Monday, January 26, 2026
Page 3
Court of Appeal:
Telling Shooter to Bring Gun to Fight Insufficient for Murder
Opinion Says Carrying Firearm to Gang Altercation Is Not Itself ‘Life-Endangering,’ Encouraging Friend to Come to Area Armed Is Not Enough to Sustain Charges as Direct Aider, Abettor
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has held that a trial judge erred in finding that a defendant was a direct aider and abettor of an implied malice murder based on his having encouraged the shooter to bring a firearm to a location where rival gang members had been spotted, saying that carrying a gun to a gang fight is not inherently dangerous to human life.
The question arose after the defendant sought resentencing relief based on legislative changes, adopted in 2019, that amended the felony murder rule and eliminated the natural and probable consequences doctrine. Under current law, a party who is not the actual killer may only be held liable if he acted with the intent to kill or was a major participant in an underlying felony who acted with a reckless indifference to human life.
In an unpublished opinion, filed Thursday but posted on the California Courts website on Friday, Justice Maurice Sanchez, writing for the court, said that “[w]e conclude the trial court misidentified the relevant life-endangering act” as “bringing a gun to a gang fight” and “thereby used an incorrect legal standard for determining [the defendant’s] mens rea for aiding and abetting implied malice murder.”
Murder Conviction
Seeking relief was Juan Manzanares, who was convicted in 2008 of one count of first-degree murder for the shooting death of Abraham Ortega as well as three counts of premeditated attempted homicide.
On Dec. 6, 2005, the defendant observed a group of suspected rival gang members near the Santiago High School campus in Corona. On his way to confront them, Manzanares called Jesus Guerrero, a fellow Hard Times gang member, and told him to bring a gun to the area.
After a fistfight between the two groups broke out, Guerrero arrived at the scene and fired several shots, one of which struck Ortega in the chest and killed him. At trial, Manzanares testified that he told his friend to bring the firearm because he was afraid the other men were armed and hoped that the weapon might “scare them off.”
The prosecution opted to accept a reduction of the charge relating to Ortega’s death to second-degree murder after a successful habeas corpus petition. He was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.
Resentencing Petition
In 2021, he filed a petition for resentencing under Penal Code §1172.6 based on the legislative changes to the felony murder rule. To obtain relief under that section, a party must allege that he was convicted based on a pleading that allowed the prosecution to proceed under a theory under which malice is imputed based solely on participation in a crime and that the petitioner could not be convicted under current law.
After holding an evidentiary hearing, Orange Superior Court Judge Kimberly Menninger denied the request, finding that the defendant had “aided and abetted in the murder with implied malice” and saying:
“[Manzanares] intended to aid Guerrero…by calling him, informing him of the anticipated confrontation, and asking him to bring that gun to the confrontation with the knowledge that bringing a loaded gun to a gang confrontation was dangerous to human life, still choosing to invite Guerrero to do so with conscious disregard for human life of the rival gang members.”
Thursday’s opinion, joined in by Acting Presiding Justice Eileen C. Moore and Justice Nathan Scott, reverses the denial and directs the court to conduct a new evidentiary hearing.
Life-Endangering Act
Sanchez wrote:
“To determine Manzanares’s liability for aiding and abetting implied malice murder, we first consider what constituted the perpetrator’s life-endangering act. In its ruling, the trial court found that life endangering act was ‘bringing a gun to a gang fight.’ ”
Rejecting this characterization, he opined that “[d]eeming a life-endangering act to be the act of [another party] bringing the gun to the fight comes precariously close to a natural and probable consequences theory of liability” since the action “becomes life endangering only because a natural and probable consequence of doing so is the gun is fired and someone is killed.”
The jurist cited the 2023 California Supreme Court decision in People v. Reyes, in which the high court found that a petitioner’s second-degree murder conviction was not sustainable where his act of bicycling into rival gang territory and chasing after the victim’s car was too attenuated from the shooting at the vehicle by an associate. He remarked:
“[T]he Supreme Court concluded the trial court had erred by finding the life-endangering act was traveling with other gang members, one of whom was armed, into rival gang territory….The correct focus, the Supreme Court explained, is on the acts of the direct perpetrator: ‘[I]mplied malice murder requires attention to the aider and abettor’s mental state concerning the life-endangering act committed by the direct perpetrator, such as shooting at the victim.’…Here too, the life-endangering act was shooting at the vehicle carrying the victim.”
More Than One
Acknowledging that “a homicide might have more than one proximate cause,” he said:
“[The Reyes] court considered the issue of whether the defendant had committed an act that proximately caused the victim’s death….The defendant had bicycled with fellow gang members into rival gang territory with knowledge that one gang member was armed….The Supreme Court determined that while such conduct might give rise to a likelihood of a resulting gang confrontation, and possibly someone getting hurt or killed, that conduct was not enough to ‘give rise to a high degree of probability that death will result.’ ”
Finding the reasoning applicable, he commented that “Guerrero’s act of bringing the gun to the anticipated confrontation with [rival gang] affiliates did not in itself give rise to a high probability that death would result” and declared:
“The trial court did not address Manzanares’s convictions…for attempted murder. Sentencing relief under section 1172.6 extends to attempted murder….In conducting a new evidentiary hearing following remand, the court shall make findings and rule on Manzanares’s resentencing petition on the attempted murder convictions.”
The case is People v. Manzanares, G064249.
Copyright 2026, Metropolitan News Company