Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Sonoma County Super. Ct. No. SCR-536836
Haerle, Acting P.J.
I. INTRODUCTION
After pleading guilty to one of two counts in a complaint charging him with failure to comply with the law requiring the registration of sex offenders, appellant was sentenced to the low term of 16 months in prison. Pursuant to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436, he appeals from the sentence imposed, asking this court to examine the record and determine if there are any issues deserving of further briefing. We have done so, find none, and hence affirm the judgment below.
II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In early 2008, appellant was living in Santa Rosa; he had, pursuant to a 1969 conviction of attempted rape (then Pen. Code, § 261.3) and the current requirements of section 290 et seq., last reported his address to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department on January 18.
All subsequent dates noted are in 2008.
All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise noted.
On March 6, officers visited the apartment listed on the section 290 form on a routine registration compliance check. They were told by the manager that appellant had been evicted from his apartment because he “had caused problems with other tenants and is not welcome anymore.”
On April 3, appellant was arrested during a traffic stop. He later explained to officers, regarding the failure to register a change of address, that he had decided to “abscond from parole supervision” because his parole officer had informed him that, because he had missed two appointments with his psychiatrist, he should be prepared to go back to prison.
On May 15, the Sonoma County District Attorney filed a complaint charging appellant with violations of section 290.013, subdivisions (a) (count I) and (b) (count II). The complaint also alleged, as an enhancement, appellant’s 1969 attempted rape conviction.
On June 5, appellant waived his right to a preliminary hearing and trial and pled guilty to count II of the complaint (which by then had been amended to change the alleged date of the offense from April 7 to March 6). Appellant also admitted the prior strike allegation. In exchange, the prosecution agreed to dismiss the similar charge made in count I and not to file additional charges on the failure to register issue.
On August 13, the court granted appellant’s motion to strike, in the interest of justice, the prior conviction allegation, denied probation, and sentenced appellant to the low term of 16 months in state prison. It also imposed a $20 court security fee, a $220 restitution fine, and a similar parole revocation fine, and awarded appellant 123 presentence custody credits.
Appellant did not ask for nor secure a certificate of probable cause, but filed a timely notice of appeal on August 22.
III. DISCUSSION
Because no certificate of probable cause was sought or issued, and as appellant concedes in his Wende brief, the only issues that may be properly considered on this appeal are “[g]rounds that arose after entry of the plea and do not affect the plea’s validity.” (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.304(b)(4)(B); see also § 1237.5.)
Nevertheless, appellant’s Wende brief rather clearly hints that there are several possible bases to consider in appellant’s favor. They are that: (1) the 1969 conviction for attempted rape in Mendocino County may have been incorrect as the several men involved were all “intoxicated” and, due to the evidence before it, the trial court was “quite lenient and placed appellant on probation,” (2) the 1969 Mendocino County “Order of Probation” says nothing about registering as a sex offender, (3) when entering his plea of guilty to count II in the present case, appellant possibly did not understand what he was doing, and (4) appellant’s criminal record consists “of only non-violent offenses since a misdemeanor assault conviction 20 years ago.”
Admittedly, appellant does not specifically argue that any of these issues warrant, individually or collectively, remand or reversal, but he comes very close to so doing, and improperly in our view. In the first place, none of these “semi-contentions”—or “suggestions” or whatever—goes to the issue of the propriety of the sentence imposed by this trial court. As noted, it both struck the prior conviction allegation (over the prosecution’s objection) and sentenced appellant to the low term. In short, the issues raised in appellant’s brief are all irrelevant given the circumstances of this case.
Second, most of these suggestions overlook critical facts in the record. Thus, regarding the 1969 probation order of the Mendocino Superior Court, although it does not specifically reference the then-operative sex registration statute (section 290, enacted in 1947), it required appellant to “obey all laws.” And the current version of section 290 makes clear that it applies to “[a]ny person who, since July 1, 1944, has been . . . convicted in any court in this state” of specified sexual offenses, including attempted rape. (§ 290, subd. (c).)
Third, at the hearing where appellant changed his plea and entered a plea of guilty to count II in the current case, he was represented by a Sonoma County Deputy Public Defender, had signed a four-page Tahl waiver form the contents of which he had discussed with that counsel, and after the usual and thorough verbal confirmations secured by the trial court, twice made clear that he was pleading guilty to count II.
In re Tahl (1969) 1 Cal.3d 122.
Finally, appellant’s brief misrepresents his criminal record. That record, aside from the 1969 conviction and the present one, consists of a very large number of convictions of the Penal Code, the Health and Safety Code, and the Vehicle Code. We count over 20 such convictions, in Sonoma, Mendocino, Lake, and Sacramento Counties. Indeed, as noted tangentially in appellant’s brief, appellant was on parole at the time of his arrest for non-registration. The probation department summed up appellant’s criminal history as follows: “Arley Simmons has a long criminal history of convictions involving violence, substance abuse, theft, and sex-related crimes. In total, he has been convicted of seven felony offenses, and he was previously sentenced to state prison on three occasions. Due to his failure to adhere to his terms of parole, Simmons was returned to prison on numerous occasions for parole violations, and he was subject to a parole hold at the time of the instant offense.”
We are, of course, mindful of the other quite sad circumstances surrounding appellant: gunshot wounds he suffered during the charged attempted rape in 1969 and his resulting disabilities, the fact that his sole income at age 62 is Social Security disability payments, and many other social and economic problems. Nonetheless, and particularly bearing in mind the facts that the trial court (1) struck the charged prior strike over the prosecutor’s objections, (2) sentenced appellant to the lower term, and (3) did so despite his long criminal record and his admission to the probation department that, at the time he was apprehended, he was trying to “abscond” from law enforcement because of his then-current parole, we find no issues deserving of further briefing in this case.
IV. DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: Lambden, J., Richman, J.