California v. Johnson
Annotate this CaseA jury convicted defendant-appellant William Johnson of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and hit and run with injury. The jury also found true two enhancement allegations; defendant fled the scene, and the collision resulted in a fatality. The jury did not reach a unanimous verdict on the other charged count, second degree murder, and the trial court granted a mistrial with respect to that count. On retrial, a new jury found defendant guilty of second degree murder. In this appeal, defendant argued that the trial court erred during his retrial by not informing the jury that he had been convicted in the first trial of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, and that the error required reversal of his second degree murder conviction. The Court of Appeals agreed that the trial court’s instructions to the jury for defendant’s retrial were erroneous in several respects, and the second degree murder conviction had to be reversed.
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