Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. YA066301 Eric C. Taylor, Judge.
Allison H. Ting, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Assistant Attorney General, Stephanie C. Brenan and Kathy S. Pomerantz, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
ALDRICH, J.
INTRODUCTION
Defendant and appellant Ruben Vargas pleaded no contest to felony leaving the scene of an accident. He was ordered to pay direct victim restitution. On appeal, he contends the restitution order must be stricken because leaving the scene of an accident did not cause damages. We disagree and affirm the judgment.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The factual background is from the preliminary hearing.
On October 6, 2006, Kimmy Kelca was at her home in Hermosa Beach with her two sons. One son slept with her, but her other six-year-old son was sleeping in his room. She heard a “high acceleration” and a “burn out of wheels.” A truck crashed into the middle of her son’s bedroom, trapping her son’s legs underneath the truck. The truck thrust backwards until it finally broke free of the house, leaving. Kelca’s son suffered head injuries, internal bruising and a broken right femur that required placement of titanium rods. He will require surgery in the future.
That same morning, Victor Arrunategur saw a pickup truck approach the intersection at Second Street and Hermosa Avenue. The truck looked like it had been in an accident because it didn’t have lights and it was leaking water. A man drove the truck and there was a female passenger. Arrunategur wrote down the truck’s license plate number and gave it to police. A license plate found at the scene matched the number Arrunategur gave to the police. Around noon that day, a police officer went to an address in Redondo Beach, where he saw a silver truck having the same license plate number. The front license plate was missing. The truck had extensive damage to the front grill, hood and windshield. Debris from a house was on the car, and a stuffed animal was on the windshield wiper. Inside the car was an insurance paper listing defendant as the insured.
Irma Carder confessed to police that she was driving the car. Because she was scared, defendant switched places with her and drove off. But she was also overheard saying that she was not the driver.
II. Procedural background.
On August 2, 2007, defendant pleaded no contest to a violation of Vehicle Code section 20001, subdivision (a). Defendant was ordered to pay direct victim restitution under Penal Code section 1202.4, subdivision (f), in the amount of $48,986.16. After denying a motion to withdraw the plea, the trial court sentenced defendant to 16 months in prison on October 14, 2008.
DISCUSSION
I. The restitution order was proper.
Defendant pleaded no contest to a violation of Vehicle Code section 20001, subdivision (a). It states: “The driver of a vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to a person, other than himself or herself, or in the death of a person shall immediately stop the vehicle at the scene of the accident and shall fulfill the requirements of Sections 20003 and 20004.” After pleading no contest to leaving the scene of an accident, defendant was ordered to pay direct victim restitution. All “persons who suffer losses as a result of criminal activity shall have the right to restitution from the persons convicted of the crimes for losses they suffer.” (Cal. Const., art. I, former § 28, subd. (b).) This constitutional mandate is codified in Penal Code section 1202.4, subdivision (f), which states that where “a victim has suffered economic loss as a result of the defendant’s conduct, the court shall require that the defendant make restitution to the victim or victims in an amount established by court order, based on the amount of loss claimed by the victim or victims or any other showing to the court.” (Italics added.) “A victim’s restitution right is to be broadly and liberally construed.” (People v. Mearns (2002) 97 Cal.App.4th 493, 500.)
The California Constitution now provides: “It is the unequivocal intention of the People of the State of California that all persons who suffer losses as a result of criminal activity shall have the right to seek and secure restitution from the persons convicted of the crimes causing the losses they suffer.” (Cal. Const., art. I, § 28, subd. (b)(13)(A).)
Defendant argues that he “was convicted of leaving the scene of—not of causing—the accident that resulted in injuries.” Because the victim did not suffer a loss as a result of his conduct of leaving the scene of the accident, he contends he cannot be liable for restitution. He relies primarily on People v. Escobar (1991) 235 Cal.App.3d 1504 (Escobar). As here, the defendant in Escobar pled guilty to a violation of Vehicle Code section 20001 (a hit and run) but, unlike here, was sentenced to probation. (Escobar, at p. 1507.) The court ordered Escobar to pay restitution as a condition of probation. The appellate court said that the “gravamen” of section 20001 “is not the initial injury of the victim, but leaving the scene without presenting identification or rendering aid. Thus, a plea of guilty to a ‘hit-and-run’ offense admits responsibility for leaving the scene but not for causing injury. Restitution is proper only to the extent that the victim’s injuries are caused or exacerbated by the offender’s leaving the scene.” (Escobar, at p. 1509; see also People v. Wood (2000) 83 Cal.App.4th 862; see People v. Scroggins (1987) 191 Cal.App.3d 502 [defendant who was convicted of receiving stolen property need not pay restitution to burglary victims because defendant was not responsible for their losses]; People v. Rivera (1989) 212 Cal.App.3d 1153 [defendant who was convicted of receiving stolen property and was sentenced to prison was not liable for restitution because there was no showing that the defendant was responsible for the losses suffered by the burglary victim].) In other words, section 20001 focuses on the “running,” not on the “hitting.” (Escobar, at pp. 1509-1510.) Based on this analysis, the court held that restitution served no rehabilitative purpose as a condition of probation.
Scroggins and Rivera both relied on People v. Richards (1976) 17 Cal.3d 614, which was disapproved of by the California Supreme Court in People v. Carbajal (1995) 10 Cal.4th 1114, 1126.
Our California Supreme Court disagreed with this conclusion in People v. Carbajal, supra, 10 Cal.4th 1114. The defendant in that case pleaded no contest to violating Vehicle Code section 20002, also a hit-and-run offense. He was sentenced to probation, but the trial court declined to order restitution based on Escobar. (Carbajal, at p. 1119.) The California Supreme Court, however, found that restitution as a condition of probation may be properly ordered where the defendant has been convicted of a hit-and-run offense. “California courts have long interpreted the trial court’s discretion to encompass the ordering of restitution as a condition of probation even when the loss was not necessarily caused by the criminal conduct underlying the conviction.” (Id. at p. 1121.) As to the specific hit-and-run crime, the court noted that by “leaving the scene of the accident, the fleeing driver deprives the nonfleeing driver of his or her right to have responsibility for the accident adjudicated in [the] orderly way according to the rules of law. This commonly entails a real, economic loss, not just an abstract affront.” (Id. at p. 1124.)
Vehicle Code section 20002 concerns a hit and run that causes property damages, whereas section 20001 concerns a hit and run that results in injury to a person.
Neither Escobar nor Carbajal are directly on point because the defendants in those cases were ordered to pay restitution as a condition of probation, and courts have greater leeway in imposing restitution in such cases. Where, as here, a defendant is ordered to pay restitution and is sentenced to prison, not to probation, “restitution must be for economic damages resulting from the crime of which [the defendant] was convicted, not merely those ‘reasonably related’ to the crime.” (People v. Rubics (2006) 136 Cal.App.4th 452, 460 (Rubics).)
In Rubics, the defendant pleaded guilty to violating Vehicle Code section 20001, subdivisions (a) and (b)(2), and was sentenced to three years in prison. (Rubics, supra, 136 Cal.App.4th at p. 454.) He was ordered to pay direct restitution to the dead victim’s family. On appeal, Rubics, like defendant here, contended that leaving the scene of the accident did not cause the victim’s economic loss; the accident did. The Rubics court examined the express language of Vehicle Code section 20001, subdivision (a). That subdivision refers to the driver of a vehicle “involved in an accident resulting in injury to a[ny] person.” (Italics added.) Such a driver must fulfill the requirements of sections 20003 (stop and provide information and render aid to the victim) and 20004 (report the accident to the authorities). Rubics concluded that “a necessary element of section 20001 is that [the defendant] was involved in an accident that caused serious injury or death. Thus, although a primary focus of section 20001 may be the act of leaving the scene, a conviction also acknowledges the fleeing driver’s responsibility for the damages he or she has caused by being involved in the accident itself.” (Rubics, at p. 459; see also CALJIC No. 12.70 [knowing involvement in an accident resulting in injury is an element of the offense].)
We agree with this conclusion. A reading of the statute finding that the gravamen of a hit-and-run offense is the running and not the hitting is, as Rubics states, too narrow. (Rubics, supra, 136 Cal.App.4th at p. 459.) Under Vehicle Code section 20001, there is no duty to give information and render aid unless a person has been injured. Injury is integral to the offense described in section 20001. That injury is integral to the offense is supported by the requirement the offender render aid to the victim. The statute recognizes that damage has occurred and the importance of rendering immediate aid, something defendant here failed to do when he fled the scene of the crime. Also, although Carbajal involved restitution as a condition of probation, it nonetheless alludes to this notion that injury is a part of the offense when it notes that “restitution is related to the crime of leaving the scene of the accident” and that leaving the scene of an accident “commonly entails a real, economic loss, not just an abstract affront.” (People v. Carbajal, supra, 10 Cal.4th at p. 1124.) We therefore disagree with defendant’s contention that the restitution order here was improper.
We also note that even the cases defendant relies on—namely, Escobar—state that “[r]estitution is proper only to the extent that the victim’s injuries are caused or exacerbated by the offender’s leaving the scene.” (Escobar, supra, 235 Cal.App.3d. at p. 1509.) Kimmy Kelca testified that when she got to her son’s room, her son was “screaming” and the “very front of the truck was over his legs.” She could see her son, “his head was pinned, and I could see that his leg was broken. And the truck finally broke free out of my house, and when it did, both of the west wall and the south wall came off the house and I saw the truck make a perfect three-point turn and leave. There was no stopping.”
Because we have decided this matter on the merits, we need not address either the People’s contention that defendant forfeited the issue by agreeing to pay restitution as part of his plea agreement and by failing to object in the trial court or the defendant’s argument that if his trial counsel forfeited the issue, then he rendered ineffective assistance of counsel.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur KLEIN, P. J.,KITCHING, J.