Question: What happened in the last attempted murder case you tried?
Answer: In February 2008, a downtown L.A. jury returned its verdicts in a case stemming from a shooting that happened in a park on a summer night in 2006. Since it was a public trial, the facts that came out in court are now all public record, and no longer any secret.
The charges were three counts of attempted murder, one count of shooting into an occupied vehicle and one count of assault with a deadly weapon resulting in great bodily injury. Sentencing enhancements were added, including fire arms enhancements and a gang enhancement.
Our defense was two pronged. (1) My client was not a gang member, nor did he act at the direction of, or for the benefit of a criminal street gang. (2) He acted in self defense. He took the witness stand and readily admitted to firing the weapon because a passenger was pointing a gun at him. The jury believed him up to a point, and disbelieved the LAPD’s so called gang expert entirely. They found that my client had an honest good faith belief that he had to use deadly force, but found his belief to be unreasonable. This is called “imperfect self defense.” The result was acquittal of attempting to murder three people. He was convicted of attempted voluntary manslaughter, and of the remaining two counts. The gun enhancements were necessarily found to be true, since he admitted firing the gun. But the gang enhancements were found not to be true.