California Court of Appeals, Second District, Second Division
[REVIEW GRANTED BY CAL. SUPREME COURT]
[CERTIFIED
FOR PARTIAL PUBLICATION][*]
[256
Cal.Rptr.3d 320] APPEAL from a judgment of the Los Angeles
Superior Court, Steven D. Blades, Judge. Affirmed. (Los
Angeles County Super. Ct. No. KA115677)
Page 1153
COUNSEL
Rachel
Lederman, under appointment by the Court of Appeal for
Defendant and Appellant.
Xavier
Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Senior Assistant
Attorney General, Scott A. Taryle, Supervising Deputy
Attorney General, and Colleen M. Tiedemann, Deputy Attorney
General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
OPINION
HOFFSTADT,
J.
Page 1154
A
criminal defendant furnishes controlled substances to
another, who dies from ingesting those drugs. Is that
defendant [256 Cal.Rptr.3d 321] immune from criminal
liability for personally inflicting great bodily injury upon
the drug user by virtue of the user’s voluntary ingestion of
the drugs? The courts do not agree on how to answer this
question: People v. Martinez (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th
1169, 172 Cal.Rptr.3d 793 (Martinez ) says
"no," while People v. Slough (2017) 11
Cal.App.5th 419, 217 Cal.Rptr.3d 598 (Slough ) says
"yes." We conclude that Martinez has the
better argument. Because we also reject the sentencing
challenges raised by the defendant in this case (in the
unpublished portion of our decision), we affirm.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
I. Facts
In
late June 2017, Treyvon Love Ollo (defendant), then 18 years
old, invited his 16-year-old girlfriend Reina over to his
house. He told her that he "ha[d] some coke that [he]
got last night." Reina came over, and the couple
retreated to defendant’s bedroom and had sex.
Defendant then provided Reina with a white, powdery substance
that he thought was cocaine, but which had a "[weird]
...