People v. Amezcua

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The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court convicting codefendants Oswaldo Amezcua and Joseph Conrad Flores of four counts of first degree murder and sentencing each defendant to death for the murder convictions, holding that any errors in the proceedings below were not sufficiently prejudicial to require reversal of the judgment.A jury convicted Defendants of murder, finding true multiple-murder and drive-by-murder special circumstance allegations, as well as multiple counts of attempted willful, deliberate premeditated murder, false imprisonment, and other non-capital offenses. The trial court sentenced Defendants to death for the murder convictions and imposed determinate and indeterminate sentences for the noncapital convictions. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) any error in the prosecutor’s guilt phase closing was harmless; (2) any error in a medical examiner’s testimony relating to autospy results derived from a different pathologist’s report was harmless; and (3) whether considered individually or cumulatively, the errors did not warrant reversal. View "People v. Amezcua" on Justia Law