People v. Saldana CA2/5

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Offense Conduct and Criminal Charges In 2006, defendant, along with John Parra (Parra) and Fredrick Luna (Luna), arrived at Isaiah Frias’s (Frias’s) apartment complex and parked in a dirt field where four children were playing. One of the men warned the children to leave. Defendant, Parra, Luna, and Frias were all members of the Crazy Kings Familia (C.K.F.) criminal street gang.

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

2 Luna scaled a wall to enter the apartment complex and called out to Frias while defendant and Parra remained in the dirt field. When Frias exited his apartment, Parra pulled a handgun and fatally shot Frias and defendant fired a shotgun toward the apartment complex. A gang expert who testified at the joint trial of defendant, Parra, and Luna opined the murder occurred because there was an internal struggle within C.K.F. According to the expert’s opinion, defendant, Parra, and Luna sought to punish Frias for trying to split up the gang and to warn other potential dissident members that disloyalty would not be tolerated. A jury convicted defendant of second degree murder and found true a gang enhancement…