Sarmiento-Zuniga

BACKGROUND

After a jury found Jorge Sarmiento1 guilty of oral copulation of a person he knew or should have known was intoxicated, in March 2023 the San Francisco Superior Court sentenced him on that count to the middle term of six years in prison. (Pen. Code, §§ 287, subds. (a), (i), 1170, subds.

1 We refer to the defendant as he does while noting the abstract of

judgment hyphenates his surname.

1 (a)(3), (b)(1); count III.)2 Before the sentencing hearing, the court reviewed the probation officer’s report, each side’s sentencing memorandum, the victim’s impact statement, supporting statements for Sarmiento, and the sentencing judge’s notes and “strong memory” of the trial. At the hearing, after defense counsel waived arraignment and affirmed no cause existed not to impose judgment, the court announced its “tentative” sentence choice, the middle term. The court then detailed its reasons for tentatively choosing the middle term: Sarmiento’s prior convictions “are pertinent” and “show acts of increasing seriousness . . . in terms of the violence to the intimate partners that were involved.”3 Although the victim here “willingly consumed” “the intoxicant at issue,” “[she] is on…