People v. Young CA2/5

I. BACKGROUND

A. Defendant’s Criminal Conduct and Trial As we discuss post, the trial court relied on this court’s partially published opinion resolving defendant’s direct appeal from his judgment of conviction (People v. Young (1992) 11 Cal.App.4th 1299 (Young I)) to make its ruling on defendant’s section 1172.6 petition. For that reason, the summary of defendant’s offense conduct that follows is taken from Young I. One night in July 1989, Steven Soyars (Soyars) drove his friend, Estella Cabrera (Cabrera), to her home in Los Angeles. When Cabrera went inside, another car pulled into the driveway behind Soyars. The occupants of that car—defendant and another man—then approached Soyars wearing masks and carrying guns. Defendant pointed a gun at Soyars and told him to move to the back seat of his car. Soyars complied, defendant got into Soyars’s car, and defendant’s companion backed the other car out of the driveway. Cabrera witnessed what was going on and yelled from the house that she was calling the police. Defendant

1 Undesignated statutory references that follow are to the Penal Code.

2 drove away in Soyars’s car, with Soyars still inside, and after driving for about 500…