People v. Wallace CA3

I. BACKGROUND

Defendant was charged with assault with a deadly weapon against Si.W. (Pen. Code, § 245, subd. (a)(1)—count one)1 , child abuse likely to cause great bodily harm or death against Si.W. (§ 273a, subd. (a)—count two), assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury on T.B. (§ 245, subd. (a)(4)—count three), and misdemeanor child abuse against Sin.W. (§ 273a, subd. (b)—count four). It was further alleged defendant had a prior strike. At trial, T.B. testified regarding the incident, which occurred on August 12, 2020. At that time, she was letting defendant sleep on her couch because he needed a place to stay, but they were not dating. The incident started when defendant walked into T.B.’s room after she got out of the shower; he was smiling with a boxing glove on his hand and started hitting her in the head after she told him to get out. She said it was not hard enough to be painful, but she did get a headache later. T.B. said Sin.W. was in the room and Sin.W. told defendant to stop, but then defendant started to “whoop her” by hitting Sin.W. on her buttocks. T.B. then walked out of the room to change out of the towel she had been wearing and heard her…