The people vs Martin Nieto

Facts:On July 8 1989 Martin Nieto Benitez (the defendant) ate his dinner near a catering truck while the plaintiff, Guero was directly behind him with Caballo whom they were having horseplay with, with a plate of food. The game took a drastic turn when Caballo threw the plate at Guero only for it to land on the defendants back of the head and the food ended up staining the defendant’s shirt. An argument ensued after that between the plaintiff and the defendant with the defendant demanding one of them has to wash his shirt to which the plaintiff refused claiming it was a mistake. After the argument escalated, the defendant in anger went to his house that was nearby and came back with a loaded 38 caliber five shot revolver and fired at the plaintiff’s neck which killed him.

Procedural history:The prosecutor in his closing arguments asked the jury to consider a ruling of first-degree murder whereas the defense counsel asked the jury to consider a ruling of manslaughter. The trial court on the other hand instructed the jury to consider the rule of law CALJIC NO 8.31 when formulating their judgement. The jury then requested the court to define what is classified as an intentional act under CALJIC NO 8.31. The prosecutor asked the court to consider the act of brandishing a weapon as an example of what constitutes an intentional act to which the defense counsel objected stating that the act indeed may lead to death but on its own under the CALJIC NO 8.31, cannot be considered an intentional act. The trial court dismissed this explanation and accepted prosecution request to including brandishing a weapon in its explanation of what an intentional act is. The jury therefore based their ruling on the trial court explanation on intentional act and as such found the defendant guilty of second-degree murder.