People v. Lerena CA2/5

I. INTRODUCTION

A jury found defendant Preciosa Lerena guilty of second degree murder, among other crimes resulting from a carjacking and subsequent reckless driving spree. On appeal, she raises challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence, her sentence, and the juvenile court’s order transferring the case to the adult criminal court. We affirm, in part, and conditionally reverse, as explained in detail below.

II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

A. Prosecution’s Case

1. Carjacking

On February 18, 2018, at approximately 2:20 p.m., Michael Dilworth, while parked in the lot of a Palmdale Walmart, saw defendant1 attempt to take Patricia Levins’s purse and then punch her multiple times in the face. He then observed defendant enter Levins’s white Toyota RAV4. Dilworth tried to grab the car’s door handle, but it was locked. Defendant reversed the RAV4 into two other vehicles before she “took off” through the parking lot at over 20 miles per hour. Dilworth observed Levins at the scene bleeding from a cut on her face. The wind blew Levins’s blood onto Dilworth’s clothes and his car. Following her encounter with defendant, Levins, who was 63 at the time, had a laceration on her…