rodriguez
filed a timely appeal without a certificate
of probable cause.
DISCUSSION
Rodriguez
contends that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his
camera hearing. We disagree.
A
guilty or no contest plea admits every element of the crime charged and issues
concerning the defendant's guilt or innocence are not cognizable on appeal
thereafter. (People v. Voit (2011)
200 Cal.App.4th 1353, 1364.) As a
challenge to the legality of the discovery process, appellate review of a Pitchess
motion is included in this rule and generally cannot be challenged after a
guilty or no contest plea. (People
v. Hunter (2002) 100 Cal.App.4th 37, 42-43.)
Appellate
review of the legality of a
even if
plea of guilty
or no contest. (§ 1538.5, subd.
(m).) The merits of a trial court's
ruling on a Pitchess motion may be
considered in the appeal of the ruling denying a motion to suppress evidence if
the
is intertwined with the suppression motion and directed to the legality of
the search and seizure. (
137, 150-151 (Collins).)
Rodriguez
relies on the rule set forth in Collins
in his challenge to the denial of his Pitchess
motion. We conclude that the
with the suppression motion and cannot be reviewed on appeal pursuant to our
jurisdiction under section 1538.5, subdivision (m). In Collins,
the issues raised in the Pitchess
motion were the primary basis for the defendant's suppression motion. Here, discovery of information in the
arresting officers' personnel files was sought to bolster Rodriguez's defense
at trial regarding his possession of a gun, and not on whether there was good
cause for his detention and arrest.
In
his suppression motion, Rodriguez argued that the police had no reasonable
suspicion to detain him merely because he ran when the patrol car spotlight
illuminated him standing in the street; they had no reason to detain him when
he ran into the yard of a residential dwelling or when he stopped running in
the yard; and they had no probable cause to arrest him for possession of a
gun. In his Pitchess motion, Rodriguez sought discovery of prior complaints
against the police officers for filing false police reports and fabricating
evidence. The goal of the discovery was
to obtain information to utilize for impeachment purposes at trial.
Rodriguez
did not seek a ruling on his Pitchess
motion prior to his suppression motion.
And, in his appellate briefs Rodriguez notes that the suppression motion
was denied, but devotes his entire argument to the merits of his
on the suppression motion would have been affected by the disclosure sought in
his Pitchess motion. Finally, in light of the suspicious conduct
of Rodriguez before he threw the gun into the planter, documents from the
officers' personnel files would not have been critical to the suppression
motion.
Rodriguez
contends the trial court erred by calculating his presentence conduct credits
under a version of section 4019 in effect prior to its 2011 amendment. He argues that equal protection principles
require that he receive conduct credit under the 2011 amendment commencing October 1, 2011, its effective date,
to his March 2012 sentencing. We
disagree.
In
2011, the Legislature amended section 4019 as part of the criminal realignment
legislation intended in part to reduce "corrections and related criminal
justice spending." (
664, 679.) Under the 2011 amendment,
certain defendants became entitled to receive conduct credits greater than
under the prior 2010 version of the statute.
(§ 4019, subds. (b), (c).)
The legislation provided that the change "shall apply
prospectively" to prisoners in local custody for
crimes committed on or after October 1, 2011.
(Id. at subd. (h).)
Appellant committed the
instant offense on June 25, 2011, and was in county jail from that date until
his March 2, 2012 sentencing, a period extending from before October 1, 2011,
to after that date. At sentencing, the
trial court awarded conduct credits based entirely on the scheme set forth in
the 2010 amended version of section 4019.
In his opening brief, Rodriguez contended that
2011 amended version of section 4019 to
be applied retroactively to include all of his presentence custody. He argued that the 2011 amendment created two
classes of inmates, those who committed crimes before October 1, 2011, and
those who committed crimes on or after October 1, 2011. He claimed the two groups are similarly
situated with respect to credit entitlement, and there is no "rational
basis" for denying one group enhanced credits simply because he committed
his crimes prior to October 1, 2011.
As Rodriguez concedes,
329 (Brown), rejected this
retroactivity argument but, in his reply brief, Rodriguez contends that the
same equal protection principles entitle him to enhanced credits for the period
of his presentence custody after
October 1, 2011. In other words, even if
the 2011 amendment does not apply retroactively, failure to apply it to time
served on or after October 1, 2011, regardless of the date of the subject
crime, violates equal protection. Other
panels of the Court of Appeal have rejected this argument based on the
conclusions enunciated in Brown, and
we reject it as well. (
1546, 1553 (Ellis);
385 (Kennedy); People v. Verba (2012) 210 Cal.App.4th 991, 993 (
Rajanayagam (2012) 211 Cal.App.4th 42, 53 (Rajanayagam).)
"The concept of
equal protection recognizes that persons who are similarly situated with
respect to a law's legitimate purposes must be treated equally. [Citation.]" (Brown,
supra, 54 Cal.4th at p. 328.) The groups need not be similarly situated for
all purposes, only "for purposes of the law challenged." (Ibid.)
Even if the classes are similarly
situated, there is no equal protection violation if the statutory distinction
does not involve fundamental interests and the challenged classification bears
a rational relationship to a legitimate state purpose. (Rajanayagam, supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at p. 53.)
In Brown,
the Court concluded that prisoners who committed a crime before the effective
date of the 2010 amendment to section 4019 were not similarly situated to those
who committed a crime after that date.
"[T]he important correctional purposes of a statute authorizing incentives
for good behavior [citation] are not served by rewarding prisoners who served
time before the incentives took effect and thus could not have modified their
behavior in response." (
After
arguments virtually identical to those made by Rodriguez where a defendant's
crime was committed before October 1, 2011, but whose presentence custody
period included time subsequent to October 1, 2011. The arguments were rejected in all these
cases. Some of the cases concluded that
prisoners whose crimes were committed prior to October 1, 2011, but whose
period of custody extended beyond that date, were not similarly situated
with persons whose crimes were committed after October 1, 2011. (Ellis, supra, 207 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1552-1553; Kennedy, supra, 209 Cal.App.4th at
pp. 396-397.) Other cases concluded that
these groups may be similarly situated but there was a rational basis for the
disparate treatment with respect to enhanced conduct credits. (Rajanayagam, supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at pp. 54-55; Verba, supra, 210
Cal.App.4th at pp. 995-996.) Regardless
of the rationale, Rodriguez's claim fails under all of these cases.
judgment is affirmed.
NOT
TO BE PUBLISHED.
PERREN,
J.
We concur:
GILBERT, P. J.
YEGAN, J.
Monica
Bachner, Judge
Superior
Court County of Los Angeles
______________________________
Richard L. Fitzer, under
appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Kamala D. Harris,
Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Lance E.
Winters, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Victoria B. Wilson, Supervising
Deputy Attorney General, Seth P. McCutcheon, Deputy Attorney General, for
Plaintiff and Respondent.
name="_ftn1" title=""> [1] All statutory references are
to the Penal Code.
v. Olague (2012) 205 Cal.App.4th 1126, as supporting his position. The Supreme
Court dismissed review and remanded Olague
on March 20, 2013, in light of Brown,
supra, 54 Cal.4th 314; Cal. Rules of
Court, rule 8.5298 (b)(1) & (c).) (
1150606].)
