Lopez

INTRODUCTION

In 2011, a jury convicted Jaime Jezzuel Lopez of the first degree murder of Reginold Harry and found true a special circumstance allegation that the murder had occurred during the commission of a robbery. The trial court sentenced defendant to a term of life without the possibility of parole. A panel of this court affirmed the conviction in an unpublished opinion in People v. Lopez (Aug. 26, 2013, G046477). Defendant appeals from an order denying his petition for resentencing 1 under Penal Code section 1170.95. He contends he made a prima facie case for relief by showing it was possible the jury had convicted him of felony murder and found the robbery-murder special-circumstance allegation to be true without finding he was the victim’s actual killer. We conclude the term “actual killer” as used in the revised felony-murder rule of section 189, subdivision (e)(1) refers to someone who personally killed the victim and is not necessarily the same as a person who “caused” the victim’s death. Under this meaning of actual killer, it was possible for the jury to have found defendant guilty of felony murder, and found to be true the robbery-murder special-circumstance…