People v. Pineda

Filed 5/4/26
                CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                 SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

                         DIVISION EIGHT



 THE PEOPLE,                         B343654

         Plaintiff and Respondent,   Los Angeles County
                                     Super. Ct. No. TA128998
         v.

 ALVIN PINEDA,

         Defendant and Appellant.



      APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los
Angeles County, Laura R. Walton, Judge. Affirmed.
      Derek K. Kowata, under appointment by the Court of
Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
      Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Chief
Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant
Attorney General, Noah P. Hill and Heidi Salerno, Deputy
Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
                      ____________________
         We grapple with the hearsay rule. Alvin Pineda petitioned
to be resentenced under section 1172.6 of the Penal Code. We
affirm the denial of his petition because declarations against
interest in evidence at Pineda’s preliminary hearing sealed his
fate. Undesignated statutory citations are to the Penal Code.
         In 2019, Senate Bill No. 1437 (2017–2018 Reg. Sess.)
(Senate Bill 1437) altered the rules of murder liability to ensure
punishment more closely matched culpability. (People v. Arellano
(2024) 16 Cal.5th 457, 472.) This new law established a
resentencing process, now codified in section 1172.6. This statute
permits people convicted of murder, attempted murder, or
manslaughter under a theory made invalid by the current law to
petition the sentencing court to vacate the conviction and to seek
resentencing. (§ 1172.6, subd. (a)(1).) If petitioners make a
prima facie showing of eligibility for relief, the trial court holds
an evidentiary hearing. (§ 1172.6, subd. (d)(3).) The trial court
then sits as the trier of fact and determines whether the
petitioner could be found guilty of murder or attempted murder
under current law. (§ 1172.6, subd. (d)(3).) The Evidence Code
governs the admission of evidence at the evidentiary hearing,
“except that the court may consider evidence previously admitted
at any prior hearing or trial that is admissible under current law
. . . .” (Ibid.) However, the court shall exclude any hearsay
admitted at a preliminary hearing pursuant to subdivision (b) of
section 872 unless the evidence is admissible under an exception
to the hearsay rule. (Ibid.)
         Before deciding Pineda’s petition, the court set an
evidentiary hearing. The only evidence in the record was from
the preliminary hearing. Officer Jose Carias had testified at the
preliminary hearing under section 872, subdivision (b), which




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permits hearsay testimony under certain conditions. (See
Whitman v. Superior Court (1991) 54 Cal.3d 1063, 1067–1068,
1070–1083.) Thus, in determining whether Pineda could still be
convicted under current law, the trial court could consider the
hearsay testimony of Carias, but only if a hearsay exception lifted
the basic hearsay bar. (§ 1172.6, subd. (d)(3).)
      The pivotal question is whether the trial court properly
admitted Carias’s testimony relaying what codefendant Gilberto
Salinas said during a Perkins operation. (See Illinois v. Perkins
(1990) 496 U.S. 292, 294–300 [describing operation].) Without
that evidence, the prosecution could not identify Pineda as the
shooter.
      The trial court properly admitted Salinas’s previously
admitted statements because the court rightly concluded they
were against his penal interest. Therefore, substantial evidence
supported the trial court’s finding that Pineda could still be
convicted under current law.
      We deferentially review this ruling. (People v. Schell (2022)
84 Cal.App.5th 437, 442.)
      At the preliminary hearing, Carias testified that officers
arrested a man named Salinas, who became Pineda’s
codefendant. Police put Salinas in a cell with a confidential
informant and taped their conversation. Salinas identified
Pineda as the shooter, as follows.
      Salinas said he was a member of the Hangout Boys gang
and went by the moniker Little Boy. He and some fellow
Hangout Boys members were at a baptismal party when Salinas
recognized Rudolfo Alarcon as someone from a rival gang: the
Playboys. This Playboy fought with one of Salinas’s “homeys.”




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Salinas and his fellow gang members felt outnumbered, so
Salinas told other members to join them, and to bring a gun.
      Salinas identified “Alvin,” who went by the moniker “True.”
Alvin arrived with a gun. Salinas took the gun to take care of the
problem. During a confrontation with the Playboys group,
Alarcon began dissing Salinas. Salinas pulled the gun as a
second fight broke out. One Playboy struggled with Salinas,
trying to take the gun, and the gun fell to the floor. “True” —
that is to say, Alvin Pineda — got the gun and began shooting.
Salinas said one person died and another three or four people
were injured.
      Other testimony put Pineda’s cell phone near the party at
the time of the shooting. Pineda’s phone also had text messages
from a fellow gang member at the party telling him to come and
bring a gun to make some “dead bunnies,” referring to Playboy
gang members.
      Pineda pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and
two counts of willful, deliberate, and premediated attempted
murder.
      At the resentencing hearing, the court admitted Carias’s
hearsay testimony about Salinas’s statements from the
preliminary hearing. The court correctly ruled these statements
were declarations against interest.
      Evidence Code section 1230 defines this hearsay exception.
In relevant part, it states (with our emphasis): “Evidence of a
statement by a declarant . . . is not made inadmissible by the
hearsay rule if the declarant is unavailable as a witness and the
statement, when made, . . . so far subjected him to the risk of civil
or criminal liability, . . . that a reasonable [person] in his position




                                   4
would not have made the statement unless he believed it to be
true.”
       Salinas’s statements were declarations against interest.
They showed he had engineered assaults: bring the gun so we
can shoot Playboys. They subjected Salinas to a risk of criminal
liability. Reasonable people in Salinas’s position would not have
made these statements unless they believed them.
       Pineda argues that, at the time of the preliminary hearing,
the court did not explicitly find Salinas was unavailable. This is
true. But the resentencing court may admit evidence previously
admitted as long as it would be admissible today. (§ 1172.6,
subd. (d)(3); People v. Ramos (2025) 112 Cal.App.5th 174, 189
[section 1172.6, subdivision (d)(3) creates a “broader exception to
hearsay rule” because it allows previously admitted evidence, if it
would be admissible today, without additional requirements].)
The court admitted the jailhouse statements, and they are the
type of evidence that would be admissible today. (§ 1172.6, subd.
(d)(3).) The trial court rightly admitted this testimony.
       The resentencing court also admitted a recording of the full
Perkins operation. The defense objected because the court had
not previously admitted the recording, and the prosecution had
not laid a sufficient foundation, including showing that Salinas
was currently unavailable. The trial court overruled the
objections, noting the recording “would have been admissible” at
trial. This misunderstands the rules laid out in section 1172.6,
subdivision (d)(3). That section permits evidence previously
admitted as long as it would still be permissible under the
Evidence Code as it stands today. (§ 1172.6, subdivision (d)(3).)
Whether something a court had not admitted would have been
admissible at a previous time is immaterial. However, Carias’s




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testimony and the other admissible testimony in the preliminary
hearing provided substantial evidence to support the court’s
finding, so any error in admitting the recording was harmless.
                          DISPOSITION
      We affirm.



                                        WILEY, J.

We concur:



             STRATTON, P. J.




             SCHERB, J.




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