People v. Gentile

1

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. JOSEPH ROBERT GENTILE, JR., Defendant and Appellant.

E079265

California Court of Appeals, Fourth District, Second Division

June 29, 2023

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. No. INF1401840 Bernard Schwartz, Judge. Reversed.

Eric R. Larson, 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, A. Natasha Cortina and Alan L. Amann, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

OPINION

RAMIREZ, P. J.

Introduction

Defendant Joseph Gentile was convicted of murder in connection with the beating death of Guillermo Saavedra. The prosecution's star witness was defendant's ex-wife, who was granted immunity in return for her testimony. On direct appeal, we reversed the conviction for instructional error pursuant to the Supreme Court decision in People v. Chiu (2014) 59 Cal.4th 155, because the jury was instructed it could convict defendant under a natural probable consequences theory and remanded the matter for the People to decide whether to accept a reduction to second degree murder, or to retry defendant for first degree murder under theories other than natural and probable consequences. (People v Gentile (Feb. 27, 2017, E064822) [nonpub. opn.] (Gentile I).) We did not reach Gentile's other claims.

On remand, the People accepted the reduction to second degree murder and defendant was resentenced to an indeterminate term of 15 years to life. Defendant appealed following this judgment, raising the issues we had left undecided in the first appeal, affirming the judgment as modified by reducing court facilities assessments. In the meantime, Senate Bill No. 1437 was signed into law, which, effective January 1 2019, amended the Penal Code to modify accomplice liability for murder and the felonymurder rule. (Stats. 2018, ch 1015.) He also sought leave to file a supplemental brief arguing that Senate Bill No. 1437 applied retroactively to his conviction and that it eliminated second degree murder liability under a natural and probable consequences theory. We rejected Gentile's arguments and affirmed his second degree murder conviction. (People v. Gentile (Nov. 15, 2018, E069088) [nonpub. opn.] (Gentile II).)

The Supreme Court granted defendant's petition for review and transferred the case to this court to reconsider Gentile's second degree murder conviction in light of Senate Bill No. 1437. (People v. Gentile, S253197, Supreme Ct. Mins., Mar. 13, 2019.) On reconsideration, we again affirmed Gentile's second degree murder conviction. (People v. Gentile (May 30, 2019, E069088), review granted and opn. ordered nonpub. Sept. 11, 2019, S256698 (Gentile III).)

The Supreme Court again granted review, reversing our decision on December 17, 2020. (People v. Gentile (2020) 10 Cal.5th 830, (Gentile IV).) The Supreme Court held that Senate Bill No. 1437 bars a conviction for second degree murder under the natural and probable consequences theory and that the procedure set forth in Penal Code section 1170.95 is the exclusive mechanism for retroactive relief and thus the ameliorative provisions of Senate Bill No. 1437 do not apply to nonfinal judgments on direct appeal. (Gentile IV, supra, at p. 839) Pursuant to the Supreme Court's directions, we vacated our decision, and, after additional briefing by the parties, we affirmed the second degree murder conviction without prejudice to any petition for relief defendant may file pursuant to Penal Code section 1170.95. (People v. Gentile (Mar. 1, 2021, E069088) [nonpub. opn.] (Gentile V.).)

This appeal is from the superior court judgment denying defendant's Penal Code section 1170.95 (renumbered to Penal Code section 1172.6) following an evidentiary hearing. We reverse and remand for additional findings.

Background

We recite the facts of the crime as set forth in the Supreme Court's decision in Gentile IV, supra, 10 Cal.5th 830, with supplemental information respecting later proceedings.

A. Evidence Adduced at the Original Trial.

In June 2014, Guillermo Saavedra was found beaten to death inside La Casita restaurant in Indio where he lived and worked as the caretaker. Near his body was a broken chair, a broken beer bottle, a wooden stick, and a broken golf club with Saavedra's blood on it, as well as bloody shoe and sock prints. Also found in the restaurant were cigarette butts containing DNA from defendant Joseph Gentile, Jr., his ex-wife Saundra Roberts, and Saavedra.

Around 1:00 a.m. the day before Saavedra's body was found, surveillance footage captured Gentile wandering around the nearby Royal Plaza Inn. Several minutes later, another camera outside a laundromat next to the Royal Plaza Inn showed Gentile with Roberts and Roberts's boyfriend Stephen Gardner. When a detective retraced Gentile's steps from the surveillance footage, he found a bloody sock containing Saavedra's DNA as well as DNA consistent with Gentile's profile.

Gentile was charged with one count of first degree premeditated murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a)) with sentencing enhancements for personal use of a deadly weapon (Pen. Code, §§ 12022, subd. (b)(1), 1192.7, subd. (c)(23)) and for one prior conviction (Pen. Code, § 667.5, subd. (b)).

At trial, the prosecution and Gentile presented dueling accounts of the events surrounding Saavedra's death. Saundra Roberts was the primary witness for the prosecution. She testified that on the day Saavedra was killed, Roberts, Gentile, and Saavedra met at La Casita restaurant. The three talked and drank alcohol there into the evening. At one point, Gentile and Saavedra got into an argument, but they remained friendly and there was no violence. After several hours, Roberts felt drunk and left to go sleep at a homeless encampment about one block away. When Roberts woke up around 1:00 a.m. or 1:30 a.m. that night, she went to a nearby convenience store and saw Gentile across the street in the parking lot of the Royal Plaza Inn. Roberts approached Gentile and saw that his shirt was wet. Roberts recalled Gentile saying that he had gotten into a fight with a man, that he "hurt him pretty bad," and that he "might have killed" him. Roberts called Gardner and asked him to bring a spare set of clothes, which he did. When Gardner arrived and realized that the clothes were for Gentile, he became angry and left. Roberts said she then left and did not see Gentile again.

Gentile provided a different account to the police. He said that when he arrived at the restaurant to meet Roberts, there was a man there he had never met. Roberts told Gentile that she was staying at the restaurant with the man. At some point, Roberts also told Gentile that the man had "been raping" her. Gentile then punched the man several times but did not use any weapon. Roberts then said the man would never rape her again, and she began hitting him with what Gentile thought was a sledgehammer. Gentile took the weapon away from Roberts, but she retrieved it and resumed hitting the man. Gentile took the weapon away from Roberts a second time, threw it to the ground, and left the premises. Gentile denied ever striking the man with a weapon.

Gentile's friend Charlotte Sullivan testified that Gentile was scheduled to visit her in Imperial Beach during the Fourth of July weekend in 2014. In late June, around the time that Saavedra was killed, Gentile called to ask if he could come out earlier than planned. When she agreed, Gentile came out later that same day. When he arrived, Gentile's hands were swollen, but he did not initially mention anything about being in or witnessing a fight. Eventually, Gentile told Sullivan that he had gotten into a fight with another man. He said that he was drunk, and that Roberts had told him the other man had raped her. Gentile said he punched the other man a few times, but eventually the man apologized, and Gentile stopped hitting him. At that point, Gentile said, Roberts had picked up a club and started hitting the man with it.

Gentile was arrested at Sullivan's residence on June 28, 2014. Sullivan testified that a day after the arrest, Roberts called her and said that the man who was killed had raped her, and that Gentile got upset about it. Roberts also said that Gentile and the man got into a fight and that she left before anything else happened. Further, according to Sullivan, Roberts said that she later went back to the restaurant, "bleached everything," and cleaned up the mess.

The trial court instructed the jury on three separate theories of first degree murder: (1) that Gentile was the direct perpetrator of the murder; (2) that he directly aided and abetted Roberts in the commission of murder; and (3) that he aided and abetted Roberts in the commission of felony assault with a deadly weapon^[1] (Pen. Code, § 245, subd. (a)(1)), the natural and probable consequence of which was death. During deliberations, the jury asked the court, "Are fists considered a deadly weapon?" The court responded, "No." The jury then convicted Gentile of first degree murder and found not true that he personally used a deadly weapon. The prosecution dismissed the prison prior, and the court sentenced Gentile to 25 years to life in prison. (Gentile IV, supra, 10 Cal.5th at pp. 839-841.)

B. Post-Trial Proceedings.

On direct appeal, we reversed that conviction because the court had instructed the jury on the natural and probable consequences doctrine, in violation of the holding in People v. Chiu, supra, 59 Cal.4th 155. On remand the People opted to accept a reduction of the conviction to second degree murder, and defendant was sentenced to 15 years to...