A state appeals court panel on Wednesday upheld a man’s second-degree murder conviction for his live-in girlfriend’s killing in Long Beach.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s claim that the trial court erred in refusing to give a jury instruction on involuntary manslaughter in Marcos Gustavo Zermeno’s trial.
The appellate court justices noted that the defense’s theory of the case was that the Aug. 4, 2012, shooting death of Eleanora Rivera Hidalgo was an accident and that jurors were instructed accordingly.
“Appellant was not entitled to have the jury instructed on involuntary manslaughter in the absence of evidence sufficient to support such an instruction,” the panel found in its 12-page ruling.
The appellate panel also rejected the defense’s contention that the trial court erred by instructing jurors about a person fleeing after the commission of a crime. Zermeno fled the scene of the shooting and was arrested eight days later in Compton by Long Beach police detectives.
Zermeno and the mother of his three young children — who were 2, 6 and 7 at the time — had been arguing inside a car parked at a mobile home park in the 6400 block of Atlantic Avenue before she was shot.
Zermeno was convicted in October 2013 of second-degree murder and was sentenced in December 2013 to 28 years to life in state prison.
— City News Service