People v. Johnson

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On March 19, 2003, a jury found, inter alia, Glen Maurice Johnson not guilty of the first degree murder of Lamar Rufus but guilty of second degree murder, conspiracy to murder, and accessory to murder. (§§ 32, 182, subd. (a)(1), 187, subd. (a).) On June 23, 2004, we rejected his insufficiency of the evidence argument but reversed the judgment and ordered a new trial since the court impermissibly lowered the prosecution’s constitutional burden of proof by misinstructing the jury on reasonable doubt. (People v. Johnson (2004) 119 Cal.App.4th 976 [ 14 Cal.Rptr.3d 780 ].)

On April 1, 2005, a jury again found Johnson, inter alia, guilty of second degree murder, conspiracy to murder, and accessory to murder. Before his probation and sentencing hearing, his attorney learned, while attending portions of the trial of Arthur Lenix, who likewise was being prosecuted for Lamar’s homicide, that Lenix’s attorney had police reports that he had never seen and that the prosecutor had never disclosed to him, with information about the involvement of the prosecution’s sole eyewitness to the killing, Lamar’s cousin Curtis Rufus, in a shooting outside a convenience store…