People v. Rufo CA5

INTRODUCTION

A jury convicted defendant Dominick Jeffery Rufo (defendant) of second degree murder (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a)) and found true an allegation he personally discharged a firearm that caused great bodily injury or death (id., § 12022.53, subd. (d)) after he shot someone in a diner following an altercation. (Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.) The altercation involved the homicide victim, his wife, and his wife’s mother, Balinda, on one side, and the ex-wife of Balinda’s brother, Karen B., on the other side. Karen’s daughter, codefendant Brandy Bettencourt, and Bettencourt’s boyfriend, defendant Rufo, responded to the diner to help Karen. A video recording of the argument showed Bettencourt and defendant enter the diner, defendant pointing a laser-assisted gun at the victim, firing the gun three times at the victim when he stood up, apparently striking him in the abdomen, the chest and the head, killing him. During trial, defendant testified, in part, that the shooting was a “reaction more than a thought” and he was not “a hundred percent aware of the fact [he] was doing it.” The defense also introduced expert testimony on psychology in…