People v. Razon CA2/6

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

A Riverside County jury convicted appellant of murder and other counts in 1996. He remained incarcerated as a life prisoner at California State Prison in Lancaster as of July 2018. He shared a cell with Charles Wade, a 68-year-old wheelchair-bound inmate who weighed about 100 pounds. Appellant was by then 52 years old and weighed over 300 pounds. One morning after breakfast, guards in the prison yard saw appellant straddling a supine Wade and punching him in the

2 face. Appellant ignored orders to stop. A guard in the control booth shot him in the back with a non-lethal sponge round but he still did not stop. The victim initially covered his face but his arms fell to his sides as the beating continued. The incident ended after a guard discharged an aerosol pepper grenade. The guards and a nurse lifted Wade onto a gurney and rolled him out of the yard. The nurse who evaluated Wade sent him to the hospital because of his injuries.

DISCUSSION

Unanimity Instruction on Count 2 for Battery with Serious Bodily Injury Appellant contends the trial court violated his due process rights by failing to give a unanimity instruction to the jury on count 2 for…