Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
On March 27, 2022, at about 9 p.m., Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Joseph Valencia responded to a major accident near the City of Industry in which a Mercedes rear-ended a Honda stopped at a red light. The Honda driver was hospitalized with multiple injuries. Neither Valencia nor the Honda driver saw who drove the Mercedes, which was left in the roadway with no occupant and both airbags deployed. Valencia found defendant Jose Rodriguez crouched among parked trucks at a nearby semi-trailer station, extremely intoxicated, dissociated, and unable to stand still; no one else was near the scene.
Deputies detained defendant pending a DUI investigation but did not ask if he was the driver, and he did not say they had the wrong person. Around midnight, California Highway Patrol Officer Michael Dulong arrived and noticed red, watery eyes and slurred speech. Defendant admitted drinking beer all day but denied driving; a registration check showed he owned the Mercedes. Dulong looked for cameras that could have captured the collision but found none. He saw an abrasion over defendant's left collarbone, which he believed indicated the driver's seat, where the seatbelt crosses the left collarbone; defendant claimed he sat in the right rear. After refusing a field sobriety test, defendant was arrested, and a blood draw showed 0.21 percent alcohol.
The District Attorney charged three DUI-related offenses: DUI causing injury within 10 years of a prior DUI (Veh. Code, § 23153, subd. (a)), driving with a .08 blood alcohol level causing injury within 10 years of a prior DUI (§ 23153, subd. (b)), and driving on a suspended license (§ 14601.2, subd. (a)). The information alleged a .20-or-higher blood alcohol enhancement and, as to counts one and two, a rule 4.421(a)(1) aggravating factor involving great bodily harm and acts disclosing a high degree of cruelty, viciousness, and callousness. Defendant pled no contest to count three; a jury convicted him on counts one and two and found the .20 allegation true. The court imposed five years of formal probation with 180 days in county jail.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal affirmed, rejecting the sufficiency challenge to the jury's finding that defendant was the driver. Section 23153 requires proof of driving, but circumstantial evidence is as sufficient as direct evidence. Under the substantial evidence standard, ample circumstantial evidence supported the finding: defendant owned the Mercedes; he was found near it shortly after the accident with no one else around except law enforcement; his left-collarbone abrasion matched a driver's-side seatbelt, not the right-rear seat where he claimed to sit; and he was crouched among trucks when first seen, suggestive of consciousness of guilt.
The court rejected defendant's contrary evidence—the two deployed airbags, the purported absence of the keys, and his denial to Officer Dulong—because review asks only whether substantial evidence supports the conclusion the jury drew, not whether a different conclusion was possible. Those arguments also failed on their own terms: there was no evidence on airbag deployment mechanics; Dulong testified only that he did not remember where the keys were; and the jury could discredit defendant's self-serving denial.
The court also rejected the challenge to the rule 4.421(a)(1) aggravating factor. Defendant's brief argued the trial court applied and found the factor true, but the record does not establish any such finding was ever made; defendant waived a jury on the factor, yet the court never ruled because it suspended imposition of sentence and imposed probation, so the factor did not affect a low, middle, or high term. The challenge to a nonexistent finding fails. The Attorney General noted that if probation is later revoked, a challenge to the term selected would be ripe.
Key Takeaways
- Circumstantial evidence alone can prove the driving element of DUI causing injury under Vehicle Code section 23153 even when no witness saw the defendant drive.
- Vehicle ownership, proximity to the scene with no one else around, a seatbelt abrasion consistent with the driver's position, and conduct suggesting consciousness of guilt can together be substantial evidence of driver identity.
- On appeal the court asks only whether substantial evidence supports the verdict, not whether the evidence could also support a different conclusion.
- A challenge to an aggravating factor fails where the record shows the trial court never made the finding, as when a probationary sentence required no low, middle, or high term selection.
- If probation is revoked and a prison term imposed, a challenge to the selected term becomes ripe and may be raised on appeal.
Why It Matters
This unpublished decision applies the substantial evidence standard to a DUI conviction resting entirely on circumstantial evidence of driver identity, showing how ownership, proximity, physical evidence, and consciousness of guilt can combine without direct evidence or eyewitnesses.
It also shows that an aggravating-factor challenge is not ripe—not barred—when the court suspends imposition of sentence and imposes probation, leaving term selection for a later revocation proceeding.