People v. Harrington CA1/4

I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL

BACKGROUND

Around 10 p.m. on August 16, 2010, Tisha R. parked her car near a housing project on Seventh Street in Oakland, where she planned to visit a friend. She got out of the car, reached back inside to retrieve a bag, and was confronted by Harrington and three other men wearing black-hooded sweatshirts and carrying guns. They forced her to give them her keys, jewelry, and phone, and then they jumped in her car and drove away.

1 Two days later, Harrington was pulled over driving the stolen car, and the police arrested him. Harrington’s exact role in the carjacking was never conclusively resolved. Before trial, Tisha R. identified Harrington in a photographic lineup as someone who had robbed her, pointed a gun at her, and said, “ ‘Break yourself, bitch.’ ” But when asked at trial to identify the person who held a gun to her and said those words, she said that Harrington resembled that person “[a] little bit,” and that her memory about the incident was better soon after it occurred. She also acknowledged that she may have at some point confused which of the four men got into the driver’s side and which of them got into the passenger side after they…