People v. Sanchez-Gomez

• Court: California Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Petrou, J.
• Decision Date: 15 October 2021
• Docket Number: A156198
• Parties: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. IGNACIO SANCHEZ-GOMEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. IGNACIO SANCHEZ-GOMEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

A156198

California Court of Appeals, First District, Third Division

October 15, 2021

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

(Contra Costa County Super. Ct. No. 51722081)

Petrou, J.

A jury convicted appellant Ignacio Sanchez-Gomez of first-degree murder and four separate counts of attempted murder. The jury also found true firearm and gang enhancements. The trial court sentenced appellant to life without the possibility of parole.

On appeal, appellant contends: (1) his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to evidence presented by the prosecutor which the court had earlier ruled inadmissible; (2) the trial court erroneously instructed jurors on how they could evaluate the credibility of one of the prosecution's witnesses; (3) the trial court erroneously instructed jurors that appellant's statements alone were sufficient to satisfy the prosecution's burden of proof on certain issues; (4) the four attempted murder convictions must be reversed because the "kill zone" instruction given was legally erroneous and there was insufficient evidence to support it; (5) the gang special circumstance must be reversed because the trial court incorrectly instructed the jurors it could apply even if appellant was not the one who actually killed the victim; (6) the restitution and assessments against him must be stricken or stayed; and (7) the sentencing and youthful offender parole statutory provisions that make him ineligible for youth offender parole hearings violate equal protection principles.

We reverse the four attempted murder convictions and remand for resentencing and possible retrial on the attempted murder counts as long as any retrial is not based on a kill zone theory. We otherwise affirm the judgment.

Factual and Procedural Background

A. Overview

On September 10, 2017, Adrian S.^[1] was shot and killed while at a barbecue with four friends in front of his friend's apartment. The apartment was at 1829 Powell Street, a residential street which runs north to south, in San Pablo. The 1800 block of Powell intersects with Market Avenue to the south and Dover Avenue to the north. East of and parallel to Powell is Mason Street, another residential street running north to south. Much of the police investigation into Adrian's death and many of the witnesses centered on the square block bound by these streets.

As night approached, a man walking alone and wearing a hooded sweatshirt, or hoodie, walked southbound on Powell from Dover towards Market and fired multiple shots in the direction of the barbecue. Adrian was struck, fell to the ground, and died. His four friends-Oscar T., Edwin R., Rohan J., and Jose P.-were not hit. Meanwhile, the lone shooter fled north on Powell towards Dover. Shortly after the gunshots, a witness on Mason saw a person turn the corner onto Mason from Dover. At some point, the person was joined by another individual. Witnesses on Mason observed two people running down Mason towards Market. Moments later, one of those witnesses saw someone from the direction the pair had headed return to dispose something in a recycling bin. Surveillance cameras throughout the area captured some of these movements.

From the recycling bin, police found and retrieved discarded clothes which were tested for DNA. The DNA on the clothes matched appellant and his friend Jose Maravilla, and gunshot residue was found on the shorts. Appellant, who lived in an apartment on the corner of Market and Powell- across the street from the crime scene-was later arrested along with Maravilla. Police subsequently found gang-related clothing in searches of their homes, identified their tattoos as gang-related, and clipped social media posts in which they displayed gang signs.

On December 15, 2017, Maravilla and appellant were each charged with one count of murder (Pen. Code, § 187)^[2] and four counts of attempted murder (§§ 664/187, subd. (a)). Firearm and gang enhancements were also alleged (§§ 12022.53(d), 190.2(a)(22), 186.22(b)(5)). In June 2018, Maravilla and appellant were jointly tried. The jury was unable to reach a verdict, and the trial court declared a mistrial.

Following the mistrial, Maravilla pled to one count of voluntary manslaughter and one count of attempted murder. The attempted murder conviction included a gang enhancement and a firearm-use enhancement. Maravilla was sentenced to 25 years and 8 months in prison.

Appellant faced a second jury trial, which began in September 2018. The prosecution's theory of the case was that appellant and Maravilla believed the five men at the barbecue on Powell belonged to a rival gang and conspired to kill them in a gang-motivated attack. The defense theory of the case was that Maravilla was the shooter acting alone or with some other unknown person who was not appellant, and it was not a gang-related shooting.

B. The Prosecution Case

1. The Crime

Appellant lived with his mother, Maria G., in Apartment 1 at 2345 Market Avenue, an apartment building located on the corner of Market and Powell in San Pablo. Around 5 p.m. on Sunday, September 10, 2017, appellant and Maravilla left the apartment where they had spent the day hanging out, walked to the liquor store across the street, and bought beer. The two of them returned to the apartment and drank.

Meanwhile, across the street in the driveway in front of the apartments at 1829 Powell, Edwin had friends over for a barbecue and beer; Adrian, Jose, Rohan, and Oscar were there. Adrian wore a red Washington Nationals baseball cap and red sneakers. The group watched football, ate, and drank past sundown.

After it got dark, they heard what they initially thought were fireworks. When they realized the sounds were gunshots, Rohan and Edwin dropped to the ground. Neither Rohan nor Edwin could tell where the shots had come from. Jose, whose back was to the street when he heard shots, looked over his shoulder up Powell towards Dover and saw flashes and someone in the street shooting. Because of the darkness, however, he saw only "shadow[s] and flashes." Oscar saw the gunman who shot at his friends.

He believed the shooter was wearing a blue hoodie or sweatshirt and was a little shorter than 6'2". Oscar gave chase but the shooter was far from him, and Oscar never caught up. Someone returned fire at the shooter as he fled the scene. Oscar was seen tossing a gun in the bushes near the garage door of his house and then running back to Edwin's place.

After the shots stopped, Edwin, who had been next to Adrian and saw him on the ground, told his friend to get up but got no response. Rohan saw Adrian was hit, had blood on his face, and was not responding to their calls. They attempted to get him into a car to take him to the hospital, but they could not move him.

The first police dispatch was issued at 8:24 p.m., and police arrived soon thereafter. Officers found Adrian on his back "most of the way up the driveway" next to a parked Camry. An officer administered CPR with chest compressions but Adrian was not responsive. He died from a gunshot wound to his head.

Several people in the neighborhood testified about what they saw in the moments before and after the gunshots. Maria B. was getting out of her car on Powell and heading to a friend's house when she saw a man who was about 6 feet tall bring the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and walk south on Powell in the direction of the barbecue. As she walked up the stairs to her friend's house, she heard gunshots. Beatriz T., the friend Maria B. was visiting who lived a few doors down from the shooting, peeked out her window after she heard the gunshots and saw "somebody running super fast in front of the house with their hood[ie] pulled so it . . . completely covered, their face." The person was running towards Dover.

Deshawn B. was just about to step out of his friend's car in front of his house on Mason when he heard the gunshots. He rushed to get inside, but before entering turned around to make sure his friends safely departed. At that point he saw someone turn onto Mason from Dover headed towards Market. The lone person was running with his or her head down and hood on.

Edward C. was on his balcony on Mason and heard the gunshots. About five minutes later, he saw two guys running by towards Market. One was taller than the other. The taller one "had to be 5'11, almost 6'," and the shorter one was around 5'4". The taller one may have been wearing a hoodie but the hood was off and he saw he had shoulder-length hair, and he was possibly wearing shorts. He lost sight of them after they turned the corner. Omar Z., who also lived on Mason where he had installed a surveillance system, testified that he was cleaning his garage when he heard the gunshots. He also saw two people running on Mason towards Market.

Edward added that, five minutes after he saw the pair run past him, someone returned from the direction the pair had headed. The person had a hoodie on and was carrying something covered in a shirt-"a shirt, blanket, or some sort of cloth material just bundled up"-that he dropped in the recycling bin placed curbside for pickup. That person "looked like a totally different person" than the two people he had earlier seen running.

2. Police Investigation

Officers located 15 total shell casings at the crime scene clustered in two different locations. Six silver casings were spread out on the driveway of 1829 Powell, and nine brass casings were found on the north end of Powell. Officers also located evidence of six spent bullets. Of the four found in the driveway area, three had been found in the parked Camry. The fourth was located on the ground next to the...