People v. Session CA4/2

BACKGROUND

1. Facts Pertaining to the Crime

We take the facts of the crime from the original opinion on direct appeal, People v.

Session, February 9, 2011, E049939, nonpublished opinion.

Shortly before 1:00 a.m. on March 21, 2006, two Black males, later identified as

Thornton and Session, walked into the 7-Eleven store on the corner of Highway 18 and

Apple Valley Road near Apple Valley. Thornton and Session forced Gould, the store

clerk, to give them all the money that was in the store’s two cash registers, a total of $62.

They then forced Gould into a back storage room, where Thornton shot and killed him.

The robbery was captured on store surveillance cameras, but the murder of Gould

in the back storage room was not. The surveillance videos, which were played for the

jury, showed Thornton and Session forcing Gould to open the store’s two cash registers,

with Thornton pointing a gun at Gould. The videos also showed the two men forcing

Gould toward the back of the store, out of the range of the surveillance cameras. Gould

was found dead in the back storage room. He had been shot 9 to 10 times with a nine-

millimeter semiautomatic handgun, and died at the…