A state appeals court panel on Tuesday reversed the murder conviction of a man who was charged along with two other people, including former Raiders defensive end Anthony Wayne Smith, in an October 2008 killing in the Antelope Valley.
A three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal agreed with the defense’s claim that there was “insufficient evidence” to support Charles Eric Honest’s conviction “based on the prosecution’s ‘shared intent’ theory of aiding and abetting urged at trial.”
Honest — who had a 1996 conviction for manslaughter — was sentenced in July 2012 to 35 years to life in state prison after being convicted of second- degree murder for the Oct. 4, 2008, shooting death of Maurilio Ponce, who was found dead in an unincorporated area of the northern Antelope Valley.
Co-defendant Dewann Wesley White was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison.
Jurors deadlocked in April 2012 on the murder charge against Smith, who was subsequently charged with three other murders while he was awaiting a retrial in connection with Ponce’s killing.
Prosecutors have not yet decided whether they will seek the death penalty against Smith, who was the Raiders’ top pick in 1990 out of the University of Arizona and went on to play professional football with the Los Angeles and Oakland Raiders between 1991 and 1997.
Smith is awaiting a pretrial hearing Nov. 7.