California v. Kaihea
Annotate this CaseDefendant Tevita Kaihea was convicted by jury of first degree murder and other offenses involving a crime spree preceding the murder. The trial court sentenced defendant to an aggregated prison term of 111 years and court months to life. On appeal defendant challenged: (1) the admission of certain gang evidence as cumulative and highly prejudicial; (2) the court’s failure to instruct the jury on the defense of mistake of fact and transferred intent; and (3) the court’s instruction that the jury could consider gang evidence in deciding whether defendant acted in self-defense and heat of passion. Defendant contended those errors were cumulatively prejudicial. He also (4) challenged the imposition of a gang enhancement sentence to his murder conviction; (5) contended the trial court improperly calculated custody credits; and (6) contended the court improperly deducted actual days served credit for his jail behavior. Both defendant and the State separately noted (7) the trial court erroneously awarded conduct credit. In the published portion of its opinion,the Court of Appeal rejected defendant’s third contention and concluded the standard instruction, CALCRIM No. 1403, was legally correct as it related to the use of gang evidence for the purpose of deciding whether a defendant actually believed in the need to defend himself or acted in the heat of passion. Furthermore, the Court concluded defendant failed to show ineffective assistance of counsel grounded on the failure to request the modification because the failure did not prejudice defendant. In the unpublished portion of its opinion, the Court conclude d that some of defendant’s other contentions had merit. The Court struck the 10-year gang enhancement, directed the trial court to award an additional 213 days of credit, and struck the award of conduct credits. The Court also directed the trial court to correct several errors in the abstract of judgment. In all other respects, judgment was affirmed.
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