People v. Arellano CA6

Filed 8/9/21 P. v. Arellano CA6 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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

SIXTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

THE PEOPLE, H045762 (Santa Clara County Plaintiff and Respondent, Super. Ct. No. C1754248)

v.

MIGUEL SANDOVAL ARELLANO,

Defendant and Appellant.

A jury convicted defendant of felony assault, misdemeanor assault, and misdemeanor battery. Defendant challenges the misdemeanor assault as lesser included and thus duplicative of the felony assault conviction. He also challenges the denial of his motion under Penal Code section 17, subdivision (b) to reduce the felony assault to a misdemeanor. We see no abuse of discretion in the trial court declining to reduce the felony assault. We accept the Attorney General’s concession that the conviction for misdemeanor assault is duplicative of the felony assault and must therefore be stricken. We will modify the judgment to strike the misdemeanor assault and attendant fees, and affirm the judgment as modified. I. BACKGROUND On Labor Day in 2016, Miguel Sandoval Arellano, along with codefendants Paoolo Rivas and Luis Angel Rivas, beat an acquaintance, leaving him injured and unconscious. The defendants had consumed alcohol at breakfast, after which they spent several hours drinking with the victim and his coworker at the victim’s place of work (a

cabinetry shop). From there, the group went to a restaurant for dinner, where Luis Rivas and the victim argued, and Paoolo Rivas grabbed the victim and “put him on the floor.” (The parties dispute who was the aggressor in the restaurant.) The victim was upset. He and his coworker returned to the cabinetry shop, and the defendants followed soon thereafter. At the shop, an argument and a physical struggle over a machete ensued between the victim and Luis Rivas, followed by an assault on the victim. The Rivas brothers beat the victim who was on the ground unarmed, while defendant used the machete to keep two witnesses at bay. The victim’s coworker tried unsuccessfully to protect the victim during the assault. The defendants fled by car, and the victim was transported to the hospital in an ambulance. He spent several hours in the emergency room where he underwent a series of x-rays and scans, and received sutures for a head laceration. The victim testified at trial that the assault was unprovoked. He grabbed a machete from among the shop’s tools only after the defendants refused to leave the shop and advanced on him. He set the machete on a worktable when he believed the defendants no longer posed a threat. Defendant then grabbed a pipe (also a shop tool) and started striking him inside the shop, and the assault continued outside the shop. The defendants all testified that they had acted in self-defense: the victim chased Paoolo Rivas with the machete, brought Paoolo Rivas to his knees and threatened to kill him, and defendant dislodged the machete from the victim’s grip using a pipe tool. One of the witnesses testified that defendant knocked the machete to the ground with a metal pipe as Luis Rivas and the victim were struggling for the knife’s control. Both witnesses testified that the victim tried to run, but was overtaken and cornered by the defendants, and severely beaten. According to the witnesses, one of the defendants kept them at bay with the machete while the others beat the victim. The victim’s coworker did not testify. (According to testimony at the preliminary hearing, the coworker left the country sometime after the incident.) 2