People v. Morgan CA2/4

Filed 3/13/23 P. v. Morgan CA2/4 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

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(a). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115(a).

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION FOUR

THE PEOPLE, B319097

Plaintiff and Respondent, Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. NA041908 v.

KINA MORGAN,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Laura L. Laesecke. Dismissed. Richard B. Lennon and Cheryl Lutz, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. No appearance for Plaintiff and Respondent.

In 1999, the Los Angeles County District Attorney filed an amended information charging defendant and appellant Kina Morgan with murder in violation of Penal Code section 187.1 A jury found her guilty of first degree murder, found the lying-in- wait special circumstance allegation true, and the trial court sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Morgan appealed, and this court affirmed the judgment. In 2019, Morgan filed a petition to vacate her murder conviction under section 1172.6 (former section 1170.95).2 The District Attorney filed an opposition and later filed a duplicate of that opposition. Each included, as exhibits, this court’s opinion from Morgan’s direct appeal (case no. B143755), the jury instructions from Morgan’s trial, and the verdict form.

1 All undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code. The amended information included a knife use allegation (§ 12022, subd. (b)(1)), but that allegation was crossed out with a notation that the prosecution chose not to proceed on it at trial. The amended information in this record does not include a lying- in-wait special circumstance allegation, but the jury was instructed on it.

2 Effective June 30, 2022, the Legislature renumbered section 1170.95 to section 1172.6. (Stats. 2022, ch. 58, § 10.) There were no substantive changes to the statute. For the sake of simplicity, we will refer to the statute by its new code section. That section provides relief for certain individuals convicted of murder under the felony murder rule or natural and probable consequences doctrine. (See § 1172.6; Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 1, subd. (f); People v. Lewis (2021) 11 Cal.5th 952, 959.)