Montanez

INTRODUCTION

Delores Attig was murdered in a secluded area of Balboa Park in 1986. She was with two male friends smoking and talking in their car when they were attacked by four male assailants, two of them armed with guns. The assailants bound her friends and robbed them. Delores was led a short distance away, where she was gang raped and then shot once in the head at close range. Her murder remained a cold case for more than 20 years, until DNA analysis of evidence collected from her body led to the arrest of four men

in 2007: Eddie Montanez, his brother Steve Montanez,1 and two juveniles. In 2010, a jury convicted Eddie of the first degree felony murder of

Delores (Pen. Code,2 § 187, subd. (a)), and found true a principal personally

used a firearm (§ 12022, subd. (a)).3 The jury rejected special circumstance allegations that Eddie aided and abetted the murder while engaged in the commission and attempted commission of robbery, rape, sodomy, and oral copulation (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)). He was sentenced to an indeterminate term of 25 years to life in prison, plus an additional year for the firearm

1 We refer to the brothers by their first names to avoid confusion.

2 …