People v. Garcia CA2/1

BACKGROUND

The factual background is from the opinion in Garcia’s direct appeal. A. The Attempted Murder “The defendant Garcia, his wife Yesenia, and the victim Mejia all worked at the Bloomfield Bakery. Garcia worked the shift from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. Yesenia worked the 3:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. shift, and Mejia worked the 3:00 p.m. to midnight shift. In approximately 2005, Mejia met Yesenia at work, and they began dating about six months later. They engaged in sexual relations for about a month but Mejia ended the relationship when he discovered that Yesenia was married. Although Mejia remembered seeing Garcia at work on two occasions, he did not know that Garcia was Yesenia’s husband. The first occasion that he noticed Garcia was when Garcia stood next to his desk looking at him curiously. The second occasion was in the bakery parking lot. Mejia was in his car with his live- in girlfriend, who also worked there, when Garcia, who was walking from one building to another, passed in front of Mejia’s Toyota pickup truck and looked inside, ‘[a]lways staring at us,’ as he walked past. “Approximately a week and a half before the shooting, after leaving work at midnight, as…