Achilli

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND1

In June 2007, approximately nine months before he was killed, Mark Achilli and his business partner sold two restaurants to Garcia: Mountain Charley’s and 180 Restaurant (the 180). After acquiring the restaurants, Garcia became romantically involved with Tessa Donnely, Mark Achilli’s sometime girlfriend. Jealous over Mark Achilli’s continuing relationship with Donnely, Garcia asked Daniel Chaidez, a bouncer at the 180, to arrange for Mark Achilli’s murder. For assistance, Daniel Chaidez enlisted his cousin, Miguel Chaidez, who in turn recruited Lucio Estrada. Another man, Robert Jacome, drove Estrada from southern California to Los Gatos, California, where Mark Achilli lived. On March 14, 2008, Estrada fatally shot Mark Achilli eight times in the face and chest. Achilli filed a civil lawsuit against Garcia on March 12, 2010. On October 26, 2010, Garcia was convicted of the first-degree murder of Mark Achilli and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. On March 24, 2016, following the affirmance of Garcia’s criminal conviction, the denial of his first petition for writ of habeas corpus, and our Supreme Court’s denial of…