Two convicted pimps will lose 16 months of their 18 and 19 year sentences as the Court of Appeal rules they cannot be convicted of both pimping and pandering a 17-year-old girl in San Bernardino in 2018.
The April 18 published opinion established that Penal Code Section 654, which prohibits punishing the same act by different sections of law, applies to the charges of pimping and pandering.
The ruling dismissed Aaron Vaughn’s and Victor Wilkin’s other appellate arguments that San Bernardino County was not the proper venue for some counts, that the court erred by trying their cases together, that evidence from a warrantless entry into Vaughn’s hotel room should have been suppressed, that a comment from a prospective juror that pimps should be publicly executed should have caused a mistrial and that there was not enough evidence that Vaughn knew the victim was underage
Case background
The 17-year-old girl admitted to being a minor when questioned by San Bernardino Police Sgt. Nicholas Oldendorf in 2018. Oldendorf had found her talking to what happened to be a sex client in a car in an area of San Bernardino known for prostitution, after receiving a report of indecent exposure, according to the ruling.
The girl had a keycard to a room of an Econo Lodge hotel, which police later found was registered to Vaughn.
According to the report, the girl said she was a prostitute, and said there was a prostitute, “Molly,” who was working with her.
The police forced open the door on the belief that Molly might be inside, and built a case from text messages Vaughn and Wilkins had sent to the females.
A jury convicted Vaughn in June, 2019, of four felonies with an enhancement for a prior, including causing a minor to engage in commercial sex, being engaged in prostitution of a minor, and pimping and pandering Molly.
Wilkins was convicted with additional pandering and attempted pimping charges related to other victims.
Both had pleaded not guilty, and argued in the appeal that the text messages they had sent to the females was not evidence of them pimping them.
Section 654
The appellate decision establishes that someone cannot be convicted of both pandering and pimping.
The California Penal Code prevents convictions from being punished from the same crime twice.
“An act or omission that is punishable in different ways by different provisions of law shall be punished under the provision that provides for the longest potential term of imprisonment, but in no case shall the act or omission be punished under more than one provision,” Section 654 reads.
Both appellants were convicted of pandering, which means assisting, inducing, persuading or encouraging a person to engage in commercial sex, and pimping, which means either living or gaining support from the earnings of another’s prostitution or soliciting for a prostitute.
They argued that they pandered Molly to receive her earnings, the same reason that they pimped her.
They cited the 1989 case People v. DeLoach, in which an appellate court applied Section 654 to strike a non-forcible sex-act count against a mother who had coerced her daughter to engage in commercial sex.
“(A)ny acts of prostitution that follow directly or proximately from the pandering are incident to a single objective and therefore constitute an indivisible transaction with it; that is, the subsequent sex offenses are incidental to the commission of the pandering, and are facilitated by it,” the court ruled. The court also ruled that forcible sex acts are distinct from pandering.
Evidence from warrantless search allowed
The appellate court ruled that the police unconstitutionally searched and arrested Wilkins, but that the evidence they found from their search should not be thrown out because it would have eventually been found anyway.
Their ruling differs from the trial judge’s ruling, who said that the warrantless search was constitutional because the police had reason to believe that sex acts on a victimized minor was occurring inside the hotel room.
The appellate court ruled that it would have been unreasonable for the police to believe that non-forcible sex offenses were happening, since they had no reason to believe Molly was underage.
It would have been reasonable to believe that consensual prostitution was happening, but a warrantless entry is not constitutional to stop prostitution between two adults, the appellate court said.
If the police had not broken down the motel door, they would have staked out the motel and arrested Wilkins and Vaughn when they left the room. They would have seized his cellphone, gained access to the rooms, and would have still been able to build a case, the appellate court ruled.
The inevitable discovery doctrine allows illegally seized evidence to be used where it would have been discovered by police through lawful means, the ruling said.
Public execution comment by juror
The appellants also argued the jury should have been redrawn after a prospective juror stated that someone found guilty of sex trafficking should be publicly executed.
“Recently my neighbor across the street’s daughter who ended up missing, ended up in the sex trade. And if it weren’t for some dedicated retired Navy Seals and law enforcement officers, she’d still be out on the street or dead,” the juror reportedly said.
“All I know is if somebody is found guilty of something like that, I think they ought to bring back public execution as far as I’m concerned,” he reportedly said.
He also reportedly said he did not have respect for one of the lawyers involved, who represented his wife during his divorce years ago.
The appellants’ counsel had requested a mistrial due to these reported statements while voir dire was ongoing, which the trial court denied. The court ruled that the prospective juror made outlandish comments, appeared unbalanced and was not likely to convince the other jurors of anything.
The appellate ruling found that the appellants’ argument would make jury trials impossible by creating too high a bar for mistrials.
“If an expression of bias like that by Juror No. 64 were enough to taint an entire jury panel, jury trials would become impossible,” the appellate panel said.
Case information
Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Two, Presiding Justice Manuel Ramirez wrote the opinion, which Associate Justices Art McKinster and Richard Fields joined.
San Bernardino Superior Judge William Powell IV presided over the trial.
Jennifer Peabody and Helen S. Irza, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, represented Vaughn.
Cara DeVito, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, represented Wilkins.
Attorneys General Rob Bonta and Xavier Becerra, Chief Assistant Attorney General Lance Winters, Senior Assistant Attorney General Julie L. Garland and Deputy Attorneys General Daniel Rogers, Lise Jacobson, and Christopher Beesley for the People.
Superior court numbers FSB18003370 and FSB18003369.
Appellate Court number E073346.
Read the ruling here.
