P. v. Cyrus

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Filed 5/11/21 P. v. Cyrus CA4/2
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for
publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication
or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION TWO
THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
MAURICE CYRUS, JR.,
Defendant and Appellant.
E075271
(Super.Ct.No. FWV18004411)
OPINION
APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Bridgid M.
McCann, Judge. Affirmed.
James R. Bostwick, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and
Appellant.
Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney
General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, A. Natasha Cortina and Annie
Featherman Fraser, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
A jury convicted Maurice Cyrus, Jr., of being a felon in possession of a firearm
and found true that the offense was committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in

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association with a criminal street gang. (Pen. Code, §§ 29800, subd. (a)(1), 186.22, subd.
(b); unlabeled statutory references are to this code.) In a bifurcated proceeding, the court
found true that Cyrus had a prior serious strike conviction. (§§ 667, subd. (a)(1),
1170.12, subds. (a)-(d).) The court sentenced him to 13 years in state prison.
On appeal, Cyrus argues that the trial court erred by denying his motion to
suppress evidence obtained during a search conducted pursuant to a condition of his
parole. He also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the firearm
possession conviction and the gang enhancement. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
A. The Shooting
The parties stipulated to the following facts: On September 18, 2018, a shooting
occurred at a park in the city of Ontario, California. Witnesses identified Marquis B. as
the shooter. Before opening fire, Marquis asked others in the park where they were from
and announced that he was from the South Side Ontario Crips. Two .40-caliber cartridge
casings were collected from the park after the shooting.
B. The Gun
Two months after the shooting, in November 2018, law enforcement officers took
Marquis into custody. That night, Officer Edward Flores, a member of the gang
suppression unit for the City of Ontario Police Department, and other officers searched an
apartment in Ontario, where Cyrus was sleeping in one of the bedrooms on a mattress
next to the closet. There also were three children, ages eight to 12, sleeping in the same

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bedroom. Officer Flores did not believe that anyone else in the apartment was associated
with or a member of a gang.
In the closet next to the mattress where Cyrus was sleeping, officers found a bag
on a shelf. Inside the bag, officers found a Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun and
a large-capacity magazine capable of holding 29 cartridges. The handgun was not
registered. On the shelf directly underneath the bag, there was a wallet containing a copy
of Cyrus’s identification card and Cyrus’s health care card dated October 2018.
Test-fired cartridge casings from the handgun were compared to the two shell
casings discovered at the park after the September 2018 shooting. A criminalist from the
sheriff’s department concluded that the shell casings recovered from the park were fired
from the handgun found in the closet.
C. Gang Evidence
Officer Kyle Morgan from the gang suppression unit of the City of Ontario Police
Department testified as a gang expert familiar with a gang known as the South Side
Ontario Crip 9,000 or Crip 9,000, C9,000, or C9. (We refer to the organization as C9
because that is how the witnesses primarily referred to it.) In 2018, C9 was an ongoing
organization with at least 30 members that had engaged in a pattern of criminal activity.
The primary activities of C9 are selling drugs, possessing firearms, committing assault,
and committing burglaries. To identify themselves, members of C9 use different sports
team logos, such as the North Carolina Tarheels and the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

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C9 celebrates its “hood day” on September 17. A gang’s “hood day” is akin to the
gang’s birthday and cause for celebration.
A “gang gun” is a gun that is passed around the gang and used by numerous gang
members to commit crimes. Officer Morgan explained that a lot of gang members are
felons, which makes it “hard for them to get firearms.” Unregistered guns are useful to
gangs because an unregistered gun cannot be traced back to a person using it to commit a
crime. In addition to using guns to commit crimes, gang members use firearms to
intimidate others. One such intimidation tactic is to post photographs and video
recordings of the gang’s firearms online to show rival gangs what weapons the gang
possesses.
Officer Morgan opined that Cyrus is a member of C9 based on Cyrus’s tattoos,
Cyrus “talking jail politics on the phone with other C9 gang members,” and photographs
of Cyrus on social media. Cyrus has various tattoos indicating his membership in C9,
including “C9” on his stomach, the hand symbols of the letter C and the number 9 on his
biceps, and “West Side” on the top of his shoulders, with the letter C and the number 9
forming into the letter S in one of the words. On the basis of a recorded telephone
conversation Cyrus made from jail, Officer Morgan deduced that Cyrus’s gang moniker
is “Pistol.”
In January 2019, when Cyrus was in jail, he made a phone call to Jamal B., a
presumed member of C9, and a recording of that conversation was played for the jury.
Jamal asked, “what they did, they—they they had got the odie thang?” Cyrus answered

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the question in the affirmative. Jamal then said that he had told “T-Mac to go grab that.
You feel what I’m saying? . . . Cuh, and he—and he left it off to you. I mean that shit
wasn’t cool. What they had did, a sweep on you or something?” Cyrus answered, “No.
This is. They didn’t do no sweep. My cousin did some bullshit sent them to the house.”
Officer Morgan testified that he believed that “odie thang” was coded language for the
40-caliber handgun recovered at the apartment.
On the day of the shooting, Officer Flores assisted in the investigation of the
shooting at the park. Officer Flores encountered Nicholas A., a C9 member,
approximately 50 yards away from the scene of the shooting. Officer Flores downloaded
information from Nicholas’s cell phone. The download included a photograph of
Nicholas taken on September 16, 2018, with a Glock .40-caliber handgun with an
extended magazine.
The download also contained a group photograph including Cyrus, which the
parties stipulated was taken on September 17, 2018 (C9’s hood day and the day before
the shooting). In the photograph, Cyrus displayed the hand symbol for the letter C. Also
pictured were Jamal, Nicholas, Marquis, Timothy W. (T-Mac), and two other individuals.
Jamal was pictured wearing a blue bandana and a shirt with the letter C and “9,000
inside.” Nicholas was pictured wearing a blue shirt and appeared to be making a hand
gesture of the number 5, which Officer Morgan opined “would be for Five Times Crip
gang, which is a Crip gang in San Bernardino.” Marquis was wearing a shirt with a bag
of money on it.

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A music video that had been posted online was played for the jury. Timothy and
Jamal were in the video, but Cyrus was not. Some of the common signs and symbols
used by C9 were used in the video. Timothy referred to “a 40 with a 30 clip.” Officer
Morgan opined that the reference was significant because it demonstrated that “a 40
caliber with an extended magazine was going around to Crip 9,000.”
The parties stipulated that in 2016 Cyrus was convicted of being a felon in
possession of a firearm. In 2016, Nicholas was convicted of attempted robbery. And in
2018 another member of C9 was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The prosecutor asked Officer Morgan hypothetical questions based on the
following facts: A gang celebrates its hood day on September 17, 2018. The next day,
member A of this gang goes to a park known to be frequented by rival gang members and
asks people in the park where they are from. “Member A then claims his gang, shoots
the firearm, and the other party to the shooting is an associate of this rival gang.”
Someone else drives member A away from the park after the shooting. On November 27,
2018, during the course of investigating the shooting, law enforcement officers go to an
apartment where member B, a member of the same gang as member A, is sleeping in an
upstairs bedroom. In a closet “next to where member B is sleeping there’s a bag. And
below that bag is member B’s wallet and identification.” The bag contains a .40-caliber
handgun with an extended magazine. Ballistic testing reveals that the gun was used in
the gang shooting in the park by member A. After member B is arrested for possessing

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the gun, another member of the gang refers to the gun being found and says that “another
member was supposed to come pick up that gun.”
On the basis of these facts, Officer Morgan opined that the gang benefitted from
member B’s possession of the firearm. The possession of the firearm benefitted the gang
by ensuring that the gun remained “readily available” to the gang in the event of “a gang
shooting or something else that goes off.” Officer Morgan also opined that possessing
the firearm was in association with the gang because it shows that the person who was
keeping the gun was trusted and was “putting in work for that particular gang.” In
addition, Officer Morgan opined that member B would be assisting member A by
ensuring that member A would not be in possession of the firearm if law enforcement
arrested member A in connection with the shooting at the park.
DISCUSSION
A. Parole Search
Cyrus argues that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence
of the gun, because he claims that the warrantless search of the apartment where the gun
was found violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches.
He contends that (1) law enforcement did not have a reasonable belief that he was
residing at the apartment, and (2) the search was unreasonable because it was conducted
for the purpose of harassing him. We are not persuaded by either contention.

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1. Motion to Suppress
Before trial, Cyrus moved under section 1538.5 to suppress the evidence of the
gun seized from the apartment in Ontario. The People opposed the motion, arguing that
the search was valid because Cyrus was on parole when the search was conducted and the
apartment’s lessee, Brianna B., consented to the search. (The People later abandoned the
consent argument.)
At a hearing on the matter, the parties stipulated that the search was conducted
without a warrant. The People called Officer Flores to testify. Earlier on the day of the
search, Officer Flores learned that Marquis had been taken into custody on suspicion of
committing homicide in September 2018. Officer Flores was present when Marquis was
interviewed sometime that afternoon. Marquis claimed that on the day of the homicide
he was in Ontario at the apartment of his aunt (Brianna) and his uncle (Maurice Cyrus,
Sr.) with his cousin, Cyrus. Marquis said that he “‘possibly’” had left the apartment with
Cyrus that day.
After searching law enforcement records for Cyrus and his father (Cyrus, Sr.),
Officer Flores learned that the father was on felony probation and that Cyrus was on
parole. Both men had provided parole and probation with the same residence address in
Pomona, California. Officer Flores nevertheless believed that Cyrus and his father were
actually staying at the apartment in Ontario.
Officer Flores and another officer arrived at the Ontario apartment around
midnight. As they approached the apartment, they noticed a vehicle that Officer Flores

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knew from the prior records search to be registered to Maurice Cyrus. Officer Flores
could not recall if the vehicle was registered to Cyrus or his father. Officer Flores
knocked on the door of the apartment and identified himself as a police officer. A man
whom Officer Flores recognized as Cyrus’s father peered through the window blinds.
Brianna opened the front door. Brianna confirmed that the man who had looked through
the blinds was Cyrus, Sr., and she said that Cyrus was asleep upstairs. Officer Flores
initially informed Brianna that law enforcement was there to conduct a probation search
of Cyrus, Sr. After Brianna confirmed that Cyrus was there too, Officer Flores told
Brianna that the officers also would be conducting a parole search on Cyrus.
The trial court denied the motion to suppress, concluding that the officers
reasonably believed that Cyrus lived at the Ontario apartment, given Marquis’s
statements to law enforcement and the fact that probation and parole records listed Cyrus
and his father as living at the same address.
2. Analysis
“The Fourth Amendment guarantees ‘[t]he right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures’ by police
officers and other government officials.” (People v. Robles (2000) 23 Cal.4th 789, 794,
quoting U.S. Const., 4th Amend.) “The remedy for a violation of the Fourth Amendment
is to render inadmissible any evidence seized during the illegal search.” (People v.
Downey (2011) 198 Cal.App.4th 652, 657 (Downey).)

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“A search without a warrant is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, unless
it fits in one of a few narrow exceptions allowing for warrantless searches.” (People v.
Vargas (2020) 9 Cal.5th 793, 814 (Vargas).) One such exception is a condition of parole
authorizing warrantless searches, such as the condition imposed on California parolees.
(Samson v. California (2006) 547 U.S. 843, 857 (Samson).) A valid parole search,
however, is “limited in scope to the terms articulated in the search clause.” (People v.
Woods (1999) 21 Cal.4th 668, 681 [probation].) Section 3067 provides that every
California parolee, the parolee’s residence, and any property under the parolee’s control
is “subject to search or seizure by a probation or parole officer or other peace officer at
any time of the day or night, with or without a search warrant or with or without cause.”
(§ 3067, subd. (b)(3); Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15, § 2511, subd. (b).) Whether law
enforcement officers reasonably believe an address to be a parolee’s residence is a
question of fact, “‘and we are bound by the finding of the trial court, be it express or
implied, if substantial evidence supports it.’” (Downey, supra, 198 Cal.App.4th at p. 658
[probationer]; Robey v. Superior Court (2013) 56 Cal.4th 1218, 1223.) The
reasonableness of a search “must be determined based upon the circumstances known to
the officer when the search is conducted.” (People v. Sanders (2003) 31 Cal.4th 318,
334.)
Even if a search is conducted pursuant to a valid condition of parole, a parole
search is unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment if it is “arbitrary,
capricious or harassing.” (People v. Reyes (1998) 19 Cal.4th 743, 752 (Reyes); Samson,

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supra, 547 U.S. at p. 846.) Consequently, “‘a parole search could become
constitutionally “unreasonable” if made too often, or at an unreasonable hour, or if
unreasonably prolonged or for other reasons establishing arbitrary or oppressive conduct
by the searching officer.’” (Reyes, supra, at pp. 753-754.)
“When the trial court rules on a suppression motion, it ‘“‘(1) finds the historical
facts, (2) selects the applicable rule of law, and (3) applies the latter to the former to
determine whether the rule of law as applied to the established facts is or is not
violated.’”’ [Citation.] On appeal, we independently review the second and third
determinations, but we apply ‘“‘the deferential substantial-evidence standard’”’ to the
court’s determination of the historical facts. [Citation.] Even if our reasoning differs
from the trial court’s, the trial court’s ruling must be upheld if there is any basis in the
record to sustain it.” (People v. Douglas (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 855, 860.)
Substantial evidence supports the trial court’s finding that it was reasonable for the
officers to believe that Cyrus resided at the Ontario address on the basis of the facts they
knew before the search. Given that Marquis told officers that the apartment belonged to
his aunt and uncle (i.e., Cyrus’s father), it was reasonable for officers to believe that
Cyrus’s father lived there even though he had told probation that he lived at an address in
Pomona. It also was reasonable for the officers to believe that Cyrus lived in the Ontario
apartment with his father. Cyrus had given parole the same residence address as his
father, so it was reasonable for officers to believe that the two men lived together.
Moreover, Marquis told law enforcement that he had spent time with Cyrus at the

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apartment two months ago. In addition, a car registered to Cyrus or his father was parked
in front of the apartment, and Cyrus was sleeping at the apartment in the middle of the
night. From this information known to the officers before they conducted the parole
search, we conclude that there was substantial evidence supporting the trial court’s
finding that the officers reasonably believed that Cyrus lived at the apartment in Ontario.
We reject Cyrus’s contention that the search was conducted with the “major
purpose” of harassing him because it occurred in the middle of the night. Cyrus did not
make that argument in the trial court, so it is forfeited. (People v. Tully (2012) 54 Cal.4th
952, 979-980.) In any event, there is no evidence that the officers conducted the search
to harass Cyrus. In the afternoon, a homicide suspect told law enforcement that he had
been with Cyrus at that apartment, and the officers searched the apartment that night.
There is no evidence that the officers delayed or stalled or otherwise chose to conduct the
search late at night as a form of harassment. Moreover, it was reasonable for the officers
to conduct the search as soon as practicable to ensure that any evidence that still existed
would not be destroyed or hidden once others discovered that Marquis was in custody.
For all of these reasons, we conclude that the trial court did not err by denying
Cyrus’s motion to suppress evidence.
B. Firearm Possession
The prosecution contended that Cyrus constructively possessed the firearm found
in the closet next to the mattress where he was sleeping. Cyrus argues that the

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prosecution failed to introduce substantial evidence that he either knew about the gun or
had the right to control it. We are not persuaded.
“In reviewing a sufficiency of the evidence claim, our role is limited. We review
the entire record to determine whether it discloses reasonable and credible evidence to
allow a rational trier of fact to determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” (People v.
Cardenas (2020) 53 Cal.App.5th 102, 119, fn. 11 (Cardenas).) “We draw all reasonable
inferences in favor of the judgment.” (Ibid.) “If the circumstances reasonably justify the
trier of fact’s findings, reversal of the judgment is not warranted simply because the
circumstances might also reasonably be reconciled with a contrary finding.” (People v.
Albillar (2010) 51 Cal.4th 47, 60 (Albillar).)
Section 29800 prohibits any felon from possessing or having in his or her custody
or control any firearm. (§ 29800, subd. (a).) “The elements of this offense are conviction
of a felony and ownership or knowing possession, custody, or control of a firearm.”
(People v. Osuna (2014) 225 Cal.App.4th 1020, 1029, disapproved on another ground by
People v. Frierson (2017) 4 Cal.5th 225, 240, fn. 8.; People v. Bay (2019) 40 Cal.App.5th
126, 132 (Bay).) “Possession may be actual or constructive.” (Bay, supra, at p. 132.)
“‘To establish constructive possession, the prosecution must prove a defendant
knowingly exercised a right to control the prohibited item, either directly or through
another person.’” (Ibid.) “Although a defendant may share possession with other people,
‘mere proximity’ or opportunity to access the contraband, ‘standing alone, is not
sufficient evidence of possession.’” (Ibid.) “With respect to the elements of possession

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or custody, it has been held that knowledge is an element of the offense.” (People v.
Snyder (1982) 32 Cal.3d 590, 592 [former felon in possession statute].)
The record contains substantial evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer
that Cyrus knowingly and constructively possessed the firearm. The gun was in a bag in
a closet next to the mattress where Cyrus was sleeping, and the bag was on top of a wallet
containing Cyrus’s health care card and a copy of his identification. The jury could
reasonably infer from the contents of the wallet that the wallet belonged to Cyrus. The
jury also could reasonably infer from the placement of the bag on top of the wallet and
next to the mattress where Cyrus was sleeping that the bag also belonged to Cyrus and
that Cyrus had placed the bag atop the wallet in order to keep his belongings together and
close by.
In addition to the proximity of the gun to Cyrus and his wallet, the gun was used
two months earlier by another member of C9 in a gang-related shooting. There was
further evidence that C9 treated the gun as a gang gun—another gang member had been
photographed with a Glock .40-caliber handgun with a large capacity magazine, and a
music video with C9 members contained lyrics referring to such a gun. Moreover, in a
recorded jailhouse telephone conversation, another member of the same gang spoke about
the gun (albeit in coded language) and indicated that yet another gang member was
supposed to pick up the gun from Cyrus before it was found by law enforcement, which
Cyrus did not deny or disavow. Cyrus was the only gang member in the apartment when
the gun was found. From all of this evidence, the jury could reasonably infer that the gun

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was a C9 gang gun and that Cyrus, as a C9 member, possessed the gun for the gang when
the gun was found.
Cyrus argues that there was insufficient evidence that he knowingly possessed the
firearm because there was no evidence about who placed the gun in the closet, when the
gun was placed in the closet, what Marquis did with the gun after the shooting, that
Marquis and Cyrus communicated after the shooting, that Cyrus knew of the gun before
the search, or that all gang members are aware of the location of a gang gun at all times.
The absence of that hypothetical evidence is not relevant to our review of the sufficiency
of the evidence. We analyze “whether the evidence was sufficient, not whether
hypothetical evidence would have strengthened the prosecution’s case.” (Vargas, supra,
9 Cal.5th at p. 822.)
Cyrus also suggests various nonincriminating reasonable inferences that could
have been drawn from the evidence, such as that he was not currently using the wallet
because it did not contain money or his actual identification card, or that Marquis may
have placed the bag in the closet without telling Cyrus about it. But in conducting
substantial evidence review, we draw all reasonable inferences in support of the
judgment, not against it. (Cardenas, supra, 53 Cal.App.5th at p. 119, fn. 11.) We are
only concerned with whether “‘the circumstances reasonably justify the trier of fact’s
finding.’” (People v. Kraft (2000) 23 Cal.4th 978, 1054.) It is therefore irrelevant
whether the evidence might also support a contrary finding.

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We also reject Cyrus’s contention that the present case is factually
indistinguishable from People v. Sifuentes (2011) 195 Cal.App.4th 1410 (Sifuentes),
disapproved on another ground by People v. Farwell (2018) 5 Cal.5th 295, 304, fn. 6. In
Sifuentes, a firearm was discovered in the same room as the defendant, who was found to
constructively possess it. (Id. at pp. 1413-1414.) Unlike Cyrus, however, the defendant
in Sifuentes was one of two gang members in the room where the gun was found, and the
gun was found under the mattress near where the other gang member was located. (Id. at
p. 1414.) There also was expert testimony about gang guns in Sifuentes. (Id. at p. 1415.)
But in the present case the gun was found among Cyrus’s belongings, so the evidence
about gang guns was not the only evidence of Cyrus’s possession of the gun (cf. id. at
p. 1417 [“Even assuming the firearm [that the other person in the room] possessed fell
into the gang gun category, no evidence showed [that the defendant] had the right to
control the weapon”]).
For all of these reasons, we conclude that there was sufficient evidence to support
the firearm possession conviction.
C. Gang Enhancement
Cyrus argues that the evidence is insufficient to sustain the jury’s true finding on
the gang enhancement as to the felon in possession count. We are not persuaded.
“[S]ection 186.22, subdivision (b)(1)’s gang enhancement applies to ‘any person’
convicted of a number of enumerated felonies, including . . . unlawful possession of a
firearm by a felon, that were (1) ‘committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in

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association with any criminal street gang,’ and (2) ‘with the specific intent to promote,
further, or assist in any criminal conduct by gang members.’” (People v. Rivera (2019) 7
Cal.5th 306, 331 (Rivera).) “[T]he scienter requirement in section 186.22[, subdivision]
(b)(1) . . . applies to any criminal conduct, without a further requirement that the conduct
be ‘apart from’ the criminal conduct underlying the offense of conviction sought to be
enhanced.” (Albillar, supra, 51 Cal.4th at p. 66.) “[I]f substantial evidence establishes
that the defendant intended to and did commit the charged felony with known members
of a gang, the jury may fairly infer that the defendant had the specific intent to promote,
further, or assist criminal conduct by those gang members.” (Id. at p. 68.) “‘We review
the sufficiency of the evidence to support an enhancement using the same standard we
apply to a conviction.’” (Rivera, supra, at p. 331.)
There was substantial evidence that Cyrus was a member of C9, which the parties
do not dispute is a criminal street gang for purposes of the gang enhancement. The gang
expert opined that Cyrus was a member of C9. There was a photograph of Cyrus with
other C9 gang members on C9’s hood day. There were recorded jailhouse telephone
conversations in which Cyrus talked about gang politics. And Cyrus had tattoos
demonstrating his gang membership, including “C9” tattooed on his stomach and “C”
and “9” tattooed on his biceps.
Cyrus argues that the record does not contain sufficient evidence that he possessed
the gun for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a criminal street gang,
because the evidence showed only “that one individual who happened to be a gang

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member had possession of the gun when the police discovered it.” We disagree. Based
on hypothetical facts mirroring the facts in this case, Officer Morgan opined that the gang
benefitted from the possession of the firearm because the gun remained “readily
available” to the gang for any future need. In addition, Cyrus discussed the gun (using
coded language) with a fellow gang member, who indicated that another gang member
was supposed to have picked up the gun from Cyrus before the police discovered it. That
is sufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding that Cyrus possessed the gun for the
benefit of and in association with C9. (Albillar, supra, 51 Cal.4th at p. 63.)
Moreover, additional evidence supported Officer Morgan’s opinion that the gun
Cyrus possessed was a C9 gang gun and that Cyrus’s possession of it benefitted the gang.
The gun was unregistered, and it had been used two months earlier by another gang
member to shoot at a rival gang member after the shooter claimed to be from C9. Two
days before the shooting, another gang member (Nicholas) was pictured holding a similar
gun. A music video of C9 members included the lyrics “a 40 with a 30 clip,” which
Officer Morgan opined signified that a 40-caliber gun with a large capacity magazine,
like the one possessed by Cyrus, was being used by C9. Thus, the record as a whole
contains more than substantial evidence that the gun Cyrus possessed was a gang gun,
was passed around by members of C9, and was used by C9 members to commit crimes,
so having the gun accessible to C9 members was useful to the gang. A reasonable jury
could infer that Cyrus’s possession of the gun benefitted the gang and was in association
with the gang.

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We also reject Cyrus’s contention that there was not sufficient evidence that he
harbored the requisite specific intent to “promote, further, or assist in any criminal
conduct by gang members.” (§ 186.22, subd. (b)(1).) In support of this contention, he
argues that there is no evidence that he “jointly possessed the Glock handgun with any
other gang member” or “claimed by spoken words or nonverbal imagery that he
possessed the Glock handgun for C9 or any gang purpose.” Again, in reviewing the
sufficiency of the evidence, we do not question whether stronger evidence could have
been presented. (Vargas, supra, 9 Cal.5th at pp. 821-822.) We instead analyze the
sufficiency of the evidence presented. (Ibid.) There was substantial evidence that (1)
Cyrus was a C9 member, (2) the gun that Cyrus possessed was a gang gun used by C9,
including in a gang-related shooting two months earlier, and (3) Cyrus’s possession of the
firearm benefitted and was in association with C9. A reasonable jury could have inferred
that Cyrus possessed the gun with the specific intent to assist the criminal conduct of C9
generally and the shooter in the park specifically. (People v. Morales (2003) 112
Cal.App.4th 1176, 1198-1199.)
For all of these reasons, we conclude that there was substantial evidence
supporting the jury’s true finding on the gang enhancement.
D. Due Process
Cyrus argues that his federal due process rights were violated because the firearm
possession conviction and the true finding on the gang enhancement were not supported
by substantial evidence. Because we conclude that the firearm possession conviction and

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the true finding on the enhancement were supported by substantial evidence, this
argument fails.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
MENETREZ
J.
We concur:
RAMIREZ
P. J.
McKINSTER
J.

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