People v. Smith CA3

BACKGROUND

A. The Charges, the Verdicts, and the Sentence We summarize the pertinent facts from our prior opinion in Smith, supra, C050287. In October 2004, defendant’s wife was living with her two teenaged daughters in an apartment in West Sacramento. Defendant had been away for a long period of time, and in the interim, his wife had a boyfriend. After returning and finding letters from the boyfriend, defendant attacked his wife with a tree branch, choked her, shoved her against a dumpster, and hit her head against it. Later, while their daughters were present, defendant repeatedly struck his wife in the face with a phone, causing her to lose consciousness. As a result of the attack, defendant’s wife suffered a broken nose, missing teeth, and brain injuries; she had a stroke from an injury to her carotid artery, remained in the hospital and a nursing home for four months, and continued to experience partial paralysis at the time of trial.

1 Undesignated section references are to the Penal Code. This statute was formerly section 1171.1, but effective June 30, 2022, it was renumbered and amended by Assembly Bill No. 200 (2021-2022 Reg. Sess.) to section 1172.75. (Stats.…