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C.A. Rejects Two-Year Robbery-at-Knifepoint Sentence
Opinion Says Disposition, Reached on Basis of Striking Three Priors, Can’t Stand in Light of Infirm Reasons
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A recidivist who, while on parole for a crime that entailed causing a death, committed the robbery of a woman at knifepoint and faced the apparent prospect of a sentence of 41 years to life in prison, will not be allowed to enjoy the benefits of a deal reached between his lawyer and a judge for a two-year sentence in exchange for a guilty plea, under a decision of Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal.
The sentence was imposed on April 20 of last year by Orange Superior Court Judge Thomas James Lo. He was giving effect to a disposition offered by a retired judge of the court, Kazuharu Makino, sitting on assignment, and agreed to by defendant Danny Ray Beasley. That accord was over the objection of Orange Deputy District Attorney Claudia C. Alvarez.
Her office appealed Lo’s judgment, and reversal came on Thursday in an opinion by Acting Presiding Justice William W. Bedsworth.
He determined that the rationale Lo provided for the low-term sentence—which was reached after he dismissed three prior-strike allegations “in furtherance of justice,” thus avoiding sentence-boosting commands of the Three Strikes Law—made no sense. Tossing out those strikes, Bedsworth declared, exceeded the bounds of reason.
Beasley, who was on parole when, on Feb. 27, 2021, he robbed and traumatized an employee of a Pizza Hut in Buena Park on Beach Boulevard, had been sentenced in 1998, as a third-strike offender, to a term of 25-years-to-life in prison after pleading guilty to a violation of Vehicle Code §2800.3(b): causing a death in the course of evading a police officer. The death was that of a passenger in the vehicle he stole, caused when he crashed into two parked vehicles while being pursued by Hawthorne police.
Prior to parole being granted, Div. Eight of this district’s Court of Appeal on Aug 24, 2018, affirmed the denial by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan of Beasley’s petition for a recall of his sentence and a resentencing, under Proposition 36, rejecting the contention that the felony was not a “serious one.”
Bedsworth’s Opinion
In his opinion discarding the sentence Lo imposed, Bedsworth wrote:
“Felony sentencing is among the hardest of the many hard things trial judges are required to do. No matter how offensive the defendant’s conduct, no matter how heinous the crime, when it comes time to sentence, there is a human being standing before you—often with friends, family...children, right behind. You do not get to sentence the crime, you have to sentence the criminal, the person who committed the offense. If you don’t sometimes find that difficult, you should consider another line of work. “Because these decisions are so hard, the law accords great deference to the trial judges who make them. And appellate courts, dealing with a lifeless record, are reluctant to lay claim to any greater wisdom than that of the judge who dealt with living, breathing people standing in his/her courtroom.
“But we need the sentencing judge to provide reasons for those sentencing decisions. They don’t have to be reasons we agree with. If they make sense, we will accept them, regardless of whether they correspond to what we would have done. But they have to make sense. This case provides no such reasons so we have to send it back for reconsideration.”
If a new sentencing deal isn’t reached, Beasley will have the option of withdrawing his guilty plea and going to trial, under the opinion.
Disapproved Reasons
One basis for the sentence, articulated by Lo, was that “the degree of monetary loss in the current offense was not substantial.” Bedsworth responded:
“[T]he fact Beasley would resort to using a weapon to rob someone of such a small amount of money suggests he would pose a greater danger to society than if he had limited his robberies to persons with large sums of money; we cannot accept that. Moreover, the trial court did not find—and the record does not support an implied finding—that the amount of money stolen was ‘deliberately small.’ Beasley took all he could get; this was not a matter of limiting his damage, it was a matter of the easiest target not having a lot.”
Lo also noted that “the strike prior convictions alleged are over 23 years old.” That’s true, Bedsworth said, but pointed out:
“The reason Beasley’s priors were old is that he had been in prison for most of the past 23 years for his third strike offense in 1998.”
He cited authority for the proposition that the age of strikes is not of relevance unless the defendant can demonstrate having been “crime free” long after the earlier offenses, saying that “Beasley plainly has not shown that his strike priors led him to reform his life.”
Lo invoked the factor that Beasley “acknowledged wrongdoing at an early stage of the criminal process in the current case.” Unimpressed, Bedsworth said that while this does generally constitute a mitigating factor, “its impact pales to the point of vanishing in light of the fact he was admitting guilt in exchange for a sentence so low as to beggar the word ‘lenient.’ ”
The two-year sentence was also reached after Lo struck Beasley’s prior serious felony convictions that did not invoke the Three-Strikes Law as well as an enhancement based on personal weapon-use, which the defendant admitted. Bedsworth said that “the trial court can revisit” these matters “should it be in a position to resentence” Beasley “in the future.”
He commented:
“The Three Strikes law has come in for its fair share of well-deserved criticism. There are many situations in which trial courts will reasonably and justifiably find reason to depart from its strictures. The law allows for that, and we are loath to second-guess such highly-individualized decisions when presented with a record that includes such reasons. This record does not.”
The case is People v. Beasley, 2022 S.O.S. 3208.
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