P. v. Garcia
Defendant Alexis Garcia was retried for the murder of Ricardo Castro (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a))[1] after the jury in his first trial deadlocked by a vote of six to six. During his second trial, the jury found defendant guilty of murder during the commission of which he personally and intentionally discharged a firearm, causing great bodily injury and/or death (id., § 12022.53, subd. (d)). The jury further found that he committed the murder for the benefit of a criminal street gang (id., § 186.22, subd. (b)(1)). The trial court sentenced defendant to state prison for a total term of 50 years to life.
Defendant appealed, contending among other things that he was denied access to important exculpatory evidence when the trial court denied his Pitchess[2] and Brady[3] motions, and the evidence was insufficient to establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt because there were numerous inconsistencies between the principal eyewitnesses’ trial testimony, preliminary hearing testimony and pretrial statements. We concluded the jury was entitled to credit the eyewitnesses’ identification of defendant as the shooter despite the inconsistencies in their statements but the trial court erred in denying his Pitchess motion. We therefore reversed the judgment and remanded the matter to the trial court for the limited purpose of conducting an in camera inspection of police personnel records and, if the files contained discoverable information, affording defendant an opportunity to establish that he was prejudiced by the denial of his motion. (People v. Garcia (Sept. 15, 2008, B197695) [nonpub. opn.].)
On remand, the trial court examined the police records in camera, concluded several complaints found therein against one of the investigating detectives were discoverable, and disclosed the information to defendant. Defendant then moved for new trial based on the newly discovered evidence, contending the complaints against the detective could have been used at trial to impeach his testimony and cast doubt on identifications made by the two eyewitnesses, which would have resulted in a different verdict. The trial court denied the motion and reinstated the judgment.
We conclude the trial court properly denied defendant’s motion for new trial, and therefore affirm.
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