People v. Lashon
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In a case before the Court of Appeal of the State of California First Appellate District Division Three, the defendant, Menique Lashon, was convicted of one count of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree murder, along with true findings of special circumstance allegations. Lashon sought to appeal her conviction under the California Racial Justice Act (CRJA). The court had initially found that Lashon had forfeited her right to bring a CRJA claim on direct appeal by failing to file a motion in the trial court before judgment was entered. However, the Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Court of Appeal, instructing it to reconsider its decision in light of Assembly Bill No. 1118 (2023–2024 Reg. Sess.) (AB 1118), which modified the CRJA to allow for additional avenues of relief for claims made on direct appeal.
After considering AB 1118's amendments to the CRJA, the Court of Appeal reaffirmed its original decision, stating that the long-standing procedural appellate rules governing forfeiture of issues continue to apply. The court further rejected Lashon's separate motion requesting that the appeal be stayed and the matter remanded to the superior court to allow her to file a CRJA motion, stating that they did not find good cause to grant this request. The court held that the general appellate rules of preservation and forfeiture of claims that could have been but were not made in the trial court applied to Lashon's section 745 claim, which is under the CRJA. Furthermore, the court affirmed that a defendant may be found to have forfeited a section 745 claim of racial bias made for the first time on direct appeal in the absence of a showing that an exception to the forfeiture doctrine applies.
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