Rios

A bar fight began with fisticuffs, escalated to broken beer bottles, and ended in Jesús Patiño’s bloody death from a severed jugular vein. A jury found Juan José Hernández Ríos guilty of voluntary manslaughter with personal use of a deadly weapon. (Pen. Code, §§ 187, subd. (a), 192, subd. (a), 12022, subd. (b)(1).) The court sentenced him to an aggregate seven-year sentence (a six-year middle term for voluntary manslaughter and a consecutive one-year term for personal use of a deadly weapon). (§§ 193, subd. (a), 12022, subd. (b)(1).)

ISSUES ON APPEAL

On appeal, Rios challenges three Judicial Council of California Criminal Jury Instructions (2006-2007) (CALCRIM): First, he argues that language in CALCRIM No. 220 absent from analogous CALJIC No. 2.90 requiring the jury “to compare and consider all the evidence” impermissibly shifts the burden of proof to the defense by allowing the jury to hold against the defense the absence of defense evidence. Second, he argues that language in CALCRIM No. 372 absent from analogous CALJIC No. 2.52 allowing the jury to infer from his flight after the crime that he was “aware of his guilt” impermissibly presumes the existence of his…