People v. Williams CA4/1

Filed 5/28/24 P. v. Williams CA4/1 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or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(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

COURT OF APPEAL, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

THE PEOPLE, D081830

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v. (Super. Ct. No. SCD282741)

DESMOND ALEJANDRO WILLIAMS,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Kimberlee A. Lagotta, Judge. Affirmed. Athena Shudde, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland, Assistant Attorney General, Natalia A. Cortina and Melissa Mandel, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

MEMORANDUM OPINION1 Desmond Alejandro Williams fatally stabbed a man and was charged with second degree murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a)). In April 2022, a jury acquitted him of the charge but convicted him on the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter (id., § 192, subd. (a)) and found true he personally used a knife in the commission of the crime (id., § 12022, subd. (b)(1)). After the jury returned its verdicts and was discharged, attorneys from both sides spoke with some of the jurors in the hallway. On the basis of this conversation, and nearly eight months later in December 2022, Williams filed a petition to obtain identifying information for the entire jury panel to

investigate grounds for a new trial motion. (Code Civ. Proc.,2 §§ 206, 237) The trial court denied the petition and subsequently sentenced Williams to seven years in state prison. He appeals, asserting the court’s denial of his petition was an abuse of discretion. We affirm. I. The Petition According to the supporting declaration of Williams’s trial counsel, Giovanni G. Macias, seven members of the jury remained in the hallway after the panel was discharged. They spoke with Macias, who was present with his investigator, a supervising deputy public defender, and a supervising investigator. The trial prosecutor, Frederick Washington, was also present with his supervisor, David Grapilon. This was the conversation as described by Macias: