People v. Cooper CA1/1

Filed 8/29/25 P. v. Cooper CA1/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, A172396 v. VICTOR WAYNE COOPER, (Marin County Super. Ct. No. SC010971A) Defendant and Appellant.

Over 35 years ago, defendant Victor Wayne Cooper was sentenced to 60 years to life in prison after a jury convicted him of molesting a seven-year- old girl. In 2024, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (Department) requested compassionate release under Penal Code1 section 1172.2 for Cooper, who is in his late sixties and has terminal colon cancer. The trial court denied the request. On appeal from the order denying compassionate release, Cooper argues that the trial court abused its discretion by finding that he posed an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety, overcoming the presumption in favor of his release. (See § 1172.2, subd. (b).) We affirm.

1 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code.

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I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND In 1988, Cooper repeatedly molested the victim, an acquaintance’s daughter, and she contracted gonorrhea. The following year, he was convicted of four counts of lewd acts with a child under 14 years old under section 288, subdivision (a). Based on his two prior rape convictions, which resulted from his having forcible sex with two different women at knifepoint, the trial court sentenced him to consecutive terms of 15 years to life for each count under section 667.51, subdivision (d). This division affirmed the judgment. (People v. Cooper (1992) 7 Cal.App.4th 593, 595.) In December 2024, Dr. Joseph Bick, M.D., the Department’s Director of Health Care Services, sent a letter to the trial court stating that Cooper met the criteria for compassionate release under section 1172.2. The letter stated that Cooper had “stage IV sigmoid colon cancer with metastases to the . . . abdomen,” which was inoperable and “not curable with chemotherapy.” Cooper’s doctors “deemed him to have an advanced illness with an end-of-life trajectory.” The letter also noted that Cooper “require[d] a walker for short distances and a wheelchair for longer distances due to fatigue and shortness of breath.” Several documents were attached to Dr. Bick’s letter, including a diagnostic study and evaluation report under section 1172.2 prepared by prison officials, the 1989 probation report, and a transcript of Cooper’s February 2024 parole hearing at which the Board of Parole Hearings denied parole on the basis that Cooper “pose[d] an unreasonable risk to public safety.” The section 1172.2 report summarized Cooper’s prison disciplinary record, which included a 2017 incident of possessing child pornography. The