People v. Jackson

Defendant Julius Jackson stole chairs from a home-staging business, and the police soon found him with the chairs in a stolen vehicle. A jury convicted him of felony counts of unlawfully taking or driving a vehicle and second degree robbery. The trial court sentenced him to 12 years in prison, composed of two five-year terms for prior felony convictions, a two-year term for robbery, and a concurrent two-year term for unlawfully taking or driving a vehicle.

On appeal, Jackson raises several claims, including that his conviction for unlawfully taking or driving a vehicle under Vehicle Code section 10851, subdivision (a) ( section 10851(a) ) must be reversed because the vehicle's value was not proven. In the published portion of this decision, we agree. Under *82 People v. Page (2017) 3 Cal.5th 1175 , 225 Cal.Rptr.3d 786 , 406 P.3d 319 ( Page ), which was not decided until after the trial in this case, a defendant cannot be convicted of a felony violation of section 10851(a) based on the theft of a vehicle unless the vehicle is worth more than $950. Since the jury here was not so instructed, it could have relied on a legally invalid theory to convict Jackson.

The presumption of…