P. v. Boner
On June 21, 2008, defendant Marquis Boner--an 18 year old with no record of violence--shot Rigoberto Galaviz dead, as Galaviz was trying to stop defendant from fleeing from a robbery. Defendant was quickly captured, and confessed to the robbery and to shooting Galaviz. In securing defendant’s confession, the interviewing detectives did not tell defendant that Galaviz was dead.
The jury found defendant guilty of murder, robbery, and discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle, and found true a robbery-murder special circumstance and firearm allegations. (Pen. Code, §§ 187, 211, 12034, subd. (d), 190.2, subds. (a)(17) & (a)(22), 12022.53, subds. (b) & (e)(1).) The jury acquitted defendant of a second robbery, as well as allegations that he was a member of a criminal street gang and committed the crimes for the benefit of a gang, and rejected other firearms allegations. With the concurrence of the People, in light of the not-true findings on the gang charges, the trial court struck the firearm enhancements found true by the jury, and sentenced defendant to prison for life without possibility of parole for murder with special circumstances, and stayed determinate terms for the robbery and vehicle discharge counts (see Pen. Code, § 654). Defendant timely appealed.[1]
On appeal, defendant contends his confession should not have been introduced as evidence because it was involuntary from its inception or, alternatively, became involuntary after the detectives lied to him about Galaviz’s physical condition. As we will explain, our independent review of the record, including a DVD of the interrogation, shows defendant’s confession was voluntary.
Defendant also contends the trial court improperly overruled foundational objections to gang-related material that had been downloaded from social networking websites. We conclude the trial court did not abuse its discretion in overruling the defense objections; further, in light of the acquittal on all gang-related charges, any error was harmless.
Accordingly, we shall affirm the judgment.
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