P. v. Colon CA3
A jury found defendant Jorge Colon guilty of various offenses after he broke into his neighbor’s apartment, ransacked it, and started a fire inside.
On appeal, defendant contends the trial court infringed his constitutional right to a trial by an independent jury and to a verdict not coerced by judicial action when the court ordered further deliberations after learning the jury was split 11 to one, instructed jurors to openly exchange ideas about their respective positions, and later dismissed the holdout juror for medical reasons. Defendant also argues the trial court abused its discretion in imposing the upper term on the arson charge because it did not consider defendant’s mental illness as a mitigating factor. Defendant further contends that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in several respects, including that he failed to file a Romero (People v. Superior Court (Romero) (1996) 13 Cal.4th 497 (Romero) motion to strike his strike prior, failed to correct a
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