People v. Cervantes CA2/7 ( 2024 )

Filed 10/10/24 P. v. Cervantes CA2/7
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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION SEVEN
THE PEOPLE, B333342
Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County
Super. Ct. No. GA106827)
v.
DANIEL CERVANTES,
Defendant and Appellant.
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Suzette Clover, Judge. Affirmed.
Jeralyn Keller, under appointment by the Court of Appeal,
for Defendant and Appellant.
No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.
_______________
INTRODUCTION
Daniel Cervantes appeals from his conviction for the first
degree murder of Julio Robles-Castaneda. We appointed counsel
to represent Cervantes in this appeal. Cervantes’s counsel
reviewed the record and did not identify any arguable issues.
(People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436.) Nor, after reviewing the
record independently, have we. We affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Robles-Castaneda had been in an intermittent relationship
with Zulema Burgueno-Ramirez, beginning when Robles-
Castaneda was 18 years old and Burgueno-Ramirez was 13 years
old.1 In October 2018 they had a son. They were together at the
time of Robles-Castaneda’s death.
Cervantes met Burgueno-Ramirez in 2017, and they began
a sexual relationship in August 2019. Cervantes and Robles-
Castaneda would both spend several nights a week with
Burgueno-Ramirez, who lived with her mother, but generally on
different nights. Cervantes had animosity toward Robles-
Castaneda because of his sexual relationship with Burgueno-
Ramirez. He would on occasion tell Burgueno-Ramirez that he
wanted to “whack” Robles-Castaneda and ask her if he could.
A month before the murder, Cervantes told Burgueno-
Ramirez’s neighbor, Julio Cesar Solis Valencia, that he wanted to
kill Robles-Castaneda, and he showed Valencia a gun he had in
1 Burgueno-Ramirez testified at trial after receiving
immunity from prosecution.
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his waistband. On five or six prior occasions, Cervantes told
Valencia that he wanted to hurt Robles-Castaneda because he did
not like the way Robles-Castaneda treated Burgueno-Ramirez.
Valencia heard Burgueno-Ramirez say several times she wanted
Robles-Castaneda killed.
At a party at Burgueno-Ramirez’s house, also about a
month before the murder, Robles-Castaneda found Burgueno-
Ramirez in bed with another man, Emilio Meraz, the father of
Burgueno-Ramirez’s other child. Robles-Castaneda and Meraz
got into a fist fight. Burgueno-Ramirez shouted, “Julio is going to
pay for this. I’m going to kill him.”
Two days before the murder, Cervantes and Robles-
Castaneda spoke in front of Burgueno-Ramirez’s house.
Burgueno-Ramirez warned Robles-Castaneda that Cervantes
wanted to kill him.
On the evening of November 5, 2019 Cervantes and Robles-
Castaneda were both at Burgueno-Ramirez’s house. Burgueno-
Ramirez had been sleeping, and Cervantes woke her up. He was
with his uncle, Steven Zarate, whom she had never met.
Cervantes told Burgueno-Ramirez that he was going to hurt
Robles-Castaneda. Burgueno-Ramirez saw Cervantes and
Robles-Castaneda discussing something, which she thought was
odd because they usually did not speak to each other. Burgueno-
Ramirez dozed off for five minutes, and when she woke up
Cervantes and Robles-Castaneda were gone.
Surveillance video from a strip mall in Pasadena showed
that at 11:21 p.m. a black SUV entered a parking lot, followed by
a silver or tan minivan. Cervantes got out of the SUV, and
Zarate got out of the minivan.2 They walked to a convenience
2 The police looked for Zarate, but could not find him.
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store. Approximately four minutes later, Burgueno-Ramirez and
Ashley Ramirez walked into the store. Inside the store,
Cervantes spoke to the two women and appeared to introduce
Zarate to them. At 11:28 p.m. Cervantes, carrying an 18-pack of
beer, left the store with Zarate.
Surveillance video showed that at 11:37 p.m. Cervantes,
Zarate, and Robles-Castaneda walked to the parking lot.
Cervantes got into the driver’s seat of the SUV, Zarate got into
the front passenger seat, and Robles-Castaneda got into the
driver’s side rear passenger seat. The SUV left the parking lot at
11:39 p.m.
At 1:00 a.m. on November 6, 2019 several women in a car
on Angeles Crest Highway spotted Robles-Castaneda’s body face
down on the shoulder of the highway. Robles-Castaneda had two
gunshot wounds on his left chest and abdomen, which the coroner
determined were the cause of death. Police found shell casings
from two different caliber guns, including a .40-caliber firearm,
near Robles-Castaneda’s body. Police also found an open bag of
spicy corn chips and $70 in wadded-up bills in Robles-
Castaneda’s pocket.
Evidence collected from Cervantes’s residence on Brigden
Road in Pasadena included white tennis shoes soaked in bleach
and a .40-caliber firearm magazine in a black trash bag. The
tennis shoes matched the shoes Cervantes wore in the
surveillance video on the evening of the murder. Police recovered
from a black SUV on Cervantes’s property two cellphones
belonging to Cervantes, an unopened can of the same brand of
beer Cervantes had carried out of the liquor store, and a bottle of
sangria. Gunshot primer residue, the material produced when a
firearm is discharged, was detected inside the black SUV on the
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gear shift, center console, right front door handle, and right front
door panel. Inside the residence, there was mail addressed to
Zarate at the Brigden Road address.
On one of Cervantes’s phones the police found a
photograph, taken in July 2019, of a .40-caliber semiautomatic
firearm. The police also found on Burgueno-Ramirez’s phone a
photograph, taken in September 2019, of the same gun. Both
photographs had been deleted, but were recovered through
cellphone metadata extraction. Cervantes’s social media account
also had a photograph of a handgun. Burgueno-Ramirez saw
Cervantes with a gun at least once, and a couple of months before
the murder, she shot Cervantes’s gun in the air.
Location data from Cervantes’s phone placed the phone at
the convenience store at the same time the surveillance video
placed Cervantes at the store. From there, the phone traveled to
Duarte, then to Brigden Road from approximately 12:05 a.m. to
12:13 a.m. on November 6, 2019, and then traveled westbound on
the 210 freeway, and eventually exited at Angeles Crest
Highway. At 12:28 a.m., the phone was near Angeles Crest
Highway before going up the mountain. At 1:33 a.m., a two-
minute and 46-second phone call was made from a phone that
was off the 210 freeway. At 2:10 a.m., the phone was in Duarte,
and by 3:08 a.m., it was at Brigden Road.
The People charged Cervantes with the first degree murder
of Robles-Castaneda (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a))3 and alleged
Cervantes personally used a firearm in committing the offense
(§ 12022.5, subd. (a)). The People further alleged Cervantes had
3 Statutory references are to the Penal Code.
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a serious or violent felony conviction within the meaning of the
three strikes law (§§ 667, subds. (b)-(j); 1170.12, subds. (a)-(d)).
The jury found Cervantes guilty of willful, deliberate, and
premeditated murder and found true the allegation Cervantes
personally used a firearm in the commission of the offense. The
trial court found true the allegation Cervantes had a prior serious
or violent felony conviction and denied Cervantes’s motion under
section 1385 to strike it.
The trial court sentenced Cervantes to an aggregate prison
term of 54 years to life, consisting of 25 years to life for first
degree murder, doubled under the three strikes law, plus four
years for the personal firearm use enhancement. Cervantes
stipulated to pay victim restitution in the amount of $7,500
(§ 1202.4, subd. (f)). The court suspended all other fees and fines.
Cervantes timely appealed.
DISCUSSION
After reviewing the record, counsel for Cervantes filed an
opening brief raising no issues. On April 29, 2024 counsel
informed Cervantes that she would be filing a brief stating she
was unable to find any arguable issues and that Cervantes had a
right to file a supplemental brief. Counsel also sent Cervantes a
copy of the brief, as well as the transcripts of the record on
appeal. On May 1, 2024 we also notified Cervantes that he could
submit a supplemental brief within 30 days stating any grounds
for appeal, contentions, or arguments he wanted us to consider.
We have not received a response.
We have examined the record and are satisfied that
appellate counsel for Cervantes has complied with her
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responsibilities and that there are no arguable issues. (See
Smith v. Robbins (2000) 528 U.S. 259, 277-284; People v. Kelly
(2006) 40 Cal.4th 106, 118-119; People v. Wende, supra, 25 Cal.3d
at pp. 441-442.)
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
SEGAL, Acting P. J.
We concur:
FEUER, J.
STONE, J.
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