People v. Guzman CA3

Filed 2/19/24 P. v. Guzman CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (Lassen) ----

THE PEOPLE, C101584

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. 1980CR0000061) v.

STEPHEN GUZMAN,

Defendant and Appellant.

In 1980, defendant Stephen Guzman was convicted of first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He appeals the trial court’s denial of his petition for resentencing under Penal Code1 section 1172.6. His appellate counsel filed a brief raising no arguable issues under People v. Delgadillo (2022) 14 Cal.5th 216 and asked that we exercise our discretion to review the record for arguable issues on appeal. This court notified defendant he had 30 days to file supplemental briefing raising any argument he wanted us to consider. Defendant filed a supplemental brief raising

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

1

several contentions.2 We have independently reviewed these contentions consistent with Delgadillo and conclude none of them have merit. We will affirm. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND As a preliminary matter, we note that, with respect to defendant’s underlying convictions, the record on appeal contains only the complaint and information, the jury verdict forms, the instructions given on the special-circumstance allegations, the abstract of judgment, and the reporter’s transcript from the original sentencing hearing. In 1980, defendant and five codefendants were charged with first degree murder (§ 187) with four special circumstances (victim intentionally killed in retaliation for testimony, murder was especially heinous, defendants killed victim while lying in wait, murder involved infliction of torture) and conspiracy to commit murder (§§ 182, 187). The jury found defendant guilty of first degree murder and found true each of the four special circumstances. The jury also found defendant guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. During the trial, the jury was instructed regarding the special circumstances as follows: (1) for the torture special circumstance, that the murder “was intentional,” (2) for the killing a witness special circumstance, that the victim “was intentionally killed,” and (3) for the lying-in-wait special circumstance, that “the defendant intentionally killed the victim.” The jury subsequently set the penalty as life without the possibility of parole, rejecting the death penalty. The trial court sentenced defendant to life without the possibility of parole on the murder count plus 25 years to life stayed on the conspiracy count.