In re Jones CA2/1

Filed 3/22/16 In re Jones CA2/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

In re B262848

DARLA RAY JONES, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BA397754) on Habeas Corpus.

ORIGINAL PROCEEDINGS; petition for writ of habeas corpus, C.H. Rehm, Judge. Petition denied. Marilee Marshall & Associates and Marilee Marshall for Petitioner. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Stephanie A. Miyoshi and Tita Nguyen, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. ——————————

Darla Ray Jones (Jones) filed this petition for habeas corpus claiming ineffective assistance of counsel based on her attorney’s conflict of interest. We issued an order to show cause. Having considered the parties’ petition, return, and reply, we deny the petition. BACKGROUND On March 4, 2013, a jury convicted Jones of two counts of criminal threats and two counts of assault with a firearm. Her retained defense attorney, Chad Calabria (Calabria), represented her from her arraignment through her trial and conviction. On April 15, 2013, the prosecutor discovered her office was prosecuting Calabria for felony possession of a controlled substance in violation of Health and Safety Code section 11350, subdivision (a), and felony forgery in violation of Penal Code section 476. There were no officers in common between the cases against Calabria and the case against Jones. She informed Calabria that he needed to advise the trial court about the pending cases against him and he did so, also on April 15, 2013. The court concluded that the cases pending against Calabria did not have any bearing on Jones’s case. Jones asked to discharge Calabria, and the public defender represented Jones until her sentencing on August 27, 2013. Jones received a 13-year sentence. Jones filed an appeal and a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and this court affirmed her conviction and denied her petition in an unpublished opinion filed November 24, 2014. (People v. Jones (Nov. 24, 2014, B251324, B266936) [nonpub opn.].) We rejected Jones’s contention that Calabria rendered ineffective assistance by failing to adequately examine the prosecutor’s investigator about the prosecutor’s interviews with the victims regarding the date of the crimes. On April 25, 2014, we had also decided Harris v. Superior Court (2014) 225 Cal.App.4th 1129 (Harris). We held that Harris was denied effective assistance of counsel at his preliminary hearing, because his counsel “had himself been arrested and was facing pending felony charges by the same prosecuting entity (the Los Angeles County District Attorney) that was prosecuting Harris.” (Id. at p. 1132.) The deputy who arrested Harris’s attorney later arrested Harris, and testified at the preliminary hearing.