The California Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence for Marcos Barrera, convicted of torturing and killing his two young children in Los Angeles, rejecting challenges including claims under the California Racial Justice Act.
The Twelfth District affirmed a community control condition that effectively barred the defendant from his residence, finding the restriction was reasonably related to preventing future criminal conduct given the defendant’s history of altercations with neighbors.
The Twelfth District held that grand theft of a motor vehicle and attempted grand theft of a firearm found in the vehicle’s glove box are not allied offenses requiring merger, because the defendant’s act of removing the gun from the car and keeping it in her bedroom reflected a separate animus.
The Twelfth District affirmed a murder conviction arising from a shooting during a domestic dispute, holding that the trial court properly admitted the defendant’s prior violent acts as character evidence under Evid.R. 404(A) and that the State’s grant of immunity to a key witness did not render her testimony unreliable.
The Eleventh District affirmed an OVI conviction following a guilty plea, holding that Crim.R. 11(E) for petty offenses requires only that the defendant be told a guilty plea is a complete admission of guilt, not the full constitutional rights colloquy required for serious offenses.