P. v. Ledesma
On the night of March 11, 2005, Sergio Dueñas was shot and killed, and Carlos Castañeda was wounded, in a drive-by shooting in Hayward. Frank Ledesma, Sr. (Ledesma Sr.), his son Frank Ledesma, Jr. (Ledesma Jr.), and José Mesaramos (collectively, appellants) were arrested shortly after a police pursuit. Mesaramos was identified as the driver of the suspect vehicle, and the Ledesmas were identified as the shooters.
After a joint trial lasting more than a month, all three were convicted by a jury of the first degree murder of Dueñas (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a); Count 1),[1] with a special circumstance finding that the murder was intentional and committed by shooting from a vehicle at a person outside it with intent to inflict death (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(21)). Appellants were also convicted of two counts of attempted murder (§§ 187, 664; Counts 2 and 3). Mesaramos was convicted of unlawful driving or taking of a vehicle (Veh. Code, § 10851, subd. (a); Count 4), and Ledesma Sr. was convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon (former § 12021, subd. (a)(1); Count 5). The jury also found that, inter alia, appellants committed the murder and attempted murders for the benefit of a criminal street gang (§ 186.22, subd. (b)(1)) and that all three appellants personally and intentionally discharged a firearm proximately causing great bodily injury or death, within the meaning of former section 12022.53, subdivision (d). Each appellant was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the murder, two consecutive determinate terms of seven years on the attempted murders, and two consecutive terms of 25 years to life, plus a 20-year term, for the firearm enhancements. Ledesma Sr. and Mesaramos were each sentenced to an additional two-year term, to run concurrently, on Counts 4 and 5.
Appellants seek reversal of their convictions on a number of grounds. We affirm.
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