People v. Shinn
| Decision Date | 27 April 2023 |
| Docket Number | B316256 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. EDWARD ALCARAZ SHINN et al., Defendants and Appellants. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County No. NA102184, Eleanor J. Hunter, Judge. Affirmed in part vacated in part and remanded with directions.
Donna L. Harris, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant Edward Alcaraz Shinn.
Eric R. Larson, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant Edgardo Moreno.
Victor J. Morse, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant Alfredo Landeros.
Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Steven D. Matthews, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Michael J. Wise, Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
After a Mexican Mafia gang member's years-long practice of beating his mistress resulted in a beating that landed her in the hospital, the mistress-who was also the mother of one of his children-started to cooperate with law enforcement to prosecute him. Before she could testify at his trial on charges of domestic violence and attempting to dissuade a witness, he directed other gang members to execute her. The gang member and two other gang members appeal their convictions for first degree murder and other charges. We affirm their convictions, but vacate some of the sentencing enhancements and one of the special circumstances and also remand for resentencing.
In 2006, Shinn was married to Elysa Garcia (wife). That same year, he started an extra-marital affair with Lucero.
Shinn's affair with Lucero was marked by domestic violence. In the more than two years between the time they met and her murder, Shinn beat her or burned her with cigarettes more than 100 times. When, in 2006, Lucero told Shinn that she was pregnant with his child, he urged her to abort the pregnancy because Shinn's wife was pregnant at the same time. Shinn continued to beat Lucero, even while she was pregnant. Lucero left California at Shinn's insistence.
In May 2007, Lucero returned to California; gave birth to her child; got back together with Shinn; and he resumed beating her regularly.
In July 2007, Shinn was arrested on charges of beating Lucero. To avoid having to testify against him, Lucero moved to Lompoc, California, again at Shinn's insistence. Due to her absence, the new criminal charges were dismissed and the case was prosecuted solely as a parole violation; this resulted in a shorter sentence, and Shinn was released from custody just a few months later, in February 2008.
Upon Shinn's release, Lucero moved back to town and moved in with Shinn. The beatings resumed.
On June 24, 2008, Shinn chased Lucero outside their home while she was carrying their child and proceeded to punch her more than 10 times, including in the face. Shinn coaxed Lucero back into the residence, where he beat her further. Lucero's injuries were severe: She had a broken nose, burst blood vessels in her eyes, and a swollen jaw. She was taken to a hospital for treatment.
While at the hospital, she told law enforcement that Shinn had inflicted these injuries.
When Shinn learned that Lucero had spoken with police, he took their son away, beat her, and forced her to call the investigating police officer to say that her June 2008 beating was caused-not by Shinn-but instead by a group of women. Lucero subsequently told the police that Shinn had forced her to call with a new story.
On June 30, 2008, the People charged Shinn with domestic violence and with dissuading a witness. Shinn was arrested and held in custody pending trial.
In the days prior to the preliminary hearing on those charges, Shinn warned Lucero that he would have her killed if she testified at the hearing. Lucero testified anyway. While she testified, Shinn "smirk[ed]" and "sort of laugh[ed]" in the courtroom. Immediately after she testified, Shinn called to tell her,
For many years up to and including 2008, Shinn was a member of the Oxnard-based Chiques gang, which was one of the many Southern California-based gangs under the umbrella of the Mexican Mafia. The Mexican Mafia oversees many street gangs in California, including the Chiques gang and the West Side Longos gang. Shinn enjoyed an elevated stature within the Mexican Mafia because he worked directly with some of its leaders.
By mid-2008, Edgardo Moreno (Moreno), Albaro Miranda (Miranda), and Alfredo Landeros (Landeros) were all members of the West Side Longos gang. Moreno was a "shot caller" (or "key holder") of the gang-that is, a member who directed the gang's members regarding which crimes to commit. Miranda was the gang's armorer; he was a repository of the gang's firearms and would loan or sell them to the gang's members as directed. Landeros was a younger gang member anxious to "earn his stripes" by committing crimes for the gang.
A key policy of the Mexican Mafia-and hence of the street gangs under its control-is that cooperating with law enforcement against gang members is punishable by death.
Because Shinn had two prior "strike" convictions within the meaning of our "Three Strikes" law, he believed that he was "fighting . . . 175 to life" in the pending domestic violence case involving Lucero.
Shinn took a two-track approach to his "fight."
On one track, Shinn repeatedly called Lucero from jail to encourage her to change her testimony. Specifically, he told Lucero that she needed to be "school[ed]" on how to change her testimony so as to blame her injuries on someone else. Shinn reassured her that he did not want anything to happen to her, and even said that he had divorced his wife so that he and Lucero could be together. Shinn was lying: The day after Shinn told Lucero about his divorce, he called his wife to ask her to forge paperwork making it look like they were getting a divorce. Shinn later bragged to others that he was trying to "brainwash" Lucero into testifying in a way that exonerated him.
On the other track, Shinn strongly hinted to Lucero that she would be killed if she rejected his "schooling." He "threatened her a lot of times": He told her that she might have trouble if she was informing on anyone, bragged that he had the names and booking numbers of over 2,000 "homies," and told her that "it's going to be all bad" for Lucero if his "people . . . get in touch with Moreno."
On August 10, 2008, Shinn called his wife from jail to ask her to copy and transmit some "paperwork" to various "shot callers" in the West Side Longos, East Side Longos, and Wilmas street gangs. Around that time, Moreno approached a "shot caller" in the West Side Longos named Lewis Guerrero (Guerrero) with "paperwork" showing that Lucero had made statements to police against "her baby daddy" (that is, Shinn) as well as against another gang member out of Compton. Moreno told Guerrero that Lucero "had to go." Guerrero declined to take action against Lucero, telling Moreno that it was a "domestic" matter rather than a matter affecting the neighborhood.
On August 22, 2008, Lucero told Shinn that she was not inclined to change her testimony because, in her view, Shinn needed to "take responsibility" for his conduct in beating her.
On September 13, 2008, Moreno called Miranda and told him that two people would be coming by Miranda's residence and needed to borrow one of his firearms. Moreno was miles away in La Mirada at the time. Around 5 p.m., Moreno called Landeros. Around 6 p.m., Landeros showed up at Miranda's residence with another gang member named Little Blanco. Miranda gave Landeros a loaded revolver.
Around an hour later, Landeros called Lucero from a location near her residence, and did so while blocking his phone number. Landeros and Lucero traveled together to a nearby alley. Landeros had Lucero get out of his car and get down on her knees at the alley's mouth. Landeros then shot her three times in the back, killing her. Cell phone records confirmed everyone's movements.
The following day, Landeros and Little Blanco returned the empty revolver to Miranda. The two men pantomimed someone getting on their knees in prayer and "bragg[ed]" about how they had executed her. Because the revolver had been used to "smoke some girl," Miranda disposed of it.
A few days after Lucero's death, Moreno told others that Lucero was a "rat" who got "smoked," and that Moreno had had "his torpedoes take care of it."
After his arrest, Landeros told police that he did not know Lucero. Landeros had no explanation for the calls between his phone and Lucero's on the night of Lucero's killing or how their phones were traveling in tandem in the minutes before her death.
After his arrest, Miranda told a cell mate in a jail cell that was equipped with a recording device that Lucero had been killed because she had "snitch[ed]" on the "fool" who had hit her in the face.
In February 2021, the People charged Shinn, Moreno and Landeros (collectively, defendants) with (1) the murder of Lucero (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a)),[1] (2) conspiracy to...
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