A state appellate court panel Thursday rejected the latest bid for re-sentencing by a man convicted of murdering a store clerk in a crime caught on surveillance videotape nearly three decades ago.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled that a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge “properly denied” Carter Kuykendall’s second petition seeking to be re-sentenced in 2022.
Kuykendall, now 48, is serving a life prison sentence without parole for the shooting death of Concio Rodriguez Rendon, who was shot twice in the head during a robbery while working as a clerk at an ARCO market in Norwalk after midnight Aug. 7, 1996.
The appellate court panel noted that a security camera and videotape captured the crime, with the defendant’s mother subsequently testifying that her son was the man in the market videotape.
Kuykendall was arrested after being involved in a drive-by shooting soon afterward and crashing his vehicle, according to the appellate court panel’s six-page ruling.
The defendant had gunshot residue on his hands, and his vehicle contained the firearm that killed the store clerk, the justices noted.
Kuykendall was convicted of charges including first-degree murder, with jurors finding true the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a robbery.
He had first filed a petition in 2019 seeking re-sentencing as a result of a change in state law that affects defendants convicted in some murder cases. That petition had also been denied, with a judge ruling that Kuykendall was the actual killer.