People v. Barrios CA2/7

INTRODUCTION

Carlos Ramirez Barrios was convicted in 2005 of the first degree murder of Charles Scott Dixon during a burglary. In 2022, he petitioned for resentencing under Penal Code section 1172.6.1 The trial court denied Barrios’s petition after finding, at an evidentiary hearing, that Barrios was a major participant in the underlying burglary who acted with reckless indifference to human life. Barrios appeals, arguing that the judicial factfinding violated his right to trial by jury under the Sixth Amendment, as well as his rights to equal protection and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. We affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

A. Underlying Conviction and Sentence Barrios and two accomplices robbed and killed Dixon in December 2000. Dixon was “a 64-year-old wheelchair-bound amputee who lived alone” and “had come into a lot of money from a civil suit that related to the injuries that led to his amputation.” Dixon was found handcuffed and beaten to death. His injuries were consistent with 32 blunt force strikes with a “crowbar” or the “handle [of a] car jack.” In 2005, a jury convicted Barrios of first degree murder (§ 187, subd. (a); Count 1); first degree…