P. v. Chavez CA2/6
Appellant Hugo Angel Chavez shot a friend and watched him slowly die. He enlisted a girlfriend to help put the decomposing body into garbage bags for transport to an improvised backyard crematorium. The girlfriend lacked enthusiasm for the task, informed on appellant, and was the star witness at his criminal trial. The jury convicted appellant of second degree murder. (Pen. Code, § 187, subd. (a).)
Central to his claim of self-defense, appellant testified about the victim’s propensity for violence. The trial court advised the jury that the victim’s wife had a restraining order against him, but did not admit the order into evidence; this is precisely what defense counsel asked the court to do. Excluding the restraining order was not an abuse of the court’s discretion because appellant was able to testify about its effect on his state of mind. Appellant did not preserve an objection to the justifiable homicide and voluntary manslaughter instructions; nonetheless, the jur
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