People v. Yates CA3

FACTS AND HISTORY OF THE PROCEEDINGS

Defendant and codefendant Gregory Roach were jointly charged with the first degree premeditated murder of Nathan Marcus (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 664; statutory section citations that follow are to the Penal Code unless otherwise stated), and defendant alone was charged with possessing and carrying a weapon in prison, a sharpened metal stock (§ 4502, subd. (a)). It was further alleged that defendant personally used a deadly and dangerous weapon during the murder (§ 12022, subd. (b)(1)), and that he had suffered a prior strike conviction (§§ 667, subds. (b)-(i), 1170.12) for first degree residential burglary (§ 459), which also constituted a prior serious felony (§ 667, subd. (a)). In June 2023, defendant pleaded guilty to both counts and admitted the prior strike offense. The parties stipulated to the prosecutor’s stated factual basis for the plea as follows: Defendant, Roach, and Marcus were prison inmates in Sacramento. Defendant and Roach shook hands with Marcus while in the prison yard and then attacked him; defendant stabbed Marcus seven times with a sharpened metal object, four of which were fatal, while Roach pulled him to the…