People v. McDaniels

McDaniels was charged with murder after 23-year-old Traylor was shot and killed during a street fight in West Oakland. McDaniels’s defense was that he was not the shooter. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder and for being a felon in possession of a firearm and found true three firearm enhancements accompanying the murder count, including that McDaniels personally and intentionally discharged a firearm causing death. The court sentenced McDaniels to 25 years to life for the murder, a consecutive term of 25 years to life for the discharge of a firearm causing death and a concurrent term of two years for the firearm possession. The court stayed terms for the other two firearm enhancements. The court of appeal rejected arguments that the trial court erred by denying a request for a pinpoint jury instruction about suggestive identification procedures and the prosecutor committed misconduct by commenting on McDaniels’s failure to testify. The court remanded for recalculation of custody credits, correction of the abstract of judgment, and in light of S.B. 620, effective January 1, 2018, which applies retroactively and vests sentencing courts with discretion to strike or dismiss firearm enhancements, including those imposed here. The record contained no clear indication that the trial court would not exercise its discretion to reduce McDaniels’s sentence. View "People v. McDaniels" on Justia Law