Tuesday, November 12, 2019

People v. Chubbuck (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 12, 2019)

Defendant was convicted of unlawfully taking a motor vehicle, but it's not your usual stolen car case. Indeed, I'm not even sure what the defendant was trying to do.  He breaks into a storage yard at 4 a.m. and then starts driving -- inside the storage yard -- a vehicle that's typically used to move storage containers, and does so for 15 minutes or so.  The owner of the storage yard and the police then arrive and arrest him.

What was he trying to do?  Steal a storage container?  If so, he was remarkably bad at it, and didn't even seem to try.  Just joyride in the storage facility?  Weird.  And hardly worth the seven years in prison he received.


And not your usual name, either.  The defendant's first name is "Jhyy."  Last name:  Chubbuck.  The opinion even contains a footnote (the first one) about the defendant's name, which was apparently erroneously entered on the abstract of judgment.  Definitely a unique first name, and one I have not seen before.