People v. Drake CA2/7

INTRODUCTION

The trial court sentenced defendant and appellant Eric Michael Drake to six consecutive 15-years-to-life terms after he was convicted of six counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. Defendant argues the court erroneously believed it was mandated to impose consecutive sentences on his sexual assault convictions when in fact it was authorized to exercise its discretion to impose concurrent or consecutive sentences. Because the record clearly demonstrates the trial court would have exercised its discretion to impose consecutive sentences, we conclude that even if there were error, it was harmless.1 Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.

BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION2

After the victim, defendant’s daughter, turned 18 years old, she reported to the police that from the time she was five years old, her father had, during several periods of her childhood and adolescence, sodomized and raped her on a near-daily basis. Defendant was convicted of, among other crimes, six counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14. (Pen. Code,3 § 269, subd. (a).) Each instance of aggravated sexual assault occurred between 1998 and 2007.4 The trial court sentenced defendant to…