People v. Ollo

         [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)

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         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.

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          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 Because we also reject the sentencing challenges raised by the defendant in this case (in the unpublished portion of our decision), we affirm.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] ...