People v. Pacheco CA4/2

BACKGROUND

1. The circumstances leading to defendant’s conviction

The background leading up to defendant’s petition for resentencing is taken from

our opinion issued in the appeal from the judgment taken by defendant and codefendant

Luis Enrique Trujillo. (People v. Trujillo (June 8, 2001, E026262) [nonpub. opn.].) A

copy of the opinion is included in the record on appeal.

In 1998, defendant was the aggrieved party in a love triangle involving her

girlfriend Monica Santos and Monica’s ex-boyfriend, Jesse Morales. After spending the

night with Santos, Morales stole defendant’s bicycle, assaulted her, harassed Santos, and

went to Santos’s home looking for defendant while brandishing a weapon. In response,

defendant drove four people, including codefendant Trujillo, to the trailer occupied by

Morales. She carried a rifle with a suppressor in the trunk of her car. Once outside the

trailer, while Trujillo was loading the rifle, defendant told him, “Either do it or don’t.”

Trujillo discharged the weapon repeatedly into the trailer, killing Morales.

A jury convicted defendant and Trujillo of premeditated, deliberate first degree

murder. The court sentenced defendant to an…