California v. Henderson
Annotate this CaseDefendant Kejhonne Henderson shot and killed J.P. at a house party in the North Highlands neighborhood of Sacramento. Upset that music of a local rapper disparaging his neighborhood’s gang was being played, defendant exchanged heated words with the party’s host. When J.P. intervened, he and defendant agreed to step outside. On their way to the door, defendant pulled a handgun out of his waistband and when they got outside, shot J.P. multiple times in the head and chest. A.J., one of the party goers, tackled defendant and knocked the gun out of his hand. Defendant regained possession and shot A.J. multiple times before fleeing. J.P. died before emergency services arrived at the scene, but A.J. survived. A jury found defendant guilty of one count of second degree murder and one count of attempted murder, and found true enhancement allegations that defendant personally discharged a firearm causing great bodily injury or death as to each count. The trial court sentenced defendant to serve an aggregate determinate term of seven years plus an aggregate indeterminate prison term of 65 years to life. In the published portion of its opinion, the Court of Appeal concluded a trial court could not excuse for cause African-American prospective jurors solely because of their belief that the criminal justice system treats African-Americans unfairly, but rejected defendant’s assertion that the two African-American prospective jurors here were excused for that reason. "They were excused because the trial court concluded that, based on the voir dire evidence, they could not be impartial because of their bias and sympathy for defendant." On this record, the Court did not find the trial court’s ruling was an abuse of discretion; nor was defendant’s constitutional right to a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of the community violated. Furthermore, the Court concluded the trial court erred in excusing a seated juror, because the record did not demonstrate the juror could not perform his duties. However, applying the harmless error standard in Watson, 46 Cal.2d 818 (1956), the Court concluded the error was harmless. In the unpublished portion of its opinion, the Court rejected defendant’s other claims of error, and affirmed his convictions and sentence.
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