EMMAL

A jury convicted Ronald Jay Emmal of transporting methamphetamine but found him not guilty of possessing it for sale. The trial court then found two “strike” allegations and four 1-year prior allegations to be true. Emmal claims (1) the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction; (2) the trial court provided the jury a defective definition of “transportation”; (3) the court improperly augmented his twenty-five-year-to-life sentence with three 1-year sentence enhancements; and (4). his sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. We find no merit in any of these contentions and affirm the judgment.

Investigators Shawn Condon and Michael Helmick of the Anaheim Police Department saw Emmal parked in the parking lot of the Mediterranean Motel and thought the passenger in his car resembled a bombing suspect they were looking for. They drove slowly past the parked car and looked closely at Emmal and his passenger. Convinced neither was their man, they pulled into another parking space so they could turn around and depart, only—to their amazement—to have Emmal drive up behind them and block their exit.

The upshot of the ensuing events, not germane to this appeal,…