6DCA Oral Argument - 2026/09/10 Morning Session - Sep 10, 2026

argument

6DCA Oral Argument - 2026/09/10 Morning Session

California Sixth District Court of Appeal 1h 51m 3 chapters transcribed 12 days ago official recording ↗

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What procedural steps does the Sixth District Court of Appeal follow at the start of a morning session?

Unknown 4:11

Uh welcome to the Sixth District Court of Appeal. Please be seated. Uh we do have four matters on calendar this morning. After the third matter we'll be having a panel change. Um so I'll just call the cases one at a time and ask you to state your appearances and confirm your time estimates. We'll just take a moment here to connect our technology where we have electronic briefs and records and access to all of our materials here on the bench. And uh then we do have uh some In-person appearances this morning and a couple of remote appearances and we're glad to make remote appearance available to those especially who'd be traveling a great distance. Um at the bench and council table there are screens where we can both see and hear the remote participants.

Unknown 4:58

Anyone in the audience though, uh you'll be able to hear them. But if you'd like to see them you can step just outside the courtroom and um there are screens available for that there. All right. Uh with that then we'll call our first matter, People versus Gonzalez Vargas. And I see that we have a representative from the Attorney General here in court, so I'll ask you to state your appearance and give us your time estimate at the podium if you would.

Stephanie Richardson 5:22

Good morning, Your Honor, Stephanie Richardson for the people in respondent. Uh my time estimate is ten minutes this morning.

Unknown 5:27

Very good, thank you. Thank you. And for Mr Gonzalez Vargas, good morning.

Jennifer Mannix 5:32

Good morning, Your Honor. Jennifer Mannix for Corgorio uh Gonzalez Vargas. My time estimate is seven minutes and then three minutes in rebuttal, please.

Unknown 5:41

All right, very good. I think uh what I will do this morning is um as council are approaching uh their estimated time limit, I'll give you say about a two minute warning, just so you have that in mind. All right, Ms. Mannix, if you're ready, um go ahead.

Jennifer Mannix 5:58

Thank you. Um, I would planned on focusing my time on the court's question regarding the application of people v. Mirabal to the lesser included offense ins um argument. Um, in Mirabal and the case that was cited within Mirabal, People v. Miranda, um, the courts concluded that battery was a lesser included offense. Of rape of an unconscious person. Because rape itself is a touching. And because the person is unconscious, uh there is no consent which renders the touching harmful or inoffensive. That would be analogous to the two counts in um the charges in the the counts from one through seven, which is sexual pe penetration, oral copulation of a child. Excuse me. Um there those offences require a touching and because it's a child the child cannot legally consent.

Jennifer Mannix 7:02

So that renders those touchings harmful and offensive. So under the statutory elements test, um, battery is a lesser included offense as to those seven counts. The next step is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to support this instruction for the seven counts. Um, the evidence showed that there was an ongoing relationship and it was a familial one between Mr Gonzalez Vargas and A. D. the victim. Um, she and her cousin Jasmine would visit Mr. Gonzalez Vargas in his room. Um, they would play, there was um situations where she treated him as if he was a horse and she would give him or he would give her piggy back rides. Um they weren't strangers. There would also be pillow fights where A D would knock mister Gonzalez Vargas over.

Jennifer Mannix 7:58

Um she would also run and jump on him and knock him over. Um, given these incidents and the fact that this was their relationship, the jury could have found that there was harmful and offensive touching that mister Gonzalez Vargas did during the incidents, but it didn't rise to the level of the greater charged offenses.

Unknown 8:22

Counsel counsel can y this is Justice Wilson here. Uh explain that a bit more um in terms of your position. I from what I could tell the the evidence uh as it relates to the the appellant was that none of these things occurred, certainly not in the way that the victim uh stated. And so, you know, it's not a situation where we're looking at kind of gray areas. I mean it's she's saying things happened a certain way.