People v. Salazar CA3

Filed 9/1/23 P. v. Salazar CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published,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 This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.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 (Sacramento) ----

THE PEOPLE, C096158

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. 14F01794)

v.

JOSE SALAZAR,

Defendant and Appellant.

A jury found defendant Jose Salazar guilty of second degree murder for his participation in a gang fight that left one victim stabbed to death. Defendant later filed a petition for resentencing under Penal Code section 1172.61 and the trial court denied the petition, finding him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We shall affirm on the basis there is substantial evidence defendant aided and abetted an implied malice murder.

1 Further undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code. Defendant petitioned for resentencing under former section 1170.95. Effective June 30, 2022, the Legislature renumbered former section 1170.95 as section 1172.6 without substantive changes. (Stats. 2022, ch. 58, § 10.)

1

BACKGROUND A. Defendant’s Trial At defendant’s trial in early 2017, witnesses testified gang membership motivated a brawl between two groups. It began when a codefendant’s classmate called him a derogatory name based on the codefendant’s gang membership. The codefendant went home and told defendant, codefendant Sebastian Torres, and two other classmates, who were all members of the insulted gang, what happened. Defendant and Torres were described as the two older members of the group, in their early twenties. Defendant was also “significantly shorter and heavier than the other[s],” around five feet two inches tall and 200 pounds, and Torres was around five feet eight inches tall and 200 pounds. With defendant in the passenger seat, Torres drove the group to the house where the name-calling classmate and several other teenagers were, intending to fight them. When they arrived, some of the teenagers were outside, defendant’s group swore and yelled gang references, and they started fighting everyone at the house. Three people were stabbed during the fight: Shannon Gregg, Brandon Moreno, and Michael Caicedo. Witnesses testified to Torres stabbing Caicedo, but Caicedo testified it was a “[s]horter, pudgier guy” who was the “heaviest of the group.” And witnesses saw Torres fighting Moreno before he was stabbed, but Moreno testified to fighting “a short, fat one.” Gregg, one of the teenagers’ father, came out of the house to stop the fight but was stabbed at about the same time as Moreno, though at a different location at the fight scene. Accounts varied as to who fought Gregg, but the witnesses only provided testimony indicating it was either defendant or Torres. And the only evidence of who had knives pointed to Torres and defendant. Right after Gregg yelled he had been stabbed, defendant yelled, “Let’s go,” the group fled in the car, and either defendant or Torres yelled out of the window they would return with bullets. Gregg eventually died from his wounds.