People v. Martinez CA5

INTRODUCTION

In 1988, appellant and defendant Gerson Martinez (defendant) was convicted after a jury trial of second degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life. The judgment was affirmed on direct appeal. In 2023, the trial court denied defendant’s Penal Code section 1172.61 petition for resentencing and found he failed to make a prima facie case for relief. On appeal, appellate counsel filed a brief which summarized the facts and procedural history with citations to the record, raised no issues, and asked this court to independently review the record pursuant to both People v. Delgadillo (2022) 14 Cal.5th 216 and People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436. Defendant submitted a letter brief in response. We review his arguments and affirm the trial court’s denial of his petition.

All further statutory citations are to the Penal Code. Defendant filed a preprinted form as his petition for resentencing that refers to former section 1170.95. The statute was substantively amended, effective on January 1, 2022, and renumbered as section 1172.6 without further change on June 30, 2022. (People v. Saibu (2022) 81 Cal.App.5th 709, 715, fn. 3.) As such, we refer to the subject…