Lancaster, 6 Counts Felony Graffiti, Plea to 1 Misdemeanor

Our client, age 30 and with zero criminal history, was arrested after Lancaster police tied him to seventeen areas of graffiti in and about the city. They had investigated him for months and finally located him. They served a search warrant on his home and found a box with paint and stencils that matched those used in our client’s distinctive graffiti. He was then arrested by the officers conducting the search.

Synopsis: Lancaster client faces six counts of felony vandalism (Penal Code § 594(a)) for graffiti, case resolved for one misdemeanor count with community service and restitution.

Our client was quite cooperative with police, who regarded our client with a fair level of curiosity. In his graffiti, our client was not signing his name or initials or anything related to any gang. He was not signing his own name or writing foul language.
Our client called Greg Hill & Associates because he went to his arraignment and found the District Attorney had filed a complaint alleging six counts of felony vandalism (Penal Code § 594(a)), but had threatened to add eleven more counts if he did not accept the first plea bargain. This deal was three years in state prison. The client could not accept this. He was shocked at the offer and the threat by the prosecutor.

Greg Hill & Associates was retained and immediately noticed that the case bore a striking similarity to a recent juvenile case, Luis M. v. The Los Angeles Superior Court (2012 DJDAR 15097) (cite as Luis M. v. Superior Court (2012) 148 Cal.Rptr.3d 795, 210 Cal.App.4th 982), involving graffiti in Lancaster, no less.

In that case, the Lancaster District Attorney had charged a juvenile with felony vandalism, basing the charge on the average cost ($432) for the City of Lancaster to investigate, process and finally repair the damage. As the reader may know, felony vandalism involves damage that exceeds $400; misdemeanor vandalism involves damage of less than $400. The juvenile challenged the prosecutor’s method of calculating the repair cost. The appeals court ruled that the city could only factor in the cost to repair and its cost must be based on the actual cost of the specific repair, not any average cost overall to the city. The case against the juvenile was then remanded with instructions to tailor the charges to the actual costs to the specific vandalism at issue.

Lancaster Courthouse

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