What is the evidence supporting defendant's conviction for making a criminal threat against a victim?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Azevedo, NO.A128379, Sonoma County Super. Ct. No. SCR530516 (Cal. App. 2011):

But even if we accept defendant's implausible argument that any fear from defendant's threat ended once defendant began sodomizing his grandnephew, defendant did not "almost instantly" sodomize the victim after he threatened him, as defendant claims. After defendant told the victim that he would kill him if he did not comply, he told the victim to turn around, which the victim did while defendant continued to hold a knife to his throat, suggesting that the victim could not move quickly because he risked being cut. The victim could then feel defendant "slowly take his sweatpants off," before defendant sodomized the victim. (Italics added.) Considering all the facts and circumstances, "the jury reasonably could have found that [defendant's] actions created a sustained fear, a state of mind that was certainly more than momentary, fleeting, or transitory," because it took more than a fleeting moment for the victim to comply with defendant's demands so that defendant could begin sodomizing the victim. (People v. Fierro, supra, 180 Cal.App.4th at p. 1349.) Because defendant had a knife to the victim's neck immediately after the threat, the victim could reasonably have believed that he was going to die, which means that even a minute of fear under the circumstances was more than "momentary, fleeting, or transitory." (Ibid.) Substantial evidence supports defendant's conviction for making a criminal threat.

3. No unanimity instruction required

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