California v. Martell
Annotate this CaseLeAndre Martell and his girlfriend, Jasmine McCann, were in the process of moving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas when things fell apart. McCann moved to Las Vegas without Martell. A few days later she returned to Victorville and reported the car she let Martell drive, as stolen. She said she never told Martell about the police report, and never contacted the police again. Despite their problems, the break-up didn’t take. Though McCann said she had asked Martell repeatedly to return the car, he didn’t. He said she never asked for the car. Back in Los Angeles in 2016, police stopped Martell while he was driving the car and arrested him for driving with a suspended license. They impounded the car and discovered it was registered to McCann. After the arrest, McCann got her car and her boyfriend back. She recovered the car from police impound, picked Martell up from court, and the two drove to Las Vegas, where they finally set up house together. He continued driving her car in Las Vegas until she bought him another one. Though their relationship was rocky, they stayed together through April 2017 when Martell left her for another woman. McCann then lost the car when it was impounded for illegal parking and she decided it wasn’t worth the cost of getting it out. Shortly after the final breakup, a jury tried Martell and found him guilty of felony unlawfully taking or driving a vehicle. Although it wasn’t clear at the time, the California Supreme Court held a defendant could not be convicted of a felony for unlawfully taking a vehicle with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of possession unless it was worth more than $950, though they could be convicted of a felony for unlawfully driving a vehicle even if it was worth less than that threshold amount. The Court of Appeal determined that though the trial court correctly determined the evidence wouldn’t support a jury finding that McCann’s car was worth more than $950, it erroneously concluded Martell could be convicted of felony unlawful taking such a low-value vehicle. This error "infected" the court’s jury instructions. Since the Court of Appeal determined there was a reasonable chance the jury convicted under the improper theory, Martell was entitled to have his conviction reduced to a misdemeanor or to be retried for a felony conviction under a proper legal theory.
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