Tuesday, June 9, 2026
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C.A. Overturns Arson of Grasslands Conviction Where Case Involves Residential Patch of Turf
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. One of the First District Court of Appeal yesterday upended a defendant’s conviction for arson of “grassland” where the fire in question was set to a green patch adjacent to a sidewalk on a busy residential street, saying that the presence of natural turf is insufficient to trigger the enhanced criminal sanctions applicable where the blaze affects certain types of natural features.
At issue is Penal Code §451, which provides:
“A person is guilty of arson when he or she willfully and maliciously sets fire to or burns or causes to be burned…any structure, forest land, or property.”
The statutory scheme defines “[f]orest land” as “any brush covered land, cut-over land, forest, grasslands, or woods” and calls for enhanced sentencing ranges if the arson involves the listed topographies.
Justice Langhorne Wilson wrote yesterday’s unpublished opinion, joined in by Presiding Justice James M. Humes and Justice Charles A. Smiley, overturning the judgment of conviction and declaring that, even though the code does not define the term, “the mere presence of grass is insufficient to make an area a grassland” and that the existence of surrounding shrubbery was similarly not enough to qualify the location as “brush covered land.”
Grassy Area
Challenging his conviction was Israel Quevedo, who was seen by witnesses “starting a fire” on the “grassy area” that abutted the sidewalk on El Camino Real in a residential neighborhood of San Mateo in June 2023. One observer said that he saw the defendant throw a branch on the blaze, which covered about 12 inches of the grass, and another described the location as having “shrubs around it.”
Following a jury trial, he was convicted of violating §451, and San Mateo Superior Court Judge Kevin Dunleavy sentenced him to the low term of two years in prison in July 2024. Quevado timely appealed, arguing that there was insufficient evidence that he burned “forest land.”
Remarking that “Merriam-Webster defines ‘grassland’ as ‘farmland occupied chiefly by forage plants and especially grasses,’ or ‘land on which the natural dominant plant forms are grasses and forbs,’ or ‘an ecological community in which the characteristic plants are grasses,’ ” Langhorne Wilson opined: “[W]e agree with Quevedo that the mere presence of grass is insufficient to make an area a grassland….The definitions suggest a ‘grassland’ is an open land or prairie, occupied largely by grasses, rather than just any land with grass on it….”
Legislative History
Looking to the legislative history, she continued:
“Instead of punishing arson of ‘forest land,’ the previous version of…the arson statutes prohibited the willful and malicious burning of any ‘growing or standing grain, grass or tree, or any grass, forest, woods, timber, brush-covered land, or slashing, cutover land.’…The amendment from ‘any grass’ to ‘grasslands’ suggests the Legislature intended to narrow the types of grassy areas giving rise to heightened punishment for arson.”
Applying those principles, the jurist concluded:
“The mere presence of grass does not make this area a grassland as it was not natural, wild, farmland, prairie land, or grazing land. The area contains none of the other features suggestive of a grassland described by the dictionary definitions and supported by the statutes’ context and history.”
Addressing whether the area could be considered “brush covered land,” Langhorne Wilson acknowledged that the 2017 decision by Div. Two of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in People v. Costella held that an area of “bare dirt, grass, and a small bush” qualified. However, she said:
“[A]erial photographs depicting a wider view of the area showed that ‘green vegetation densely covered—and in many places entirely covered—most of the undeveloped plot of land.’…Thus, while the defendant had set fire ‘in a brush scattered clearing,’ the area was ‘otherwise brush covered.’ ”
Reasoning that the case requires that “at least some portion of the land” be “densely populated with brush,” she declared that there was insufficient evidence that the area Quevado is accused of burning could be so described.
In a footnote, she added:
“We express no opinion whether on remand the People could charge [the defendant] with arson of property…and retry him on such a charge.”
The case is People v. Quevado, A171294.
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