A state appeals court panel Wednesday upheld the second- degree murder convictions of two young men for the January 2008 shooting deaths of two teenagers at a crowded birthday party in Long Beach.
But the three-justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal reversed Jonzel Stringer's conviction on 46 counts of attempted murder and co-defendant Izac McCloud's conviction on 38 of 46 counts of assault with a firearm involving others who were at the Jan. 19, 2008, party at the Masonic hall in the 5900 block of Parkcrest Street.
Stringer was sentenced in December 2010 to 198 years to life in prison, while McCloud was sentenced in October 2010 to 202 years to life in prison, but the justices ordered those sentences to be vacated and their cases returned to Long Beach Superior Court.
The panel agreed with Stringer's contention that a judge prejudicially erred by instructing jurors on the ``kill zone'' theory of liability for attempted murder. ``In a kill zone case, the defendant does not merely subject everyone in the kill zone to lethal risk. Rather, the defendant specifically intends that everyone in the kill zone die,'' Associate Justice Frances Rothschild wrote in the 37-page ruling.
``Although we have already determined that Stringer's convictions on the 46 counts of attempted murder must be reversed because of instructional error, if the prosecution introduced insufficient evidence to sustain convictions on some of those counts then they cannot be retried on remand. ... The evidence introduced at trial was sufficient to sustain only eight of those 46 convictions,'' Rothschild wrote, with Presiding Justice Robert M. Mallano and Associate Justice Jeffrey W. Johnson concurring.
The justices also found that there was sufficient evidence to support only eight of the 46 assault convictions against McCloud, noting that 10 shots were fired but that two of them killed the murder victims, 15-year-old Breon Taylor of Los Angeles and 17-year-old Dennis Moses of Long Beach, who were shot in the head. A 17-year-old boy survived being shot in the leg.
Stringer -- who was 19 at the time of the crime -- and McCloud -- then 16 -- were indicted in August 2008 in connection with the killings, which occurred at a party that had drawn more than 400 youths.
