People v. Hunter CA4/1

Filed 10/24/23 P. v. Hunter CA4/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

THE PEOPLE, D081000

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v. (Super. Ct. No. SCS313955)

NORVEL HUNTER,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Timothy R. Walsh, Judge. Affirmed. Aurora Elizabeth Bewicke, 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, Collette C. Cavalier and Joy Utomi, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. Norvel Hunter appeals his conviction for willful failure to appear in court while on bail under Penal Code section 1320.5 on two grounds.

First, he challenges the sufficiency of the evidence that his absence from court was both willful and intended to evade the court process. But the parties’ stipulation that Hunter missed court “after being ordered to appear” and returned only once “brought into custody by means of a bench warrant” allowed the jury to reasonably infer that Hunter purposefully failed to appear with the requisite mental state. Second, Hunter contends that the trial court gave “conflicting” instructions about the mental-state elements of the crime. The trial court improperly omitted failure to appear from the list of specific-intent crimes, but that error was harmless because the specific instructions on the elements of failure to appear informed the jury of the required mental state. We therefore affirm the judgment. I. In addition to other felony charges, the People charged Hunter with willful failure to appear at his original trial date to evade the process of court while on bail. (Pen. Code, § 1320.5.) At trial, the parties stipulated to two facts related to this charge. First, in April 2022, Hunter, “while released on bail, failed to appear at his jury trial date after being ordered to appear by the court.” Second, Hunter “did not return to the court for a period of longer than 14 days and was eventually brought into custody by means of a bench warrant.” The jury was told that these stipulated facts were “deemed to have been conclusively proven.” The parties presented no other evidence related to this charge. When giving jury instructions, each time the trial court addressed mental state or intent generally, it also directed the jury to the specific instructions for each crime. In giving CALCRIM No. 225, the trial court instructed that “[t]he People must prove not only that [Hunter] did the acts