This is a tough situation all around, honestly.
F.P. is driving a car with tinted windows in Ukiah and leaves the vehicle to run a (hopefully super quick) errand. She leaves the keys in the vehicle. Oh, also, in the back seat, she leaves her one year old son.
Fear not. The child is fine.
But shortly after F.P. gets out of the car, K.D. -- a 29-year old woman -- hops in, hits the gas, and drives away.
It's unclear whether K.D. knows that the baby is in the vehicle at the time she steals it. Regardless, it's still grand theft, and maybe kidnapping as well. Thankfully, the vehicle gets recovered fairly rapidly, around two miles away, and the baby is okay.
Here's the thing about K.D., though. She's really quite intellectually challenged. I mean: A lot. Here's some of what the opinion says in this regard:
"Dr. Holden evaluated defendant in July 2021 and concluded that she was not competent to stand trial. He opined that defendant “[fell] far short of the legal standard for competency to stand trial, having little factual and rational understanding of legal proceedings and an impaired ability to consult with her attorney in conducting a rational defense.” . . . .
Dr. Wright observed that defendant had dropped out of school in sixth grade, she was not able to write a grammatically correct paragraph or read an analog clock, and she did not know the months of the year. She scored “[e]xtremely [l]ow” on scales of verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed. Her percentile ranks ranged from 0.1 to 2, and her performance placed her full scale I.Q. at 55 (0.1 percentile)."
So, on the one hand, you can potentially put K.D. in a diversion program for that. Since, honestly, she clearly needs a ton of help, and just dumping her in the hoosegow probably isn't going to help things much.
At the same time, though, this was a serious offense -- the baby could have been physically hurt, after all, and the mother was surely traumatized -- and this is also most definitely not K.D.'s first run-in with the law:
"The prosecution filed a declaration opposing diversion. The prosecution cited the victims’ trauma, RCRC’s original recommendation against diversion, defendant’s “conscious deceitfulness” in giving false names to police, her criminal history, and the violent nature of the crimes charged; the prosecution further argued that defendant was a flight risk. The prosecution maintained that the facts of the crime alone should cause the court to determine the offenses defendant committed were not worthy of diversion, and the prosecution concluded that “[t]he time has come for real and meaningful consequences for this defendant that can only be realized by more restrictive and punitive measures, not less.” . . . .
Defendant’s criminal record consisted of seventeen misdemeanor convictions and one felony conviction in the counties of Fresno, Tulare, and Madera between June 2009 and September 2019, including receipt of a stolen vehicle, drug possession, using or being under the influence of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, disorderly conduct, and providing false identification. Defendant’s 2018 felony conviction was under section 496d. Defendant had been granted probation numerous times, including formal probation for her felony conviction, and her probation had been revoked eight times. She had two outstanding bench warrants related to misdemeanor charges in Tulare County. While on felony probation, defendant had not stayed in contact with probation as directed, and she failed to follow through with any court-ordered rehabilitative services."
A toughie for sure.
Honestly, I'm glad I wasn't responsible for deciding this one. Either in the trial court or on appeal. It's not one where I have a definite and firm conviction about which way to go.
Something to think about over the weekend, perhaps.
