People v. Prunty: When does membership in a gang’s subset violate the STEP Act?

In People v. Prunty (2015) 214 Cal.App. 4th 1110, the California Supreme Court was asked to decide what type of showing the prosecution must make when its theory of why a criminal street gang exists turns on the conduct of one or more gang subsets.

Facts 

The state’s theory at trial was that defendant Zackery Prunty committed an assault to benefit the Sacramento-area Norteño street gang. The evidence showed that Prunty identified as a Norteño; he claimed membership in a particular Norteño subset, the Detroit Boulevard Norteños, and that Prunty uttered gang slurs and invoked “Norte” when shooting a perceived rival gang member at a Sacramento shopping center.

To show that Prunty’s crime qualified for a sentence enhancement under the STEP Act, the prosecution’s gang expert testified about the Sacramento-area Norteño gangs general existence and origins, its use of shared signs, symbols, colors, and names, its primary activities, and the predicate activities of two local neighborhood subsets. The expert did not, however, offer any specific testimony contending that these subsets’ activities connected them to one another or to the Sacramento Norteño gang in general.

The STEP Act

The STEP Act defines a “criminal street gang” as an “ongoing organization, association, or group.” (§ 186.22(f).) That “group” must have “three or more persons,” and its “primary activities” must consist of certain crimes. (Ibid.) The same “group” must also have “a common name or common identifying sign or symbol,” and its members must be proven to have engaged in a “pattern of criminal activity” by committing predicate offenses. (Ibid.)

The appeal 

On appeal, Prunty claimed that the prosecution failed to introduce sufficient evidence to prove that he committed the offenses for the benefit of a criminal street gang, as that term is defined in section 186.22(f). Prunty challenged the prosecution's theory that the relevant "ongoing organization, association, or group" (§ 186.22(f)) in this case was the "criminal street gang known as the Norteños" in general. Prunty emphasized the prosecution's use of crimes committed by various Norteño subsets to prove the existence of a single Norteño organization. He argued that this improperly conflated multiple separate street gangs into a single Norteño gang without evidence of "collaborative activities or collective organizational structure" to warrant treating those subsets as a single entity. According to Prunty, the prosecution's theory did not satisfy the STEP Act's "criminal street gang" definition.

Prunty relied on People v. Williams (2008) 167 Cal.App. 4th 983 (Williams), which addressed the identification of the relevant group under the STEP Act. (Williams, at p. 987.) In that case, the court held that where a gang contains various subsets, the gang cannot be used as the relevant group — and evidence of various subsets' activities cannot be used to prove the gang's existence — absent proof of "some sort of collaborative activities or collective organizational structure." (Id. at p. 988.) The court in Williams also held that more than "a shared ideology or philosophy, or a name that contains the same word, must be shown before multiple units can be treated as a whole when determining whether a group constitutes a criminal street gang." (Ibid.)

The Court of Appeal rejected the reasoning in Williams, which it held improperly "add[ed] an element to the [STEP Act] that the Legislature did not put there." Instead, the Court of Appeal reasoned, evidence of "a common name (Norteño) and common identifying signs and symbols (the color red, the letter N, the number 14)" coupled with the existence of "a common enemy (the Sureños)" is sufficient to show that a criminal street gang exists. The Court of Appeal relied on other decisions that did not explicitly require proof of a collaborative connection to demonstrate that "the Norteños" are a "criminal street gang within the meaning of section 186.22." Based on this interpretation of the STEP Act's requirements for showing a criminal street gang to exist, the Court of Appeal sustained Prunty's sentence enhancement under section 186.22.

Review by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court granted Prunty's petition for review to address the type of evidence required to support the prosecution's theory that various alleged gang subsets constitute a single "criminal street gang" under section 186.22(f)

Holding 

The Supre.e Court held that where the prosecution's case positing the existence of a single "criminal street gang" for purposes of section 186.22(f) turns on the existence and conduct of one or more gang subsets, then the prosecution must show some associational or organizational connection uniting those subsets. That connection may take the form of evidence of collaboration or organization, or the sharing of material information among the subsets of a larger group. Alternatively, it may be shown that the subsets are part of the same loosely hierarchical organization, even if the subsets themselves do not communicate or work together. And in other cases, the prosecution may show that various subset members exhibit behavior showing their self-identification with a larger group, thereby allowing those subsets to be treated as a single organization.

Whatever theory the prosecution chooses to demonstrate that a relationship exists, the evidence must show that it is the same "group" that meets the definition of section 186.22(f) — i.e., that the group committed the predicate offenses and engaged in criminal primary activities — and that the defendant sought to benefit under section 186.22(b). But it is not enough, as the Court of Appeal in this case held, that the group simply shares a common name, common identifying symbols, and a common enemy. Nor is it permissible for the prosecution to introduce evidence of different subsets' conduct to satisfy the primary activities and predicate offense requirements without demonstrating that those subsets are somehow connected to each other or another larger group.

The California Supreme Court concluded that the prosecution failed to satisfy the STEP Act’s “criminal street gang” definition.  The court explained that the STEP Act requires the prosecution to introduce evidence showing an associational or organizational connection that unites members of a putative criminal street gang. The prosecution has significant discretion in how it proves this associational or organizational connection to exist. Yet when the prosecution seeks to prove the street gang enhancement by showing a defendant committed a felony to benefit a given gang, but establishes the commission of the required predicate offenses with evidence of crimes committed by members of the gang’s alleged subsets, it must prove a connection between the gang and the subsets.

In this case, because the prosecution did not introduce sufficient evidence showing a connection among the subsets it alleged comprised a criminal street gang, Prunty was not eligible for a sentence enhancement under the STEP Act. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal's contrary judgment.

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copyright © 2015 Christine Esser

 

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