P. v. Vanek
Filed 4/2/13 P. v. Vanek CA2/3
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS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 THREE
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff
and Respondent,
v.
SAMUEL VANEK,
Defendant
and Appellant.
B227789
(Los Angeles
County
Super. Ct. No.
VA108590)
APPEAL
from a judgment of the Superior Court of
County, Lori Ann Fournier, Judge.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded with directions.
Jonathan
E. Demson, 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, Assistant Attorney General, Steven E. Mercer and
Sonya Roth, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
_________________________
Defendant
and appellant, Samuel Vanek, appeals his conviction, after a bench trial, for
felony child abuse with an
enhancement for infliction of great bodily injury on a child under the age of
five (Pen. Code, §§ 273a, subd. (a), 12022.7, subd. (d)).
The
judgment is affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded with directions.
Viewed
in accordance with the usual rule of appellate review (People v. Ochoa (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1199, 1206), the evidence
established the following.
1. Prosecution
evidence.
Cassandra’s
son Gabriel was born in February 2008.
military and, when they were deployed to Iraq in late April, they left Gabriel
in the care of Cassandra’s sister, Rebecca.
Rebecca
was living with defendant Vanek at Fort Irwin.
Vanek told Rebecca he was unhappy about having to take in Gabriel and he
asked her, “Why did you have to take the baby; I hate babies.†Gabriel slept with Rebecca, who fed and
changed him. Vanek, who took no part in
caring for Gabriel, became easily annoyed when the baby cried. Rebecca’s eldest son, Juan, who was 12 years
old at the time of trial, heard Vanek tell Rebecca: “I hate this damn baby. . . . Why did you even tell your sister that we
could keep him here?â€
Vanek
and Rebecca moved to La Mirada over the weekend of May 24
and 25. Rebecca testified that on
Monday morning, May 26, Gabriel was not feeling well. He was cranky, he only wanted to be
held, and he had been sick the night before.
However, his motor coordination was fine that morning and he was not
having any respiratory problems. After
Gabriel fell asleep on the living room couch, Vanek suggested Rebecca go out
and get her nails done. When Rebecca
left the house, Vanek was outside playing football with Rebecca’s sons
Juan and Devon, and her nephew Austin.
At one
point, the boys went inside for a drink of water and Juan saw Vanek coming out
of the bedroom carrying Gabriel, who did not look well. Vanek started to administer CPR to Gabriel
and told Juan to call Rebecca. Rebecca
testified that 35 or 40 minutes after she left the house, Vanek called her
to come home because there was something wrong with the baby’s breathing. When Rebecca asked if he had called 911,
Vanek said no and that he just wanted her to come home. Rebecca rushed home to find Gabriel very pale
and limp, his breathing light and shallow.
She immediately called 911. When
the ambulance arrived, Rebecca went with Gabriel to the hospital.
Vanek
took the three boys to an ice cream store.
On the way there, he asked which one of them would say he had dropped
the baby. Devon agreed to take the
blame; because he was the smallest of the three boys, it would make the most
believable story.
At
the hospital later that day, Vanek spoke to Deborah Phillipson, the social
worker assigned to Gabriel’s case. Vanek
apologized for having coached the children to lie about dropping the baby, but
said he had been afraid he would be blamed for hurting Gabriel. Vanek told Phillipson he had been outside
playing with the boys while Gabriel was asleep on the living room couch. Devon went inside to get a drink and Vanek
heard Gabriel crying. Devon came out,
but then went inside again and stayed for about 10 minutes. When Vanek heard Gabriel crying again, he
went inside to check. He moved
Gabriel from the couch to the bedroom, changed his diaper, and put him in
his crib. Vanek then went back
outside. He returned a short time later
to check on the baby and found Gabriel making weird noises. He shook Gabriel a little to wake him
up. When Gabriel did not wake up, Vanek
started CPR and called Rebecca to come home.
Vanek
also spoke to Deputy Sheriff Francisco Campos at the hospital. Vanek said after Rebecca left the house,
he was outside playing football with the boys.
When Gabriel started crying, Vanek and Juan went inside to check. They moved Gabriel from the living room to
his crib in the bedroom, and then went to watch television in the living room
with the other two boys. When Vanek and
Juan checked on Gabriel five or ten minutes later, the baby was gasping for
air. Vanek told Campos “he picked up the
baby and placed both hands underneath his armpits and lifted the baby and shook
the baby twice,†and that “the second time when he shook the baby
. . . he noticed the baby’s head just kind of fall back and [the]
baby’s eyes just closed.†Vanek said
that both times he shook Gabriel he had done so “softly.†Vanek also said he ran to the living room,
put Gabriel on the sofa and called Rebecca.
He briefly tried CPR, but got no response. Then Rebecca arrived and called
911. Vanek did not say anything about
changing Gabriel’s diaper. After the
ambulance left, Vanek “told the kids that somebody had to step up and take the
blame for what happened.†Devon offered
to do so. Vanek told Campos he asked
Devon if he had dropped the baby and Devon denied it. Vanek said he then “told everybody again that
somebody had to step up, and he did not want anybody to get in trouble. And he said that they agreed that Devon was
going to take the blame.â€
Juan
acknowledged having told Phillipson at the hospital that Vanek had done nothing
more than gently shake Gabriel to try to wake him up. However, Juan also testified he told
Phillipson this “because I was scared that he would hurt me if I said something
else,†and that actually Vanek had “a really hard grip†on Gabriel with both
hands.
Vanek
and his former wife, Sarah, have two sons.
Sarah testified Vanek’s volatile temper was one reason for their
divorce. Once when one of the boys was
about six months old, Vanek “lifted him off the ground by his arm [and] just
told him to shut up†because he was crying.
This incident concerned Sarah because she “never saw somebody react to a
crying baby that way.†Another time,
when the other boy was two or three years old, he was playing outside with some
neighborhood kids when he pulled a little girl’s hair. Vanek “just reacted and slapped him in the
head, and [his son] wobbled and then fell to the ground.†Sarah got upset and yelled at Vanek. On another occasion, after finding a letter
Sarah had written to a man who was in jail, Vanek “completely lost it; he “
grabbed a hammer and threatened to kill her.
Sarah ran outside and had her neighbor call the military police. Another time, Vanek shoved a chair at Sarah,
causing her to fall backward and break her elbow. Sarah told Phillipson, the social worker, that
Vanek could “go from zero to hot in a matter of seconds.â€
Vanek,
who was six foot three inches tall and weighed more than 200 pounds, had
pushed Rebecca around a few times in the past.
Once, when Vanek was angry at her while they were at McDonald’s, “he
pulled the food out of the bag and threw cheeseburgers in [Rebecca’s]
face.†This happened in front of the
children. Rebecca saw Vanek spank his
own two sons with a belt when they were four and five years old, a punishment
she considered excessive. Rebecca told
Vanek it was unacceptable, she didn’t want to see him do that again in her
house, and he was not to lay a hand on her children.
On
May 24, Rebecca and Vanek had gone to rent a U-haul for the move to
La Mirada. Rebecca went into the
office, leaving Gabriel and Vanek in the car.
Gabriel was in his car seat with a bottle. Because there was a long line inside, Rebecca
came back to the car to check on Gabriel.
She noticed there were marks on both sides of his mouth, at the corners,
which were consistent with the ring from the bottle, and also that the inside
of Gabriel’s mouth was a little bloody.
When Rebecca asked what happened, Vanek professed to have no idea what
she was talking about and said Gabriel “must have went forward and
. . . hit his mouth on the bottle.â€
Dr.
Sandra Murray, a professor of pediatrics at U.C. Irvine and interim director of
the Orange County child abuse service team, examined Gabriel on May 27 at
the hospital. Gabriel was in critical
condition. He had sustained damage to
the parts of his brain affecting vision, speech and motor skills. Although Gabriel had since showed some
improvement, Murray testified he would never be able to see, walk or speak.
Murray
opined Gabriel had sustained “abusive head traumaâ€
caused by a violent back-and-forth movement of his head. This violent movement could have been the
result of a forceful shaking of Gabriel’s body, which would have caused his
brain to bounce around inside his skull.
The baby’s injuries could not have been caused by gentle shaking, the
administration of CPR, having been shaken by a six- or seven-year-old child, or
Vanek’s alleged revival efforts. A young
child could have caused these injuries by dropping the baby, but only “from an
extreme height†and there was no evidence of this given Gabriel’s other
injuries.
2. Defense
evidence.
Dr.
Jean Carlin testified as an expert in psychiatry. She had interviewed Vanek to determine his
competency to stand trial and his mental
state at the time of the incident. Based
on Vanek’s self-told history of having seen military action in Iraq, during
which he had administered CPR to fallen comrades, and his self-reported history
of subsequent psychological troubles, Carlin opined he suffered from
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Someone suffering from PTSD could suffer flashbacks under certain
circumstances, even in non-combat situations; the person’s mindset and intent
could be affected by stressful situations.
Carlin also discussed an incident in which Vanek’s own newborn child had
suffered a serious medical condition, but Vanek could not be present because
the military sent him to Kuwait. This
could have affected his ability to think rationally when confronted with Gabriel’s
situation.
3. Closing
argument and verdict.
After
the presentation of evidence at this bench trial, the prosecutor argued to the
trial court that the evidence showed it was Vanek who had injured Gabriel: “[A]ccording to the witness accounts, and by
his own admission, defendant is the only person who handled Baby Gabriel from
couch into the playpen. During that
short trip, the baby, we know, was crying.
What efforts [Vanek] made, what physical shaking, tossing, throwing the
baby onto the playpen, we would not know.
The only thing we know is the physical evidence. The medical evidence established that the
baby suffered a violent, traumatic shaking during the time that the defendant
handled the child. [¶] When the defendant indicated . .
that all he did was to resuscitate the child by breathing into his mouth or
gently shaking, by that time the child had already suffered global
the defendant.â€
Defense
counsel argued: “The reason why we’re
here, Your Honor, is because both sides differ in what really happened. There is no disagreement that the child has
suffered a traumatic injury. That’s
clear by the medical evidence. What is
not so clear, contrary to what counsel believes, is what actually caused the
injury. Was it an intentional act by the
defendant, or was it an accidental act?â€
“I think if there were a violent shaking, there would have been some
evidence of some bruising, because then in that anger that counsel seems to
think that Mr. Vanek had towards this child, that anger would have
pronounced itself in a more forceful squeezing of that child during the
shaking. [¶] One of the things the doctor looked for on
the baby was bruises, and there were none found. Had there been bruising present, that would
have been further evidence of violence.
And we don’t have that. [¶] What we have here, Your Honor, is a very
horrible, tragic accident. That’s what
we have here.â€
When
the trial court subsequently asked the prosecutor, “So what’s your theory how
the victim sustained the injuries?â€, the prosecutor replied: “That the defendant, when he moved the child,
who was crying, from the couch into the bedroom, he . . . violently
shook the baby . . . shook the baby really hard to try to stop him
from crying.†“People believe that the
defendant changed the diaper, handled the baby in many different ways, causing
the baby to suffer this massive brain injury.
Even hitting baby on the playpen, which is on probably a soft surface,
but throwing the baby down after he violently shakes the baby to stop him from
crying. And by the time the baby stops
crying, he’s already sustained injuries.
So then he leaves out of the room, but he goes back a few minutes later
to check on the baby. Why? Because he knew he had done something to the
baby and wanted to make sure the baby was okay.
[¶] When he got back to the baby,
he could see what damage he had already done to the child, and that’s when he
is trying to give him CPR and other things to try to revive the baby himself
because he didn’t want people to find out what had happened.†“This is a case of circumstantial
evidence. Yes, it is true nobody saw the
defendant violently shake the child, but he was the only one that was with the
child during the time when these injuries occurred.â€
The
trial court then announced the verdict:
“This is a circumstantial evidence case.
Mr. Vanek was the only person alone with the victim . . .
who, based on Dr. Murray’s testimony, could have inflicted the injuries
sustained by the victim.
The defendant’s actions, the failure to call 911, attempting to
have one of the children take the blame for the victim’s injuries are evidence
to the court that he inflicted the injuries.
[¶] I don’t find that his actions
and the testimony that I heard is consistent with an accident.â€
1. The trial court erred by admitting evidence
of Vanek’s violent behavior toward other people.
2. The trial court erred by ordering Vanek to reimburse
defense costs.
1. Evidence
of Vanek’s other violent conduct was properly admitted.
Vanek
contends the trial court erred by admitting evidence of his prior abusive and
violent conduct toward persons other than the victim. This claim is meritless.
a. Legal
principles.
Evidence
Code section 1101, subdivision (b), allows the admission of evidence of a
person’s uncharged misconduct “when relevant to prove some fact (such as
motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of
mistake or accident . . .) other than his or her disposition to
commit such an act.â€
“Subdivision (a) of
section 1101 prohibits admission of evidence of a person’s character,
including evidence of character in the form of specific instances of uncharged
misconduct, to prove the conduct of that person on a specified occasion. Subdivision (b) of section 1101
clarifies, however, that this rule does not prohibit admission of evidence of
uncharged misconduct when such evidence is relevant to establish some fact
other than the person’s character or disposition.†(People
v. Ewoldt (1994) 7 Cal.4th 380, 393, fn. omitted.) “The categories listed in section 1101,
subdivision (b), are examples of facts that legitimately may be
proved by other-crimes evidence, but . . . the list is
not exclusive. [Citations.]†(People
v. Catlin (2001) 26 Cal.4th 81, 146.)
Hence, “[a]lthough evidence of prior offenses may not be introduced
solely to prove criminal disposition
or propensity such evidence may properly be admitted whenever it tends
logically, naturally, and by reasonable inference to establish any fact
material for the People or to overcome any material matter sought to be proved
by the defense.†(People v. Montalvo (1971) 4 Cal.3d 328, 331-332, italics
added.)
“ ‘On
appeal, the trial court’s determination of this issue, being essentially a
determination of relevance, is reviewed for abuse of discretion’ [Citation.]â€
(People v. Whisenhunt (2008)
44 Cal.4th 174, 203.)
b. Discussion.
We
conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the disputed
evidence because it was relevant to prove Vanek’s intent and the absence of
mistake or accident.
By
pleading not guilty, Vanek placed all elements of the charged offense of felony
child abuse at issue, including the requisite intent. “Defendant’s not guilty plea put in issue all
of the elements of the offenses.
[Citation.]†(
conceded, or merely not disputed, the issue of his intent. (See People
v. Jones (2010) 51 Cal.4th 346, 372 [“Defendant argues that only identity
was actually disputed at trial, and he did not dispute the perpetrator’s intent
to rob . . . . Even if
this is so, it is not dispositive.
‘[T]he prosecution’s burden to prove every element of the crime is not
relieved by a defendant’s tactical decision not to contest an essential element
of the offense.’ â€]; People v.
Steele, supra, at p. 1243 [“Even if [defendant conceded issue of intent to
kill], the prosecution is still entitled to prove its case and especially to
prove a fact so central to the basic question of guilt as intent.â€].)
Section 273a,
subdivision (a), provides: “Any
person who, under circumstances or conditions likely to produce great bodily
harm or death, willfully causes or permits any child to suffer, or inflicts
thereon unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, or having the care or
custody of any child, willfully causes or permits the person or health of that
child to be injured, or willfully causes or permits that child to be placed in
a situation where his or her person or health is endangered, shall be punished
by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison
for two, four, or six years.â€
“Violation
of section 273a, subdivision (a) ‘ “can occur in a wide variety
of situations: the definition broadly
includes both active and passive conduct, i.e., child abuse by direct assault
and child endangering by extreme neglect.â€
[Citation.]’ †(
778, 784.) “The language ‘inflicts [on a
child] unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering’ is most readily
interpreted as requiring general criminal intent.†(People
v. Sargent (1999) 19 Cal.4th 1206, 1219.)
“In Sargent . . . we
addressed the mens rea for a conviction of felony child abuse where direct
infliction of unjustifiable physical pain and mental suffering was
alleged. [Citation.] In Sargent,
the defendant had violently shaken his infant son, resulting in the child’s
near death. We concluded direct
infliction of unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, which in the
context of violent shaking was essentially a battery, was a general intent
crime. [Citation.] We noted the ‘actus reus . . . is
infliction of unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering on a child,’ and
that the ‘scienter for any crime is inextricably linked to the proscribed act
or omission.’ [Citation.] Hence, the mens rea for the crime was the
intent to perform the underlying injurious act on a child.†(People
v. Valdez, supra, at p. 786.)
Contrary
to Vanek’s argument, just because felony child abuse is a general intent crime
does not mean it has no intent element.
“Section 20 provides, ‘In every crime or public offense there must exist
a union, or joint operation of act and intent, or criminal negligence.’ (See also § 26, subd. Five [persons
incapable of committing crime include those ‘who committed the act or made the
omission charged through misfortune or by accident, when it appears that there
was no evil design, intention, or culpable negligence’].) Intent can be either general or
specific. ‘When the definition of a
crime consists of only the description of a particular act, without reference
to intent to do a further act or achieve a future consequence, we ask whether
the defendant intended to do the proscribed act. This intention is deemed to be a general
criminal intent. . . . General
criminal intent thus requires no further mental state beyond willing commission
of the act proscribed by law.†(
pp. 1214-1215.)
“Felony
child abuse requires a mens rea: the
defendant must willfully inflict unjustifiable physical pain or mental
suffering on a child.†(
19 Cal.4th at p. 1223.) “[T]he
proper burden of proof for a direct infliction situation is a general intent to
willfully inflict unjustifiable physical pain; ‘willfully’ is defined as when
someone does an act willingly or on purpose.
[Citations.]†(
1438, 1445.) Hence, whether Gabriel’s
injuries were caused accidentally, or
whether Vanek intended to violently
shake the baby, was a material fact in dispute.
As a result, evidence showing Vanek’s short temper with crying babies,
and evidence of his violence toward the women and young children in his life,
was admissible to prove Gabriel’s injuries had not been accidental.
Vanek
argues such evidence was unnecessary because the prosecution expert “clearly
and unambiguously eliminated the possibility that Gabriel’s injuries were the
result of any accident.†Not so. The question of intentional act versus
accident was very much a live issue at trial.
Although
Vanek did not testify, his version of events was introduced via the
extra-judicial statements he made to a police officer and a social worker. Vanek told Deborah Phillipson that when he
discovered Gabriel making weird noises, he shook the baby a little to try to
wake him up and then started doing CPR.
Vanek told Officer Campos he discovered Gabriel gasping for breath, so
he picked the baby up and shook him gently twice; then, when Gabriel’s head
just fell back and his eyes closed, Vanek briefly tried CPR.
During
the cross-examination of Dr. Murray, defense counsel repeatedly tried to get
the witness to concede she could not rule out the possibility Gabriel’s
injuries had been accidental. Defense
counsel did this by asking Murray the following questions: “Now, it’s almost impossible to determine
whether the brain injury that you found in this child was caused either from an
accidental or an intentional act, fair to say?â€
“Well, accidents can take any form, such as a baby of this age
. . . being entangled in a blanket and losing oxygen to the brain for
a period of time?†“Can there be a
combination of things, lack of oxygen and efforts to revive the baby that,
taken together, could result in the kinds of injuries that you saw in baby
Gabriel?†“Is it possible during the
period of concern that a person coming upon a baby that’s unresponsive would
possibly shake the baby in such a way that it could, not intentionally, cause
that type of injury?†“Could rough
playing with a child of this age cause those types of injuries as evidenced in
baby Gabriel?†“[Y]ou can’t pinpoint
precisely whether the injuries were sustained as a result of accidental or
intentional [sic], can you?†“[H]ave you seen cases in your experience
where initially it may have seemed like a nonaccidental situation, but then it
resulted as such?â€
Then,
during closing argument, defense counsel explicitly argued Vanek never intended
to inflict unjustifiable physical or mental suffering on Gabriel, and that
whatever injuries Gabriel suffered had been accidental: “The reason why we’re here . . . is
because both sides differ in what really happened. There is no disagreement that the child has
suffered a traumatic injury. That’s
clear by the medical evidence. What is
not so clear, contrary to what [the prosecutor] believes, is what actually
caused the injury. Was it an intentional
act by the defendant, or was it an accidental act?†“What we have here, Your Honor, is a very
horrible, tragic accident. That’s what
we have here.†“It’s a horrible,
horrible accident.â€
Hence,
Vanek was disputing the evidence of his mens rea, and that made the Evidence
Code section 1101 evidence admissible to show he had acted intentionally
and Gabriel’s injuries were not accidental.
In
People v. Evers (1992) 10 Cal.App.4th
588, the defendant was convicted of second degree murder and felony child abuse
arising out of the death of his two-year-old stepson. The Court of Appeal held the trial court
properly admitted evidence of the defendant’s prior felony conviction for
severely burning the child’s feet, as well as evidence the defendant had
previously inflicted such severe injuries on his own one-year-old daughter that
she was rendered a quadriplegic: “The
evidence was . . . admissible to establish Michael’s injuries did not
arise from accidental means. The fact
that Evers had abused the children in the past was relevant to show Michael’s
injuries were inflicted deliberately.
Evers argues the question whether Michael’s death was accidental ‘was
not in issue.’ Such assertion is not
supported by the record. While Evers
produced no evidence showing Michael’s injuries could have occurred
accidentally, defense counsel attempted to establish such fact based on the
circumstantial nature of the prosecution’s evidence. During closing statements, for example,
counsel strongly implied Michael’s injuries could have occurred from various
sources and not necessarily through Evers’s physical abuse.†(Id.
at p. 599; see also People v. Whisenhunt,
supra, 44 Cal.4th at p. 204 [prior acts of child abuse, which included
striking one- and three-year-olds when they whined or misbehaved, were
admissible to show intent and absence of accident in the death of another
child].)
We
conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence
showing Vanek had an extremely short temper and tended to act very violently
toward the women and children in his life.
This evidence was relevant to prove the intent element of felony child
abuse and to counter Vanek’s defense at trial that Gabriel’s injuries could
have resulted from an accident, rather than from intentionally inflicted child
abuse.
2. Defense
cost reimbursement order was improper.
Vanek
contends there was no substantial evidence to support the trial court’s order
that he reimburse defense costs in the amount of $268 pursuant to
section 987.8. This claim has
merit. We will remand so the trial court
may reconsider imposition of this fee.
a. Legal
principles.
Section 987.8,
subdivision (b), provides: “In any
case in which a defendant is provided legal assistance, either through the
public defender or private counsel appointed by the court, upon conclusion of
the criminal proceedings in the trial court, or upon the withdrawal of the
public defender or appointed private counsel, the court may, after notice and a
hearing, make a determination of the present ability of the defendant to pay
all or a portion of the cost thereof.
The court may, in its discretion, hold one such additional hearing
within six months of the conclusion of the criminal proceedings. The court may, in its discretion, order
the defendant to appear before a county officer designated by the court to make
an inquiry into the ability of the defendant to pay all or a portion of the legal
assistance provided.â€
Subdivision (e)(5) of section 987.8 provides, in pertinent
part: “If the court determines that the
defendant has the present ability to pay all or a part of the cost, the court
shall set the amount to be reimbursed and order the defendant to pay the sum to
the county in the manner in which the court believes reasonable and compatible
with the defendant’s financial ability.â€
Subdivision (g)(2)
of section 987.8 provides:
“ ‘Ability to pay’ means the overall capability of the defendant to
reimburse the costs, or a portion of the costs, of the legal assistance
provided to him or her, and shall include, but not be limited to, all of the
following: [¶] (A) The defendant’s present financial
position. [¶] (B) The defendant’s reasonably
discernible future financial position. In
no event shall the court consider a period of more than six months from the
date of the hearing for purposes of determining the defendant’s reasonably
discernible future financial position.
Unless the court finds unusual circumstances, a defendant sentenced to
state prison shall be determined not to have a reasonably discernible future
financial ability to reimburse the costs of his or her defense. [¶]
(C) The likelihood that the defendant shall be able to obtain
employment within a six-month period from the date of the hearing. [¶]
(D) Any other factor or factors which may bear upon the defendant’s
financial capability to reimburse the county for the costs of the legal
assistance provided to the defendant.â€
Hence,
“[s]ection 987.8 authorizes the court to order criminal defendants to pay all
or part of the cost of their appointed counsel after the trial court determines
the defendant has a present ability to pay.
The ability to pay includes the defendant’s reasonably discernible
future financial position, limited to the next six months. (§ 987.8, subd. (g)(2)(B).)†(People
v. Lopez (2005) 129 Cal.App.4th 1508, 1537, fn. omitted.) “The court’s finding of the defendant’s
present ability to pay need not be express, but may be implied through the content
and conduct of the hearings.
[Citation.] But any finding of
ability to pay must be supported by substantial
evidence. [Citations.]†(People v.
Pacheco (2010) 187 Cal.App.4th 1392, 1398.)
b. Discussion.
The
Attorney General asserts there was substantial evidence of Vanek’s ability to
pay because testimony showed he had served in the United States Army for a
number of years and was discharged about a year before Gabriel was injured. The Attorney General argues this showed Vanek
“had gainful employment for the years preceding his trial. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse
its discretion in imposing a relatively small fee under section 987.8.†Vanek responds that “[n]o evidence of savings
was adduced at [the] sentencing hearing, however, and respondent fails to
explain how [his] employment up until a year prior to the incident
. . . is relevant to his ability to pay attorney’s fees. [¶] In
the absence of any reference to savings, or even to [his] income when he was
employed by the military, the record is simply devoid of any indication of
[his] ability to pay attorney’s fees.â€
Vanek also argues that, “pursuant to the explicit terms of the statute,
[his] prison sentence is virtually dispositive of his reasonably discernible
. . . .â€
Vanek
is right. “The specific language of
section 987.8 expressly requires a finding of present ability to pay for defense costs.†(People
v. Nilsen (1988) 199 Cal.App.3d 344, 350.) Given the statutory presumption that, in the
absence of “unusual circumstances, a defendant sentenced to state prison shall
be determined not to have a reasonably discernible future financial ability to
reimburse the costs of his or her defense†(§ 987.8, subd. (g)(2)(B)),
the trial court should have evaluated Vanek’s financial situation before
requiring him to pay. (See
134 Cal.App.4th 1186, 1218 [insufficient evidence of ability to pay
defense costs despite Attorney General’s argument “that defendant’s husband was
a veteran ‘presumably drawing a Navy pension’ who ‘continued to be employed at
North Island Naval Station in San Diego’ â€: the presumption “about a pension is
speculation, not reasoned inference†and there was no “indication of the
husband’s actual earnings, or of the couple’s financial obligationsâ€].)
Hence,
we will remand this matter to the trial court for a proper determination of
Vanek’s ability to reimburse defense costs.
(See People v. Pacheco, supra, 187 Cal.App.4th
at p. 1403 [“we will instead reverse the judgment in part and remand with
directions for the superior court to follow the law and impose these fees,
consistently with the applicable statutes, only on the required determination
of Pacheco’s ability to pay themâ€]; accord People
v. Viray, supra, 134 Cal.App.4th at p. 1219 [“The order for
reimbursement of county defense costs is reversed for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.â€]; People
v. Lopez, supra, 129 Cal.App.4th at p. 1537 [“Since we are reversing
defendant’s convictions, the trial court will have an opportunity to reconsider
this attorney fee award in light of our observations.â€].)
DISPOSITION
The
judgment is affirmed as modified and remanded with directions. The conviction is affirmed. The order for reimbursement of defense costs
is reversed, and the matter is remanded to the trial court for a determination
of Vanek’s ability to pay.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
KLEIN,
P. J.
We concur:
KITCHING,
J. ALDRICH,
J.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1]
All further references are to
the Penal Code unless otherwise specified.
name="_ftn2" title="">[2]
All further date references are
to the year 2008 unless otherwise specified.
