People v. Vivar


Filed 12/12/19 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATON IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, E070926 v. (Super.Ct.No. RIF101988) ROBERT LANDEROS VIVAR, OPINION Defendant and Appellant. APPEAL from the Superior Court of Riverside County. Bambi J. Moyer, Judge. Affirmed. Munger, Tolles & Olson, Joseph D. Lee, William Larsen and Dane Shikman for Defendant and Appellant. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Kahn A. Scolnick, Daniel R. Adler and Jason S. Kim for Alyssa Bell, Reuven Cohen, Ingrid V. Early, Gilbert Garcetti, Meline Mkrtichian, Ronald J. Nessim, Gabriel Pardo, Jennifer Resnik and David J. Sutton as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant. 1 Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, and Melissa Mandel and Adrian R. Contreras, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. I. INTRODUCTION Defendant and appellant, Robert Landeros Vivar, pled guilty to possession of materials with the intent to manufacture methamphetamine. (Health & Saf. Code, former § 11383, subd. (c).) Defendant was placed on probation for three years, and as a condition of probation was to serve one year in county jail. He also received a referral to the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) program. Shortly after his release, defendant was removed from the country as a consequence of his plea. Over a decade later, defendant filed a motion to vacate his conviction pursuant to Penal Code section 1473.7. The trial court denied defendant’s motion. On appeal, defendant argues the trial court erred in denying his motion to vacate his guilty plea because his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to investigate and advise defendant of the immigration consequences of his plea and for failing to defend or mitigate the judgment. Defendant also argues that his plea must be vacated because it was legally invalid. We affirm. 2 II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND1 Defendant immigrated from Mexico in 1962 when he was six years old. He lived in the United States for 41 years until his removal in 2003. He does not speak Spanish natively. He has two United States citizen children and six United States citizen grandchildren residing in California. At the time of the relevant offense, defendant had lawful immigration status. Defendant became addicted to amphetamines in the mid-1990’s. Defendant entered RSAT and successfully completed drug treatment in 1998 or 1999. However, he began using amphetamines again in the fall of 2001. During the evening of February 16, 2002, defendant entered a grocery store in Corona. A loss prevention employee in the store saw defendant take 12 boxes of Sudafed and hide them in his jacket. After defendant paid for other items and attempted to leave, the employee detained him until police arrived. While detained, defendant told the employee that he was going to give the Sudafed to someone else, who was going to use the Sudafed to manufacture methamphetamine. In exchange, this person was to give defendant methamphetamine. Defendant repeated this story when questioned by ...

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