People v. Davis CA3

BACKGROUND

In 1997, Davis pleaded guilty to second degree murder pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement. The trial court sentenced him to 15 years to life in prison.

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.

1 In 2022, Davis filed a petition for resentencing under what is now section 1172.6. The trial court denied the petition at the prima facie stage, but we reversed and remanded with directions that the court issue an order to show cause and hold an evidentiary hearing. (People v. Davis (Jan. 24, 2024, C097495) [nonpub. opn.].) On remand, the People asked the trial court to take judicial notice of the transcript from the preliminary hearing held before Davis’s plea, and they submitted a transcript from Davis’s parole suitability hearing before the Board of Parole Hearings in 2020. At that hearing, Davis testified that he brought a rifle to the home of an intended victim, but when he arrived, a woman began wrestling with him over the gun, “and then that’s how I accidentally killed her.” Davis said that the gun “went off” while the woman wrestled with him. When a commissioner told him that the gun did not go off by itself, Davis stated, “I take responsibility…