The Supreme Court today reverses some of a multitude of convictions for a kidnapping-robbery-murder/attempted murder and a separate drive-by shooting, both in 2003, but the defendant doesn’t receive sufficient relief to overturn the death penalty imposed on him. Also, the court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Goodwin Liu in the case, People v. Hin, although acknowledging a Court of Appeal divide about the retroactivity of recent legislation to restrict evidence of rap lyrics in criminal cases, opts not to resolve the conflict.
The court reverses one of three special circumstances findings — for gang-murder — that supported the death penalty, and it similarly finds improper gang sentencing enhancements, but the court concludes reversing the one special circumstance finding doesn’t negate the capital sentence in light of the other special circumstances findings (kidnapping-murder and robbery-murder), which it upholds. It also overturns six counts of attempted premeditated murder because it finds prejudicial the superior court’s giving the jury an alternative of convicting the defendant under theories — the natural and probable consequences doctrine and a version of the felony murder rule — that the Legislature had subsequently invalidated, and because of a lack of substantial evidence for two counts. Giving the jury the same invalid alternative for the murder conviction, however, is found to be harmless error because the two remaining “special circumstances findings . . . indicate that the jury necessarily found [the defendant] guilty under a valid theory of felony murder.”
The Courts of Appeal are divided about the retroactivity of Assembly Bill 2799, which the Legislature enacted in 2022 to limit an artist’s “creative expression” as evidence in a criminal trial because of, the bill stated, the “significant risk of unfair prejudice when rap lyrics are introduced into evidence.” The Hin opinion doesn’t reach that issue because it finds the admission into evidence of a rap song on a CD found in the defendant’s bedroom was erroneous under pre-AB 2799 law and was harmless in any event. The opinion does say, however, that “[i]t is precisely because of the risk of injecting racial bias into the jury’s decisionmaking that the Legislature passed [AB 2799, which added] Evidence Code section 352.2.” (Link added.) The retroactivity issue might be decided later in another capital appeal, People v. Bankston, or in any of several cases that for now are grant-and-holds for Hin and Bankston but could be un-held.
The Supreme Court rejects a number of other arguments for reversal, including a claim the defendant was prejudiced by the trial judge and an interpreter having emotional reactions to victim impact testimony. Denying a mistrial motion, the judge said, “So the question is are we going to continue to have living breathing human beings as judges or we’re going to replace the bench with robots, or should I have taken a recess and gone and had a shot of Valium or something to dope myself up to deaden all my human emotions?”
