People v. Nixon

Filed 6/5/25 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (Sacramento) ----

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent, C101167

v. (Super. Ct. No. 19FE014370)

BRANDON ANDRE KEITH NIXON,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Sacramento County, Satnam S. Rattu, Judge. Affirmed.

Lindsey M. Ball, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Kimberley A. Donahue, Assistant Attorney General, Ivan P. Marrs, and Jennifer M. Poe, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Defendant Brandon Andre Keith Nixon was convicted of, among other things, threatening a police officer via social media while on mandatory supervision. As a condition of his postrelease community supervision (postrelease supervision), the trial court prevented defendant from creating a social media account and from using or accessing social media websites, defined as “ ‘any internet website that allows users to

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post words or images which are accessible to the public, or to other users of the website.’ ” Defendant now challenges the postrelease supervision condition as unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. Although defendant’s discharge from postrelease supervision renders this appeal moot, we exercise our discretion to address his contentions and conclude the condition is constitutional. 1 We will affirm the judgment. BACKGROUND In 2018, defendant pleaded no contest to carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle, carrying a loaded firearm, perjury, and two misdemeanor counts of unlawfully possessing ammunition. The trial court sentenced defendant to a split sentence of five years four months, with the first four months to be served in the county jail and the concluding five years to be served on mandatory supervision. This court affirmed the

1 The People move this court to take judicial notice of the fact that defendant was discharged from postrelease supervision on January 17, 2025. We grant the motion. (See In re Arroyo (2019) 37 Cal.App.5th 727, 730, fn. 2 [taking judicial notice of Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records showing an inmate’s parole eligibility date for mootness purposes].) We decline, however, the People’s invitation to dismiss this appeal as moot. As the People recognize, we have discretion to “decide an appeal, even if moot, to address issues of broad public interest that are likely to recur while evading review.” For example, in People v. Johnson (2018) 29 Cal.App.5th 1041, the appellate court declined to dismiss a “technically moot” appeal challenging the trial court’s extension of the defendant’s postrelease supervision even though he was subsequently discharged. (Id. at p. 1045; see People v. DeLeon (2017) 3 Cal.5th 640, 645-646 [challenge to parole revocation procedures decided even though the defendant’s completion of parole rendered appeal technically moot].) Similarly, here, although defendant’s discharge from postrelease supervision renders this appeal technically moot, the constitutionality of the challenged social media prohibition is an issue of continuing public interest that is likely to recur and might otherwise evade review due to the fact that a person subject to postrelease supervision must be discharged after completing “one year with no violations” and may be discharged after “six consecutive months with no violations.” (Pen. Code, § 3456, subd. (a)(2) & (3).)