People v. Armas

Filed 12/11/24

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

THE PEOPLE, D082091

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v. (Super. Ct. No. FWV18003945)

ANTONIO GERMAN ARMAS,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of San Bernardino County, Mary E. Fuller, Judge. Dismissed as moot. Eric Multhaup, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Assistant Attorney General, A. Natasha Cortina and Kelley Johnson, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. A jury convicted Antonio German Armas of one count of distributing

child pornography (Pen. Code,1 § 311.1, subd. (a)), and one count of

1 Unless otherwise indicated, all further statutory references are to the Penal Code.

possessing child pornography (§ 311.11, subd. (a)). On August 17, 2021, Armas was placed on two years of formal probation, to expire on August 16, 2023. The trial court twice found that Armas violated the terms of his probation, but both times it declined to terminate probation. As a result of the revocation proceedings, the term of Armas’s probation was extended, with a new expiration date of June 9, 2024. In an opinion filed March 6, 2024, we rejected Armas’s appeal from the second order finding that he (again) violated of the terms of his probation. (People v. Armas (Mar. 6, 2024, D082002) 2024 WL 957990 [nonpub. opn.]

(Armas I).)2 Here, Armas appeals from the trial court’s first order finding that he violated the terms of his probation. Armas has now completed his probation. As we will explain, his appeal is accordingly moot, and we therefore dismiss it. I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND After Armas was convicted of two counts relating to child pornography (§§ 311.1, subd. (a), 311.11, subd. (a)), the trial court placed Armas on formal probation for a period of two years, to expire August 16, 2023. On April 5, 2022, Armas’s probation officer filed a petition alleging that Armas had violated the terms of probation. At a September 9, 2022 probation revocation hearing, the trial court (1) found that Armas violated the terms of his probation; (2) imposed a suspended sentence of two years eight months; and (3) reinstated formal probation. The new expiration date for Armas’s probation was January 20, 2024. Two weeks later, on September 28, 2022, the probation officer filed a second petition, which alleged that Armas had committed additional