People v. Lopez-Tapia

── People v. Lopez-Tapia ── Court: California Court of Appeal Date: May 15, 2026 Category: General Filed 5/15/26 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION FOUR THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, A169083 v. JAMIR LOPEZ-TAPIA, (San Mateo County Super. Ct. No. 23NF003945A) Defendant and Appellant. Jamir Lopez-Tapia was convicted of one count of witness dissuasion and sentenced to the middle term of two years in state prison, doubled to four years by operation of a prior strike allegation. He argues that the trial court failed to comply with its obligation under Penal Code 1 section 1170, subdivision (b)(6) (section 1170(b)(6)) to apply a presumption in favor of the lower term based on his childhood trauma. The parties agree that the court did not apply the presumption based on this factor because it expressly identified Lopez-Tapia’s youth at the time of the offense as the only mitigating circumstance. The Attorney General argues that we should affirm the judgment because (1) Lopez-Tapia forfeited this claim by failing to raise the presumption in the trial court; (2) there was no error in any event because there is insufficient evidence in the record that Lopez-Tapia’s childhood trauma was a contributing factor in the commission of the offense; and (3) remand would be an idle act because the record shows that the trial 1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code. court would not apply the lower term regardless. We resolve the claim by concluding that Lopez-Tapia has failed to establish error. BACKGROUND Lopez-Tapia was charged with a single count of witness dissuasion. (§ 136.1, subd. (b)(2)). The information further alleged that he had suffered two prior strike convictions (§§ 667, subd. (d); 1170.12, subd. (b)) and a serious felony conviction (§ 667, subd. (a)(1)), and that as a result of his prior convictions he is ineligible for probation (§ 1203, subd. (e)(4)). At trial, evidence was presented that the victim attempted to drive Lopez-Tapia home after spending several hours with a group of mutual friends at a bar. According to the victim, Lopez-Tapia was asleep in the back seat when they arrived in South San Francisco. When he woke up, Lopez- Tapia “was begging [the victim] to take him to San Francisco” and then said, “Let me just drive the car. Let me drive the car.” The victim initially agreed, but when Lopez-Tapia began driving erratically, he got scared and asked to be let out of the car. Lopez-Tapia let the victim exit the car and then drove away. After unsuccessfully trying to get in contact with Lopez-Tapia, the victim called 911 and reported his car as stolen. The victim testified that he had no recollection of his statements to the police, despite the prosecutor’s attempt to refresh his memory with a transcript of the conversation. The recording of his conversation with the police officer was played for the jury, in which the victim reported that Lopez- Tapia showed him a gun and told him to get out of the car before driving away. An officer testified that the victim was adamant at the time of the incident that he did not want Lopez-Tapia arrested or prosecuted for the incident because he was concerned that there would be retaliation and that 2 he would be labeled a snitch. The car was located about an hour after the victim reported it stolen and Lopez-Tapia was arrested. 2 The following day, Lopez-Tapia made two phone calls from jail. During the first, he said, “[t]hey trying to get me for carjacking. . . . [T]hey trying to say I took [the victim’s] car. I don’t know if he called the cops, or what he tried to say. I don’t know, I guess he called the cops and said I was, I carjacked him or whateve