People v. Saechao CA3

I. BACKGROUND

The factual basis for defendant’s 2007 guilty plea was drawn from the prosecution’s trial brief, summarized on the record as follows: “[I]n 2005 the defendant was married—had a common law marriage with the victim Si Saeturn. And in the summer or the spring of 2005 the defendant began an extra-marital relationship with Mimi Le, who became pregnant, that the defendant’s wife, the victim in this case, Si Saeturn, learned about the affair, tried to stop it, that in the fall of 2005 the defendant and Mimi Le began to conspire to have the victim Si Saeturn killed, that in efforts to do that the defendant made various attempts to obtain a firearm, that Mimi Le made various attempts to obtain a firearm, that in fact the defendant approached his cousins, a Khae Saephanh and Lo—and Chiang Saephanh and also a friend of theirs named Lo Saephanh and they became involved with the conspiracy on the defendant’s behest to have his wife murdered. “And ultimately on the 29th of December, 2005, the defendants Khae Saephanh and Lo Saephanh went to a park where they essentially recruited a juvenile . . . and offered him money—up to $400 if he would actually commit the killing. They drove…