Keel

INTRODUCTION

In 2005, fifteen-year-old Davion Keel and eighteen-year-old Ariel Bolton held Barry Knight at gunpoint and robbed him of twenty dollars on the streets of San Bernardino. One of them shot and killed Knight when he resisted the robbery and tried to flee. Keel and Bolton were both prosecuted in adult criminal court and convicted of first degree murder in connection with Knight’s death. More than a decade later, Keel filed a petition to vacate his murder conviction and to be resentenced under Penal Code section 1172.6 based on recent legislative changes to our state’s murder laws. (Further undesignated

statutory references are to the Penal Code.)1 The trial court denied the petition for resentencing, finding Keel was not entitled to relief because he remained liable for Knight’s murder under a still-valid theory of liability—to wit, he was a major participant in the underlying robbery and he acted with reckless indifference to human life. Keel appeals the order denying his petition for resentencing. He argues the evidence was insufficient to support the trial court’s finding that he was a major participant in the underlying robbery who acted with reckless indifference…