17 results for 'judge:"Dato"'.
J. Dato finds that defendant is ineligible for resentencing for conspiring to commit murder and attempted murder for luring her ex-husband to a remote location where her lover shot him. The attempted murder count was based on an intent to kill, not a natural and probable consequences theory. The conspiracy to commit murder jury instruction required a finding that she agreed with her lover's intention to kill, so it was not based on imputed malice. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: May 2, 2024, Case #: D080941, Categories: Murder, Sentencing
J. Dato finds that the trial court erred by allowing the state to present hearsay testimony during a murder trial. The state failed to show it diligently tried to locate the witness before it relied on her preliminary hearing testimony, so defendant's murder conviction is reversed. Also, lying in wait and torture murder special circumstances against a co-defendant based on placing the victim in a fire while allegedly alive are supported by sufficient evidence and may be retried. And the trial court improperly allowed the state to introduce evidence that defendant was a Satan worshipper, as it had minimal probative value. Reversed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: March 29, 2024, Case #: D082754, Categories: Confrontation, Evidence, Murder
J. Dato finds the trial court improperly denied an award for attorney fees in this contract dispute against a county council. The property owner alleges she was fraudulently enrolled in a Property Assessed Clean Energy program. This case is remanded for the t rialcourt to find if there is a “party prevailing on the contract,” and for further proceedings. Reversed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: February 20, 2024, Case #: D080978, Categories: Environment, Property, Attorney Fees
J. Dato finds the trial court properly denied a continuance in this guardianship dispute when the father’s counsel withdrew. The father requested sole and physical custody of the children. The court issued a proposed decision giving the mother sole custody of the children with the parties having equal physical custody. The husband failed to show the denial affected the outcome of proceedings and both parties shall bear their own costs in this appeal. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: February 16, 2024, Case #: D080977, Categories: Family Law, Guardianship
[Modified.] J. Dato replaces a sentence and two images and denies a rehearing with no change in judgment. The trial court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress video recordings from a city's stationary streetlight cameras that were used to identify his vehicle in a murder trial. Police did not conduct a search when accessing the recordings since he did not have a privacy interest in footage of him on public streets. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: February 15, 2024, Case #: D080606, Categories: Murder, Search
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J. Dato holds that the trial court must revisit defendant's claim that racial bias motivated the traffic stop that led to a misdemeanor concealed firearm charge. The trial court found a police officer did not exhibit explicit bias because he did not know that defendant was Black when initiating the stop. But the Racial Justice Act also requires consideration of factors that might show implicit bias, such as the officer's statement that he pulled defendant over for wearing a "hoodie" with the hood pulled up. Also, statistical evidence about traffic stops made by a police department is admissible under the Act. Reversed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: February 14, 2024, Case #: D082187, Categories: Evidence, Firearms
J. Dato finds that the trial court properly denied defendant's motion to suppress video recordings from a city's stationary streetlight cameras that were used to identify his vehicle in a murder trial. Police did not conduct a search when accessing the recordings since he did not have a privacy interest in footage of him on public streets. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: January 25, 2024, Case #: D080606, Categories: Murder, Search
J. Dato holds that the trial court should have granted an employee's motion to vacate a stay of his wage and hour claims. His employer had court proceedings stayed and took the dispute to arbitration as called for in an employment agreement. The employer waived its right to arbitration by failing to pay arbitration fees within 30 days. Vacated.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: January 24, 2024, Case #: D082429, Categories: Arbitration, Employment
J. Dato holds that the trial court must grant defendant's request for a mental health diversion prior to trial on a robbery charge. The conclusion that she would not respond to psychiatric help was error because her prior substance abuse treatment did not address underlying mental health conditions. And nothing shows she poses a risk to public safety. Reversed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: January 9, 2024, Case #: D082443, Categories: Competence, Robbery
J. Dato finds that the trial court properly found in favor of mineral rights holders in a dispute over the rights to mine sand and gravel through open-pit excavation. The holders are entitled to a 50 percent interest in the extracted minerals because they showed that sand and gravel mining had taken place in the area since the 1920s and their predecessors severed the surface and mineral rights through grant deeds that reserved a partial interest in the mineral rights. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: December 21, 2023, Case #: D082234, Categories: Property
J. Dato finds that substantial evidence supported granting a domestic violence restraining order to an adult son whose mother threatened him. She repeatedly contacted him after he asked her to stop verbally and in writing, and the trial court was within its discretion to consider an out-of-state restraining order on the mother. Also, her facial challenge to the statute that bars subjects of restraining orders from possessing firearms fails because the constitution protects the rights of law-abiding citizens to possess firearms, and the trial court found she was not law-abiding. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: October 31, 2023, Case #: D081250, Categories: Civil Rights, Restraining Order, Firearms
J. Dato finds that the trial court mistakenly held that a bankruptcy trustee's abandonment of a property after a visitor was injured there protected her from liability for the visitor's injuries. The abandonment retroactively reverted title and possession to the debtors but it did not operate retroactively for the purpose of establishing liability. And the Barton rule does operate to deprive the trial court of jurisdiction. Reversed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: October 19, 2023, Case #: D080534, Categories: Bankruptcy, Civil Procedure, Negligence
J. Dato finds that an arbitrator created a reasonable impression of possible bias in finding that a party to a real estate transaction lacked credibility because she used an interpreter during proceedings. The party has lived in the U.S. for decades, conducted business here and even worked as an interpreter herself, but the use of an interpreter in a high-stakes arbitration proceeding does not permit an inference of deception. Reversed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: October 17, 2023, Case #: D080801, Categories: Arbitration, Real Estate, Contract
J. Dato finds the trial court properly denied defendant’s petition for resentencing from his murder conviction arising from his participation as accomplice in a gang-related shooting. The petition has been addressed in an earlier opinion by this court and there is no change in the ruling. The opinion is modified with a footnote referring to a cited case in which the law at the time “did not require the jury to find that [he] personally acted with malice,” and certain other syntactical and grammatical changes to clarify descriptions of accomplice liability.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: October 12, 2023, Case #: D080779, Categories: Murder, Accomplice Liability
J. Dato finds that the trial court properly denied a motion to suppress a gun defendant possessed during a traffic stop. Police had reasonable suspicion to pat him down based on his known gang membership, the presence of other gang members, their location in contested territory and a loaded gun found on another passenger. The seven-minute traffic stop did not take longer than necessary to write a ticket for tinted windows so his detention was not impermissibly extended. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: September 26, 2023, Case #: D080703, Categories: Firearms, Search, Gangs
J. Dato finds that defendant failed to make a prima facie case for resentencing on a first degree murder conviction. He could still be convicted despite changes to statute made since his conviction. And his allegation that the jury received an erroneous instruction that used now-disallowed "equally guilty" language could have been raised in his previous direct appeal. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: September 21, 2023, Case #: D080779, Categories: Murder, Sentencing, Jury Instructions
J. Dato finds that summary judgment for an employer accused of antitrust violations by one of its sales executives was proper. The sales executive lacks standing under the Cartwright Act to claim that he suffered an antitrust injury from a policy barring him from soliciting customers from the employer’s potential merger partner. He failed to show that his lost sales or firing were the result his employer’s competition-reducing agreement with the potential merger partner. Instead, he lost sales because he could not use a sales pitch that attempted to profit from the alleged reduction in competition that would result from the merger. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Dato, Filed On: July 5, 2023, Case #: D080391, Categories: Antitrust, Employment