California Court of Appeal Jan 7, 2026 No. E082838Unpublished
Filed 1/7/26 P. v. Valdez CA4/2
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 TWO
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent, E082838
v. (Super.Ct.No. FWV22003716)
MARIO N. VALDEZ, JR., OPINION
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Joseph B. Widman,
Judge. Affirmed.
Belinda Escobosa, 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, Melissa Mandel and Tami
Falkenstein Hennick, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
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A jury convicted Mario N. Valdez of a felony domestic violence offense against
Jane Doe and misdemeanor child endangerment against Mary Doe. (Pen. Code, §§ 273a,
subd. (b), 273.5, subd. (a).) Valdez argues that the trial court erred by admitting evidence
of uncharged domestic violence under Evidence Code sections 1101 and 1109.
Valdez to four years in prison, consisting of double the two-year low term for the
domestic violence count, plus a concurrent term of one year for the child endangerment
count.
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DISCUSSION
Valdez argues that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of uncharged
domestic violence incidents. He contends that their probative value was substantially
outweighed by the danger of undue prejudice. We disagree.
I. Relevant proceedings
The People moved in limine to admit evidence of the January 2019 incident
between Valdez and Rosie, arguing that the evidence was admissible under sections 1101
and 1109. Their brief stated that during an argument with Rosie, Valdez strangled her,
hit her, pulled her hair, and brandished a knife. The brief also explained that Rosie’s son
and daughter witnessed the incident, and her son intervened.
The court granted the People’s motion and ruled that the evidence was admissible
under sections 1101 and 1109. The court observed that the incident was close in time to
the charged conduct and involved a “very similar scenario.” The court stated that it had
conducted a section 352 analysis, and the probative value of the evidence outweighed the
risk of undue prejudice. In addition, the court acknowledged that the evidence would
“take some time,” but the probative value also justified the consumption of time. Valdez
was convicted for his attack on Rosie, and defense counsel asked the court to exclude the
fact of his conviction. The court granted that request.
During trial, Valdez moved to exclude Rosie’s testimony that he had pulled her
hair on some unspecified occasion before the January 2019 incident. Defense counsel
argued that the evidence was “too prejudicial” and “essentially a throwaway line,”
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because there was no other evidence corroborating it. The court denied the motion to
exclude, ruling that the evidence was admissible under section 1109 and that the
probative value outweighed any risk of undue prejudice.
Valdez also moved during trial to exclude Grandmother’s statements about the
uncharged February 2022 incident between Jane and Valdez. Defense counsel argued
that the evidence was more prejudicial than probative, because no other witness
corroborated Grandmother’s statements. The court again ruled the evidence was
admissible under section 1109, noting that the charged and uncharged incidents involved
the same victim, location, and time period. The court noted that the evidence was
“subject to 352 balancing” and that it was not unduly prejudicial.
II. Admission of evidence of prior domestic violence incidents
“‘[E]vidence of a person’s character’ is generally inadmissible ‘when offered to
prove his or her conduct on a specified occasion.’” (People v. Baker (2021) 10 Cal.5th
1044, 1088, quoting § 1101, subd. (a).) Section 1109 is an exception to that general rule.
(Baker, at p. 1089.) The statute permits the admission of “certain evidence that a
defendant accused of an offense involving domestic violence has committed other
domestic violence.” (Ibid.) Specifically, the statute provides: “[I]n a criminal action in
which the defendant is accused of an offense involving domestic violence, evidence of
the defendant’s commission of other domestic violence is not made inadmissible by
Section 1101 if the evidence is not inadmissible pursuant to Section 352.” (§ 1109, subd.
(a)(1).) According to the legislative history, the “‘propensity inference is particularly
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appropriate in the area of domestic violence,’” because “‘on-going violence and abuse is
the norm in domestic violence cases.’” (People v. Johnson (2000) 77 Cal.App.4th 410,
419.)
Section 352 states that a “court in its discretion may exclude evidence if its
probative value is substantially outweighed by the probability that its admission will (a)
necessitate undue consumption of time or (b) create substantial danger of undue
prejudice, of confusing the issues, or of misleading the jury.” “‘The “prejudice” referred
to in [section 352] applies to evidence which uniquely tends to evoke an emotional bias
against [the] defendant as an individual and which has very little effect on the issues. In
applying section 352, “prejudicial” is not synonymous with “damaging.”’” (People v.
Bolin (1998) 18 Cal.4th 297, 320.)
In determining whether to admit evidence of prior conduct under section 1109, the
trial court “should be guided by such factors as the ‘nature, relevance, and possible
remoteness’ of the evidence, ‘the degree of certainty of its commission and the likelihood
of confusing, misleading, or distracting the jurors from their main inquiry, its similarity to
the charged offense, its likely prejudicial impact on the jurors, the burden on the
defendant in defending against the uncharged offense, and the availability of less
prejudicial alternatives to its outright admission, such as admitting some but not all of the
defendant’s other . . . offenses, or excluding irrelevant though inflammatory details
surrounding the offense.’” (People v. Dworak (2021) 11 Cal.5th 881, 900 (Dworak).)
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We review for abuse of discretion the court’s ruling on the admission of
propensity evidence under sections 1109 and 352. (Dworak, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 900.)
The court abuses its discretion if its ruling is “‘“arbitrary, capricious, or patently
absurd.”’” (People v. Lewis (2009) 46 Cal.4th 1255, 1286.)
Valdez argues that the court erred by admitting evidence of the January 2019
domestic violence against Rosie, because the dissimilarities between the January 2019
incident and the charged incident “undermine[]” the probative value of the evidence. But
the incidents shared enough similarities to make the evidence highly probative. In both
instances, Valdez attacked a romantic partner in front of her children, held her against a
wall or door, and choked her. There was evidence that he also pulled the victims’ hair
and had a knife in both cases. And in both cases, the evidence showed that Valdez cursed
at the victim and called her names like “bitch.” The “common factors” in the incidents
rendered the “evidence of past domestic violence . . . particularly probative of the
likelihood to repeat such behavior.” (People v. Johnson (2010) 185 Cal.App.4th 520,
533.)
Valdez further contends that the “inflammatory nature” of the January 2019
evidence rendered it unduly prejudicial and subject to exclusion. He argues that the
evidence showed the attack on Rosie was more brutal than the attack on Jane. He also
asserts that the jurors did not know whether he was convicted or punished for the attack
on Rosie, so they might have been inclined to punish him for that prior incident.
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First, to the extent that Valdez is arguing that the court erred by excluding
evidence of his prior conviction, he invited that claimed error and cannot complain of it
now. (See People v. Russell (2010) 50 Cal.4th 1228, 1250 [“the doctrine of invited error
applies when a defendant, for tactical reasons, makes a request acceded to by the trial
court and claims on appeal that the court erred in granting the request”].)
Second, even if the attack on Rosie was more serious and prolonged than the
attack on Jane, we cannot say that the court erred. As already explained, the evidence
was highly probative because of the similarities between the incidents. In addition, “the
probative value of ‘other crimes’ evidence is increased by . . . the close proximity in time
of the offenses” and “the independent sources of evidence (the victims) in each offense.”
(People v. Falsetta (1999) 21 Cal.4th 903, 917.) The January 2019 incident was not
remote—it happened only three years before the charged offense—and Rosie and her son
were independent sources who had nothing to do with the victims or witnesses of the
charged offense. Moreover, the probative value was increased by Jane’s and Mary’s
recantations of their prior statements at trial and their insistence that Valdez had not
attacked Jane at all. The evidence of the January 2019 incident thus was particularly
relevant to show that Valdez had a propensity to commit violence against his romantic
partners and had done so in this case, despite what Jane and Mary said at trial. The court
acted well within its discretion by concluding that the danger of undue prejudice did not
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substantially outweigh the probative value of the evidence.1 (See People v. Daveggio
and Michaud (2018) 4 Cal.5th 790, 826 [although the uncharged incident “differed in
certain respects from” the charged incident “and involved some details likely to have a
particular impact on the jurors,” the court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the
evidence].)
Valdez further argues that the court erred by admitting evidence that he pulled
Rosie’s hair on some unspecified date before January 2019. The argument lacks merit.
Rosie’s testimony about the prior incident had probative value as propensity evidence
because it was similar to the charged incident—both incidents involved Valdez pulling
his partner’s hair. And although Rosie did not specify when the prior hair-pulling
incident occurred, it would not have been remote. Valdez and Rosie were together from
December 2017 to January 2019, so the prior incident happened at most four years before
the charged offense. Valdez contends that the evidence would have evoked an emotional
bias against him, creating a high risk of undue prejudice. But he does not explain why
the evidence uniquely tended to evoke an emotional bias. Rosie’s testimony about the
prior incident was very brief—it consisted of one sentence. The evidence was also far
less inflammatory than the evidence of the charged offense, and it therefore was not
likely to evoke any more emotional bias than the charged offense. The evidence appears
to have been damaging to Valdez only in the sense that it tended to prove his guilt of the
1 We do not address Valdez’s argument that the court erred by admitting evidence of the January 2019 incident under section 1101, subdivision (b), given that the evidence was admissible under section 1109.
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charged offense. But that is not the type of prejudice that “‘section 352 was designed to
avoid.’” (People v. Barrett (2025) 17 Cal.5th 897, 954.)
Lastly, Valdez argues that the court erred with respect to Grandmother’s testimony
about the February 2022 uncharged incident. The argument fails. The probative value of
the evidence was particularly high because of the striking similarities between the
February 2022 incident and the charged offense. In both incidents, Mary came to
Grandmother crying because she saw Valdez attacking her mother. In both incidents,
Valdez accused Jane of cheating on him and cursed at her. And in both incidents, he
pushed Jane against a wall or door and threatened family members with retaliation by the
Mongols. Moreover, the February 2022 incident occurred only a few months before the
charged incident, so its extremely close proximity in time increased the probative value
of the evidence.
Valdez does not explain why the February 2022 evidence created a substantial
danger of undue prejudice, and we do not see any such danger. The evidence was no
more inflammatory than the evidence of the charged offense. Instead, Valdez attempts to
diminish the probative value of the evidence by arguing that (1) no other evidence
corroborated Grandmother’s account of the incident, and (2) Grandmother was an
unreliable witness, given that her trial testimony differed materially from her statements
to the prosecutor during the interview about the incident. But the fact that the probative
value of the evidence could have been higher does not mean that the court abused its
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discretion, particularly when Valdez does not identify any undue prejudice on the other
side of the ledger.
For all of these reasons, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by concluding
that the risk of undue prejudice did not substantially outweigh the probative value of the
uncharged domestic violence evidence.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
MENETREZ J.
We concur:
McKINSTER Acting P. J.
FIELDS J.
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AI Brief
AI-generated · verify before citing
Holding. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence of uncharged domestic violence incidents under Evidence Code section 1109, as the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by the risk of undue prejudice.
Issues
Did the trial court err by admitting evidence of uncharged domestic violence under Evidence Code sections 1101 and 1109?
Did the trial court abuse its discretion under Evidence Code section 352 by finding the probative value of uncharged conduct was not substantially outweighed by the danger of undue prejudice?
Disposition. Affirmed
Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion
“The trial court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that the risk of undue prejudice did not substantially outweigh the probative value of the uncharged domestic violence evidence.”