People v. Quinonez CA2/7

INTRODUCTION

At trial, Byron Quinonez was convicted of first degree murder, with firearm and gang allegations found true. The trial court sentenced him to state prison for a term of 50 years to life. Quinonez appeals, claiming error relating to one line of a Spanish-to- English translation of his victim’s recorded statements to a police officer before she died from her injuries. More particularly, he argues he is entitled to reversal of his conviction because the trial court (1) failed to properly instruct the jury as to its duties when receiving a transcript of an audio recording containing a foreign language translation; (2) failed to exercise its discretion to reopen the trial sua sponte when the jury identified a translation error; (3) as an alternative to reopening the trial, failed to declare a mistrial when jurors’ identification of a translation error necessarily established juror misconduct; (4) exerted undue pressure for a verdict and effectively directed a guilty verdict when the court reprimanded the jury to accept the provided translation; (5) abused its discretion in denying the defense motion for new trial based on the defense’s production of a corrected…