People v. Cooper CA3

Filed 4/30/25 P. v. Cooper CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (San Joaquin) ----

THE PEOPLE, C100910

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. Nos. STK-CR-FE- 2000-0007263, SF080256A) v.

JERRY LEE COOPER,

Defendant and Appellant.

A jury convicted defendant Jerry Lee Cooper of residential burglary. The trial court found that defendant had three prior serious felony convictions within the meaning of the three strikes law and the five-year enhancement statute (Pen. Code, §§ 1170.12, 667, subds. (a)-(i))1 and two prior prison terms that qualified for one-year enhancements (former § 667.5, subd. (b)). It imposed an aggregate prison sentence of 40 years to life, consisting of 25 years to life for the burglary and three consecutive five-year terms for the five-year enhancements. The trial court imposed but stayed two one-year terms for the prior prison term enhancements. This court affirmed the judgment. (People v. Cooper (April 16, 2002, C038483) [nonpub. opn.].)

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

1

In 2024, the trial court resentenced defendant under section 1172.75, striking the enhancements and thereby reducing defendant’s sentence to 25 years to life in prison. Defendant appeals from the resentencing judgment, arguing the trial court abused its discretion in declining to dismiss his prior strike convictions. Finding no abuse of discretion, we will affirm the judgment. BACKGROUND In his opening brief, defendant provided a background that the People adopted in their respondent’s brief. In September 1979, when defendant was 22 years old, he struck a victim on the back of her neck. She passed out and defendant took her purse. Defendant pleaded guilty to robbery and he was sentenced to three years of formal probation. In March 1987, defendant was arrested while carrying a videocassette machine from a home. He pleaded guilty to residential burglary and was sentenced to four years in prison. In February 1992, defendant broke into a home. Convicted of residential burglary, the trial court imposed 16 years in prison. Then, in September 2000, a neighbor reported seeing someone on the porch of a house that had a broken window. Sheriff’s deputies caught defendant climbing over a fence in the backyard. When the homeowners returned, they reported two rooms disturbed and a window broken. Defendant was convicted of first degree burglary. Defendant said his father abused his mother, and his mother abused defendant and his five siblings. Defendant’s parents divorced when defendant was 11 years old and his mother remarried when he was 14 years old. Defendant graduated from high school in 1974 and joined the army in 1975. He was deployed to Germany and honorably discharged in 1979. Defendant started using drugs and alcohol as a teenager. In an April 2001 probation report, defendant stated that he had been using cocaine for 10 years, starting around the age of 32.