People v. Lee CA5

FACTS

Because the basic facts of the offenses themselves are not in dispute — only their meaning as they pertain to self-defense — we need not lay them out in great detail. We instead concentrate on the facts specifically relevant to the instructional issues Lee has raised. Because Lee does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions, under established appellate standards we recite the facts in the light most favorable to the judgment. (People v. Curl (2009) 46 Cal.4th 339, 342, fn. 3 (Curl).) We include this reminder because Lee’s rendering of the facts focuses almost entirely on the evidence provided by his testimony and his self-serving post-arrest statements made to the police, to the exclusion of the other evidence.

3. At about 9:40 p.m. on the night of June 3, 2020,4 Lee was standing outside a Bakersfield marijuana dispensary when he claimed he heard someone call out something like, “Hey.” He was not certain, but he suspected it had been Jerry Lee Tibbs, Jr. (Tibbs), a security guard at the shop and someone with whom Lee was familiar. Lee took out the handgun he was carrying and fired five times through the glass doorway of the dispensary where…