People v. Quistian CA6

I. BACKGROUND

According to this court’s unpublished opinion in defendant’s direct appeal, defendant was a passenger in a car occupied by three other people. They drove past three rival gang members and “some sort of interaction occurred between the two groups, such as staring and making various hand gestures.” The occupants of the car picked up another person and returned to the area where they had seen the rival gang members. “Although there is some discrepancy as to the precise sequence of events” after the car returned to the area, at some point the rival gang members threw objects at the car. A man then got out of the car and shot at the rival gang members multiple times with a semiautomatic firearm while they fled, hitting and injuring two of them. Multiple witnesses identified defendant as the shooter. When an officer at the scene asked one of the victims who had shot him, he named two people: defendant and defendant’s cousin. The same victim later told a friend that defendant had shot him. Defendant’s cousin was also charged with three counts of attempted murder; only defendant was alleged to have personally used a firearm, inflicted great bodily injury, and acted…