A state appeals court panel Monday rejected a bid for re-sentencing by one of three men convicted of the January 2009 murder of a San Pedro woman who was found shot to death in her car.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal found that Raul Tiscareno is “ineligible for re-sentencing as a matter of law.”
Tiscareno and co-defendants Daniel Keith Martinez and Michael Bonfiglio were convicted of the Jan. 30, 2009, killing of Ginie Samayoa, whose body was found in the driver’s seat of her red Toyota Tercel in an alley behind a San Pedro diner.
Authorities said the 27-year-old woman had been engaged in identity theft, and her laptop computer, which contained credit card information, was stolen from her during the attack, which occurred several blocks from her apartment.
In a March 2015 ruling that upheld the convictions of Martinez and Tiscareno, a state appeals court panel noted that there was “substantial evidence that the three men planned to rob Samayoa of her laptop computer and to kill her, eliminating the only witness to their robbery.”
The woman’s laptop was found on a bed in Tiscareno’s apartment, the appellate court justices noted.
All three defendants were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The ruling in Tiscareno’s case comes about a year after a three-justice panel from the appellate court rejected Martinez’s bid for re-sentencing under a recent change in state law that affects defendants in some murder cases.
Bonfiglio also has filed court papers seeking re-sentencing on his conviction. A hearing is still pending on that request.