People v. Wang CA2/6

FACTS

Appellant threatened to kill his wife during an hours-long tirade in 2021. The incident culminated with him holding her down on the bed and beating her with an iPad stand, then grabbing her hair as she tried to flee. Their distraught 13-year- old daughter tried to shield her mother and calm down her father throughout the incident. At trial, prosecutors played a surreptitious audio recording made by his wife during the incident. She and the daughter testified about what was happening at various times throughout the recording. Appellant’s anger grew as he repeatedly blamed his wife for reporting him to police in 2017 after he hit her during an argument. This resulted in his arrest, but no charges were filed. He blamed her for a cascade of tragedies that followed. His wife testified that appellant would often hit himself when he was emotional. Appellant testified in his own defense against the advice of his trial counsel. He characterized his wife as the aggressor. He said she used the 2017 incident to force him to spend more time with her and their daughter instead of properly caring for his aging parents. He believed this hastened his elderly father’s death from Alzheimer’s…