People v. Erickson

Filed 12/17/18 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION SIX

THE PEOPLE, 2d Crim. No. B288448 (Super. Ct. No. 17F-04735) Plaintiff and Respondent, (San Luis Obispo County)

v.

BRET ARTHUR ERICKSON,

Defendant and Appellant.

An appellate court’s holding arises from the facts and the application of statutory and case law. Whether a holding will apply to the facts of a future case is seldom absolutely certain. As this case demonstrates, appellate court decisions turn on a majority’s reasoned legal analysis of what it considers to be a reasonable application of the law under the particular circumstances of the case. Bret Arthur Erickson appeals from a restitution order after he pled guilty to one count of grand theft. (Pen. Code, § 487, subd. (a).) 1 The trial court placed him on probation and ordered him to pay restitution in the amount of $4,015.44 to compensate

1 All statutory references are to the Penal Code.

the victim for wire he stole. 2 Erickson contends the trial court erred when it ordered him to pay the full value of the wire and allowed his victim to retain some of the wire recovered by police. We disagree and affirm the restitution order. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY Erickson stole 520 feet of underwater copper wire from Four Sisters Ranch winery. The winery used the wire in one of its wells. After Erickson’s arrest, police recovered and returned two pieces of the wire―one 264 feet long, the other 32 feet long— to the winery. Because the wire could not be spliced, it was unusable in the winery’s 500-foot-plus-deep wells. An owner of the winery testified that it would cost $4,015.44 to replace the 520-foot length of wire. The trial court ordered Erickson to pay that amount. It permitted the winery to retain the two pieces of wire that the police returned. DISCUSSION In 1982, California voters declared the right of crime victims to receive restitution directly from those convicted of the crimes they suffered. Legislative enactments provided that a crime victim shall receive restitution from the perpetrator. (§ 1202.4; see People v. Giordano (2007) 42 Cal.4th 644.) Our colleagues in People v. Chappelone (2010) 183 Cal.App.4th 1159, 1172 (Chappelone) set out the relevant portions of section 1202.4, subdivision (a)(1) that the victim of a crime who suffers economic loss as a result of that crime shall receive restitution from the defendant convicted of that crime. “Subdivision (f) of section 1202.4 states that . . . ‘in every case in which a victim has