People v. Plambeck CA4/2

BACKGROUND AND OUR REVIEW

Around 3:00 p.m. on July 4, 2023, defendant knocked on a homeowner’s door in

Trona and told the homeowner that his yard was on fire. The man exited his home and

saw flames in the front right corner of his yard, spanning an area about 10 feet wide and

feet deep, about 15 feet away from his house. As the man later testified at trial, “Pretty

much everything in the whole corner of my yard was on fire.” The man ran to his garden

hose and was also able to call the fire department. Between the homeowner’s and the fire

department’s efforts, the fire was extinguished within 20 minutes. It burned a brush-

covered area approximately 30 to 40 feet wide and five feet deep.

A sergeant from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department responded to the

scene and located defendant several hundred feet away in the nearby desert. The deputy

1 Anders v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 738 (Anders); People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436 (Wende).

2 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.

2 detained defendant and found three lighters in his pockets, two of which worked. The

homeowner had multiple security cameras on his…