People v. Kruppe CA2/5

Opinion

Filed 9/8/26 P. v. Kruppe CA2/5 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FIVE

THE PEOPLE, B345181

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. MA075130) v.

MARY NOEL KRUPPE,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Kathleen Blanchard, Judge. Affirmed.

Jennifer Peabody and Cheryl Lutz, under appointments by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Steven D. Matthews, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Ryan M. Smith, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

****** After Mary Noel Kruppe (defendant) was convicted of murder and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, the trial court imposed a sentence of 15 years to life for the murder and stayed a six-year term pursuant to Penal Code section 6541 for the manslaughter conviction. At a resentencing at which the court applied the recently amended version of section 654, the court reaffirmed its decision to stay the vehicular manslaughter conviction (rather than the murder conviction). Defendant contends this was an abuse of discretion. It was not. We accordingly affirm, but order corrections to the abstract of judgment. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND2 I. Facts On November 15, 2018, at approximately 7:00 p.m., defendant, while driving 13 to 14 miles per hour above the posted 55 mph speed limit, crossed the center divider line into oncoming traffic and, without braking at all, slammed head-on into a smaller vehicle being driven by Jessica Ordaz, resulting in fatal injuries to Ordaz. Defendant had been drinking alcohol for 1 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.

2 We summarize the evidentiary facts from our opinion affirming defendant’s conviction. (People v. Kruppe (May 20, 2021, B305713) [nonpub. opn.].)

2 several hours prior to the collision, and her blood alcohol content was between two to three times the legal limit (that is, between 0.19 and 0.23 percent). Defendant was an elementary school principal who had taught the students at her school about the dangers of drinking and driving; what is more, a colleague and friend with whom defendant occasionally socialized repeatedly urged defendant to call a ride-share service to get home rather than drive herself; defendant did not want to spend the extra money. When arrested, defendant denied drinking that day. II. Procedural Background A. Charges and conviction In the operative pleading, the People charged defendant with (1) murder (§ 187, subd. (a)); and (2) gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated (§ 191.5, subd. (a)). A jury convicted defendant of both counts. B. Original sentencing On February 20, 2020, the trial court sentenced defendant to a term of 15 years to life in state prison on the second-degree murder charge. The court imposed a 10-year prison term on the gross vehicular manslaughter charge, but stayed that sentence under section 654. C. Appeal A different panel of this court affirmed the judgment on direct appeal. D. Writ proceedings resulting in a resentencing that reduces gross vehicular manslaughter sentence On October 5, 2022, the trial court held a new sentencing hearing following writ proceedings in this court and reduced defendant’s stayed term for the manslaughter conviction from 10 years to the midterm of six years in light of the changes made 3 to section 1170 by Senate Bill No. 567 (2021–2022 Reg. Sess.). (Stats. 2021, ch. 731, § 1.3.) E. Proceedings to apply new version of section 654 at a further resentencing Defendant appealed, contending her sentencing proceeded in her absence and that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to argue she was entitled to the benefit of the newly enacted Assembly Bill No. 518 (2021–2022 Reg. Sess.) (Assembly Bill 518), which amended section 654. (Stats. 2021, ch. 441, § 1.) We granted defendant’s request to treat the appeal as a writ petition alleging ineffective assistance of counsel and issued an order to show cause returnable before the trial court. The parties agreed that resentencing was required, and both sides submitted sentencing memoranda. The trial court—presided over by the same judge who presided over the original trial—held a resentencing hearing on March 18, 2025, and reimposed the same sentence as before. Specifically, the court imposed a sentence of 15 years to life for attempted murder, while staying under section 654 the six-year term for vehicular manslaughter. The court recognized that its task, in applying the amended version of section 654, was to decide “which is the most appropriate sentence . . . to stay pursuant to . . . section 654.” The court acknowledged “all of the work” that defendant “has done” to rehabilitate herself while in custody and that those “honest and deep changes” would be “something that the parole board will consider in the future,” but determined that it would stay the vehicular manslaughter sentence (rather than the murder sentence) in light of the “particularly egregious” “facts of this case,” including that defendant was a “school principal who regularly coordinated 4 events to explain the dangers of [alcohol] consumption and driving” “as well as the fact that she was warned not to drive that day,” and the “horrific nature of the crash that took the victim’s life.” F. Appeal Defendant filed this timely appeal. DISCUSSION Defendant contends that the trial court abused its discretion in staying the vehicular manslaughter sentence rather than the murder sentence, such that she should be sentenced to a determinate term of six years rather than an indeterminate term of 15 years to life.3 “Section 654 precludes multiple punishment for a single act or omission, or an indivisible course of conduct.” (People v. Deloza (1998) 18 Cal.4th 585, 591; § 654.) Prior to the passage of Assembly Bill 518, section 654 dictated that a court faced with multiple sentences for multiple crimes involving the same act was required to impose the longest potential term of imprisonment, and to stay the shorter one(s). (Former § 654, 3 Defendant also points to errors in the abstract of judgment. We see two. The abstract states that the “upper term” was imposed for the vehicular manslaughter count, when the court orally imposed the “midterm” sentence. That must be corrected. The abstract reflects only 463 total actual custody credits (which is the number of actual days of custody between defendant’s arrest and the original sentencing), when the court calculated that an additional total actual custody credits of 1,853 days (which is the number of actual days of custody between the date of the original sentencing to the date of resentencing on March 18, 2025). The abstract must be corrected to reflect the total number of actual custody days from the time of arrest to the date of the March 2025 resentencing—that is, 2,316 days.

5 subd. (a); Stats. 1997, ch. 410, § 1.) Assembly Bill 518, effective January 1, 2022, amended section 654 to give a trial court the discretion to choose which of multiple sentences for the same conduct to impose, and which to stay—including staying the sentence that would result in the longer potential term of imprisonment. (§ 654, subd. (a), as amended by Stats. 2021, ch. 441, § 1; People v. White (2022) 86 Cal.App.5th 1229, 1236; People v. Mani (2022) 74 Cal.App.5th 343, 379.) We review this sentencing decision for an abuse of discretion. (People v. Sandoval (2007) 41 Cal.4th 825, 847, superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in People v. Lynch (2024) 16 Cal.5th 730, 757.) The trial court did not abuse its discretion conferred by the amended section 654 in imposing the 15-years-to-life sentence for murder while staying the six-year gross vehicular manslaughter sentence. The court explicitly noted that it had discretion, and then explained why the aggravated nature of the offense and defendant’s seemingly callous reasons for disregarding the dangers she knew arose from drinking and driving outweighed the rehabilitative efforts she had thus far made. Defendant offers what boil down to two reasons why the court erred. First, she disputes the trial court’s characterization of the facts of this case as “particularly egregious”, argues that her “extraordinary efforts” in prison are “deserving” of a lower, fixed- term sentence, and urges that the “seriousness of the crime alone should not automatically outweigh the rest of the evidence.” At bottom, defendant is asking us to reweigh the pertinent factors and come to a different conclusion than the trial court did. This is beyond our purview on abuse of discretion review. (People v. 6 Lopez (2018) 5 Cal.5th 339, 365.) Relatedly, defendant suggests that the court refused to consider her rehabilitative efforts in prison, but the record refutes that suggestion. Second, defendant argues that the court’s ruling rests on a factual error—namely, the court noted that the crime was particularly egregious, in part because defendant had been “warned not to drive that day” (italics added), when the record merely reflected that defendant’s friend had repeatedly urged defendant not to drive herself home while intoxicated—but not necessarily on the day of the fatal accident. As a threshold matter, defendant has forfeited this error by not bringing it to the trial court’s attention during the sentencing—when the court could have accounted for it. (See People v. Scott (1994) 9 Cal.4th 331, 356 [“we hold that complaints about the manner in which the trial court exercises its sentencing discretion and articulates its supporting reasons cannot be raised for the first time on appeal”].) Defendant responds that her trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for not objecting, but any deficiency in performance for not objecting was not prejudicial. Although defendant is correct that the record does not show that defendant’s friend urged her to use ride share on that day, it is clear from the court’s reasoning that what made the crime egregious was not precisely when defendant was explicitly advised against driving while drunk but that she had been so advised repeatedly and nevertheless ignored that advice. There is no basis for concluding that this minor factual error mattered at all to the trial court’s decision. Counsel accordingly did not err in not objecting, and the failure to do so was not prejudicial.

7 DISPOSITION The clerk of the superior court is instructed to prepare an amended abstract of judgment to reflect (1) that the midterm sentence was imposed for the vehicular manslaughter conviction; and (2) 2,316 total days of custody credit, and to forward a certified copy to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed. NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS.

______________________, P. J. HOFFSTADT We concur:

_________________________, J. BAKER _________________________, J. MOOR