Hayes

Defendant Jeffrey Michael Hayes was sentenced to state prison after a jury found him guilty of mayhem, battery, and assault. On appeal he contends that (1) the trial court should have instructed the jury that it was a partial defense to the mayhem charge if defendant acted under a genuine but unreasonable belief that he needed to defend himself; (2) he was denied the effective assistance of counsel in that, among other things, counsel failed to object to evidence of prior misconduct; and (3) a three-year enhancement for inflicting great bodily injury must be stricken because such injury is an element of mayhem. Aside from the third point, which the People concede, we discern no reversible error. Accordingly we will affirm the judgment after striking the three-year enhancement.

Background

At the time of the events in question, defendant was living with Melissa Munoz (later Hayes) in her Mountain View apartment. On the night of June 20, 2002, after defendant had been drinking, they had an argument. Melissa called her parent’s house in Sunnyvale and told her brother Anthony Munoz she was going to “come by.” Shortly thereafter Anthony called her back and offered to come and…