In re A.R. CA4/3

Filed 5/14/25 In re A.R. CA4/3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION THREE

In re A.R., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.

THE PEOPLE, G063802 Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. 23DL1570) v. OPINION A.R.,

Defendant and Appellant.

Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, Joe T. Perez, Judge. Affirmed. Kristen Owen, 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, Steve Oetting and Daniel J. Hilton, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

In this appeal, A.R. contends there is insufficient evidence to support the juvenile court’s finding he constructively possessed an assault rifle that was found in a car in which he had been riding as a passenger. Although the issue is a close one, we conclude the court’s finding passes muster under the deferential standard of review applicable to sufficiency-of- the-evidence claims. We therefore affirm the judgment. STATEMENT OF FACTS I. THE PROSECUTION’S CASE On December 18, 2023, at about 10:45 p.m., Fullerton Police Officer Mathew Levin and his partner Lloyd de Charmoy Bouchet were dispatched to a residential neighborhood in Fullerton in response to a call about a suspicious vehicle. Upon arrival, they spotted a white four-door sedan parked at the curb. There were two juveniles standing by the trunk of the car, one male and one female. And there were two male juveniles inside the car, one in the driver’s seat and another—A.R., then age 16—in the right rear passenger seat. While Levin contacted the two by the trunk, Bouchet and a backup officer approached the car from opposite sides. In doing so, they spotted an AR-15 assault rifle on the floorboard of the front passenger seat. The rifle was leaning up against the passenger seat, barrel side down, such that about a foot of the weapon was protruding above the seat cushion. According to Bouchet, the rifle was within arm’s reach of where A.R. was sitting in the back of the car. After removing A.R. and the driver from the car, the officers seized the rifle and discovered it had a large capacity magazine and a live