California v. Turner
Annotate this CaseMary H. was attacked and robbed at home in the early hours of the morning. A jury found defendants Heaven Turner and Michael Rafferty guilty of first degree robbery; Turner was also found Turner guilty of mayhem. Defendants respectively raised several arguments on appeal. Turner argued the trial court prejudicially erred in failing to instruct the jury sua sponte that the infliction of great bodily injury is a required element to prove mayhem and that, like the disfigurement theory of mayhem, permanent injury was required to prove mayhem under the “slit of the lip” theory. In the published portion of its opinion, the Court of Appeal rejected Turner’s instructional error claims. In the unpublished portion of its opinion, the Court further rejected Turner’s arguments that: (1) defense counsel was ineffective for failing to request a modification of the mayhem instruction; (2) the prosecutor committed prosecutorial error during closing argument; (3) the prosecutorial error and the instructional error cumulatively violated her due process rights; (4) her sentence violates Penal Code1 section 654; and (5) the trial court erred in denying her request to admit her whole interview with a police officer under Evidence Code section 356. Also in the unpublished portion of its opinion, the Court rejected Rafferty’s contention that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion for mistrial and concluded he forfeited his joinder in Turner’s arguments. The case was remanded, however, for the trial court to consider exercising its discretion to strike Rafferty’s five-year enhancement under Penal Code section 667(a).
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