California v. Campbell
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Defendant-appellant Aaron Campbell met Silvester Leyva at a bar where they exchanged telephone numbers and discussed buying and selling marijuana. A few days later, Campell and defendant-appellant Xavier Fort (among others) went to Leyva's house to get the marijuana. Leyva and his friend, Samuel De La Torre, met Campbell in Leyva's front yard. After De La Torre handed marijuana to Campbell, Campbell pulled a gun and began to back away toward two waiting vehicles. Fort, who was standing near the vehicles, fired his gun in the direction of the house. Leyva was killed by one of the bullets. A jury convicted defendants of first degree murder and two counts of robbery, and found true a robbery special-circumstance allegation. Defendants appealed their convictions: Fort argued that based on the accusatory pleading, the trial court erred in instructing the jury in his case on first degree felony murder only (with robbery as the underlying felony); the trial court had a sua sponte duty to instruct on lesser included offenses. Both defendants challenged the sufficiency of the evidence presented against them at trial. The Court of Appeals, in the published portion of its opinion, agreed that the trial court had a sua sponte duty to instruct on lesser included offenses. In the nonpublished portion, the Court held that the instructional error was harmless, and we rejected defendants' argument that the evidence was insufficient to support their convictions of the robbery of Leyva. Furthermore, the Court also concluded that the court's stay of a sentence enhancement term as to Fort constituted an unauthorized sentence, which was corrected.
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