California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Telles, B269549 (Cal. App. 2017):
Defendant's second argument is that there is insufficient evidence that one of the gang's primary activities was the criminal activity enumerated in the statute. The "primary activities" element can be established in two ways. First, it can be established by evidence that the gang's members "consistently and repeatedly have committed criminal activity listed in the gang statute." (People v. Sengpadychith (2001) 26 Cal.4th 316, 324.) In such a case, the charged offenses themselves may be considered in determining whether criminal activity is one of the gang's primary activities. (Id. at p. 323.) When a gang has few members, it does not take a lot of crimes to establish a primary activity. (People v. Vy (2004) 122 Cal.App.4th 1209, 1219, 1225-1226 [three violent felonies over less than three months are sufficient when the gang consists of six people].) Second, in lieu of establishing consistent and repeated criminal activity, the primary activities element can be established simply by expert testimony that enumerated criminal activity does, in fact,
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