People v. Williams CA2/5

Filed 6/2/25 P. v. Williams CA2/5
   NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

                         SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

                                        DIVISION FIVE


THE PEOPLE,                                                  B329593

         Plaintiff and Respondent,                           (Los Angeles County
                                                             Super. Ct. No. BA449606)
         v.

JENELLE WILLIAMS,

         Defendant and Appellant.



      APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los
Angeles County, Eleanor J. Hunter, Judge. Affirmed.
      California Appellate Project, Nancy L. Tetreault, under
appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and
Appellant.
      Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief
Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Senior
Assistant Attorney General, Scott A. Taryle, Supervising Deputy
Attorney General, David A. Voet, Deputy Attorney General, for
Plaintiff and Respondent.
                            *     *      *
                      I.    INTRODUCTION
      Defendant and appellant Jenelle Williams and her co-
defendant David Bean were each charged with four murders
occurring at different locations within a time span of two weeks
in the summer of 2016. The same gun was used in all four
murders. Other crimes and enhancements related to the same
incidents, as well as priors, were also alleged.
      Williams and Bean were tried together by the same jury in
2023, after Williams’s two motions to sever were denied.
Williams was convicted of second degree malice murder, first
degree felony murder, and first degree malice murder, with
various enhancements and special circumstances found true. She
was acquitted of the remaining murder charge and an assault
charge was dismissed after the jury hung and the court declared
a mistrial as to that count. She was also convicted of three
counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm. She admitted
her single prior strike and serious felony conviction.
      Williams was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life
without parole for two of the murders, plus an indeterminate and
aggregate term of 55 years to life for the third, plus an additional
aggregate determinate term of six years and eight months for the
three gun-possession counts, all imposed consecutively. The
court imposed but stayed—as opposed to striking—additional
five-year punishment for her prior strike conviction under Penal




                                 2
Code section 667, subdivision (a)(1) on two of the murder counts
           1
(1 and 4).
       On appeal, Williams contends the trial court abused its
discretion in denying severance; erred by allowing autopsy
testimony as to two murders by a pathologist who did not
personally conduct those autopsies and who relied on testimonial
hearsay in rendering his opinions; committed instructional error
in that CALCRIM No. 540B concerning felony murder is deficient
in addressing the proper legal standard for a finding of reckless
indifference to human life for one not the actual killer; and gave
an unauthorized sentence by imposing but staying—rather than
striking—punishment for the five-year enhancements under
section 667, subdivision (a) attached to two of the three murder
counts.2 She also claims the abstract of judgment requires
correction to reflect the court’s actual oral pronouncement of
sentence as the court did not impose and stay the $10,000 parole
revocation fund fine under section 1202.45 reflected on the
abstract, Williams having received two sentences of life without
parole.3

1       Further unspecified statutory references are to the Penal
Code.
2      The parties have proceeded on appeal as though the trial
court likewise imposed but stayed the section 667, subdivision
(a)(1) five-year enhancement as to count 8 for the murder of
Tiffany Doxy, discussed below at section III.D. But the court did
not orally address this issue at all at sentencing and neither
imposed additional punishment for this enhancement on this
count nor struck it.
3      Bean also appealed from the judgment but he is not a party
to this appeal. His appeal is pending before us in case number
B334652.




                                  3
       The People as respondent concede the last two issues and
we accept the concessions. We will strike the five-year
enhancements imposed but stayed under section 667, subdivision
(a)(1) with respect to the murder counts 1 and 4, and direct the
trial court on remand to correct the abstract of judgment as to the
erroneous $10,000 parole revocation fine. We reject Williams’s
first three claims, or find them forfeited, and otherwise affirm the
judgment.
                       II.    BACKGROUND
A.     Factual Background4
       1.     Williams and Bean—General Background
       Co-defendant Bean was a documented Eight-Trey gang
member. He admitted prior convictions for grand theft and
robbery. Williams, aka “Gigi,” was at least an associate of the
rival gang known as the Rollin’ 60’s, having grown up in that
gang’s territory. According to her testimony, she had never been
“jumped in” to the Rollin’ 60’s gang and was not a member.
Williams admitted to having a prior conviction for assault with a
deadly weapon. She also admitted to being a drug addict.
       Williams and Bean went to elementary school together and
Williams testified she knew Bean “from the streets.” By July
2016, according to Williams, they had “possibly” or “probably”
become romantically involved and she knew he was an “Eight-
Trey Gangster.” According to Bean, in July 2016, he and
Williams had an exclusive romantic relationship, and at the time
of trial in 2023, he still loved her.
       According to law enforcement, the Eight-Trey and Rollin’
60’s gang rivalry had existed for a long time and was ongoing.


4     We take the facts from the trial evidence.




                                 4
Although dating across gang lines was not common, it did occur.
According to Bean, the Rollin’ 60’s gang had “[put] a hit” out on
him because he was dating Williams, who was at least, he
acknowledged, an associate of the Rollin’ 60’s gang and he was
therefore not supposed to be dating her.
       2.     July 29, 2016 Murder of Marcus Wilkerson (Ct.1)
       On July 29, 2016, just before 5:00 a.m., residents of the
area of Gage and Western Avenues in Los Angeles heard voices
and a gunshot outside and called 911. One witness heard a
man’s voice say something to the effect of, “Is this how it’s going
to be?” or “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me” or “Is it going to
end this way?” followed by a gun shot. Approximately an hour
later, a pedestrian discovered Wilkerson’s body behind a parked
car and called 911. When police arrived, they located the body,
and next to it a spent .45 caliber bullet casing, branded Federal.
Paramedics arrived and determined that Wilkerson was dead.
An autopsy later determined he had a visible gunshot wound to
his right upper thigh near his groin, which had resulted in
extensive blood loss and ultimately his death by homicide.
       Law enforcement investigation revealed that Williams had
previously been in a romantic relationship with Wilkerson and
she was angry with him for having been with another woman,
L.S., whom Williams had previously threatened. According to
L.S., she knew Williams as “Gigi,” a self-admitted member of the
Rollin’ 60’s gang, and the two had been friendly at one time. L.S.
said that Williams had once said to her, “You f’ing with my man”
and “Bitch, I’ll kill both y’all,” along with “If I can’t have him, no
one can.” According to L.S., Wilkerson had told her that he
feared Williams and had said to L.S. that Williams would “be the
death of” him.




                                   5
       Williams had also threatened a woman who had had
frequent interactions with Wilkerson while the woman was at
work at the Jack-in-the-Box near where he was killed. The
woman gave him free food and paid him to wash her car until one
time when he drove the car away without her permission and she
reported it stolen. Williams threatened the woman by
telephone—from a number later connected to Williams—over
dropping the charges and about repaying Williams for
Wilkerson’s bail she had posted. The woman provided police with
video footage taken from the parking lot of the Jack-in-the-Box in
the weeks after Wilkerson’s murder. It showed Williams getting
out of a black Chevrolet Malibu registered to Bean. This was the
first connection law enforcement made between Williams, Bean’s
car, and Wilkerson’s murder. Bean and Williams were seen
together in that car at other locations in this period.
       Williams acknowledged in her testimony being “close
friends” with Wilkerson but denied having been romantically
connected with him or having any involvement in his death. She
said she had lied when she previously told law enforcement that
Wilkerson was her boyfriend and had done so because she was
high on drugs. She had bailed Wilkerson out of jail because they
were friends but had done the same for many people. Williams
said that at 4:45 a.m., some 15 minutes before Wilkerson was
killed, she was driving around in Bean’s car, which she said she
had borrowed after he spent the night with another woman.
According to Williams, she was looking for Wilkerson because he
had a court appearance that day and had not signed his bail
paperwork. She could not find him but, according to her, this
explained why her cell phone pinged off cell-phone towers near
the Wilkerson murder location.




                                6
       Williams acknowledged knowing the other woman involved
with Wilkerson, L.S., “from the streets” but denied any reason to
be jealous of L.S.’s relationship with him. L.S. had heard the
gunshot that killed Wilkerson and she went to the scene shortly
after and spoke with law enforcement about the crime. Williams
testified that L.S. had told her of Wilkerson’s death, and Williams
denied ever having threatened L.S. about her relationship with
Wilkerson or her interaction with law enforcement about his
murder.
        L.S. testified that after she spoke with law enforcement at
the scene about Wilkerson’s murder, Williams threatened her for
cooperating with police, this time while possessing a gun.
According to L.S., Williams told people near her to move out of
the way and L.S. believed Williams was going to kill her. Bean
was then with Williams and he also threatened L.S. for her
cooperation with law enforcement in investigating Wilkerson’s
death, saying to her, “[H]ear me good. Get my fucking name out
your fucking mouth.” Bean testified that Williams had never
mentioned to him having seen Wilkerson with another woman or
being angry with him.
       The day after Wilkerson’s death, Williams called his sister
from phone number 323-453-7617 to offer condolences. Williams
acknowledged using this phone number and cell phone records
tied to this number placed her at the murder scene when
Wilkerson was determined to have been shot. Wilkerson’s sister
said she frequently spoke with him over the phone and that his
girlfriend, “Gigi,” was often on the line interrupting the call. Gigi
was a jealous person, according to the sister, and often
complained to her about Wilkerson’s sexual involvement with
other women.




                                 7
       A bullet fragment taken from Wilkerson’s body was too
small and damaged to be forensically connected to a particular
gun. But the casing found at the scene was later connected to the
gun used in all four murders. Williams testified she had bought
the gun used to kill Wilkerson a few days after his murder, on
August 1st or 2nd. But when confronted with Bean’s testimony
that he had bought the gun on August 3, 2016, and that it was
his, Williams testified they had bought the gun together. She
said a man had walked up to Bean’s car where they were sitting
and offered to sell them the gun, and she paid for it with her
money.
       Bean testified that he knew Wilkerson as they had
“smoke[d]” together and that there was no animosity between
them. He denied killing Wilkerson, having been present when
Wilkerson was shot, having helped anyone get away after the
killing, or knowing who killed him. Bean said he knew L.S.
enough to say hello and acknowledged having asked her why she
had his name “in [her] mouth” about Wilkerson’s death when he
had nothing to do with that. Bean said he did not recall
specifically threatening L.S., but if he did, he did not recall
Williams being with him at the time.
       Bean told a detective investigating the Wilkerson murder
that he had been by himself at a 24-hour “smoke shop” that night
in the same area where Wilkerson was killed. But, to his
surprise, he saw Williams immediately after when he left the
smoke shop and drove to a nearby clinic. Bean then drove
Williams to her motel room where she was living. He said he left
her room after about 10 minutes and had sex with another
woman at the same motel. He saw Williams the next morning at




                                8
around 10:00 a.m. and did not know her whereabouts in the
interim.
       Cell phone data showed the phone number associated with
Williams had been near the Wilkerson murder scene both before
the killing and for about a half hour after.
       3.    August 9, 2016 Murder of Shawn Pryor (Ct.4)
       On August 9, 2016, Shawn Pryor and his wife, Sandra
Pryor, were staying in a motel in Inglewood. Surveillance video
from the motel captured Bean, Williams, and a female identified
as Tiffany Doxy entering the motel at approximately 2:39 a.m.
and proceeding towards the room on the second floor where the
Pryors were staying. Williams and Doxy went to the door and
knocked, while Bean held back down the hallway. The Pryors
heard the knock. When Shawn Pryor asked who it was, a voice
responded that it was “Tiffany.” Sandra Pryor went into the
bathroom to dress while Shawn Pryor opened the door. Doxy was
at the door, standing with another woman, identified as
Williams. Surveillance video showed Doxy and Williams at the
room at around 2:40 a.m. Bean was still holding back down the
hall, beyond view from inside the room.
       Once Shawn Pryor opened the door, Doxy went inside and
asked him for some money and then Doxy left the room.
Surveillance video showed her briefly speak to Bean on her way
out. He was outside the door at that point. Sandra Pryor came
out of the bathroom just as Doxy was leaving. Williams came
into the room, ostensibly to buy drugs from Shawn Pryor but
using counterfeit bills, which he discovered after giving her
change for the purchase. Surveillance video from outside the
room showed Bean arriving at the room doorstep and stepping
into the doorway while Williams was inside. According to Sandra




                               9
Pryor, Bean stood in the open doorway with a gun and said to
Shawn Pryor something to the effect of, “You know what this is.
Give me your money. I want everything.” When this happened,
Pryor threw money he had in his hands on the floor. And he told
Sandra Pryor to shut the door. Williams, from inside, “pushed”
Sandra Pryor into the wall at the corner of the room behind the
door and said, “Don’t try it. Don’t move. Don’t say nothing.”
Sandra Pryor also heard Williams say at one point, “Tiffany set
this up. It was Tiffany,” meaning Doxy.
       The Pryors together worked to close the door to keep Bean
out of the room but Bean fired his gun into the room through the
door. Sandra Pryor saw Bean through the crack in the door and
then heard gunshots while trying to close it. Surveillance video
from outside the room showed Bean with something black in his
hand at the door and two bursts of dust or debris coming into the
camera view, as if disturbed from the force of a gun firing.
       Shawn Pryor was able to close the door keeping Bean
outside the room. He and Williams then engaged in a struggle
inside the room and on the bed, during which the camouflage-
colored jacket Williams was wearing came off. Sandra Pryor had
picked up some of the money her husband had thrown to the
ground and put it in her purse. She went to the separate kitchen
area of the room to call 911. She heard glass breaking followed
by additional gun shots while she was on the 911 call. After the
shots, Sandra Pryor saw her husband fall to the floor from the
bed, bleeding. Surveillance video showed Bean breaking the
room’s window from the outside with a gun and pointing the gun
inside the room. Sandra Pryor tried to come to the aid of her
husband but he was bleeding so profusely that she could not see
the gunshot wounds.




                               10
       Williams left the room but left her jacket inside. It was
later turned over to police. Surveillance video showed her
leaving the room and then Williams and Bean running away
slowly and leaving the motel together. The video showed
Williams was not then wearing the jacket she had been wearing
when entering the room. Williams acknowledged in her
testimony that it was she, Doxy, and Bean in the surveillance
video.
       At approximately 3:00 a.m., law enforcement responded to
the motel shooting. They found Shawn Pryor face down in his
room with multiple gunshot wounds and not moving, with
Sandra Pryor still present in the room, very upset. Paramedics
arrived and assessed Shawn Pryor’s condition before taking him
away in an ambulance. Law enforcement took photographs of
Pryor before he was removed from the room, noting money bills
around him and blood in the room and on some of the bills,
indicating a physical struggle, according to law enforcement. An
autopsy later determined that Shawn Pryor had suffered fatal
gunshot wounds to his chest and abdomen. A deformed bullet
was lodged in his sacral bone. The shots had been fired from an
indeterminate range. The manner of death was homicide.
       Investigation revealed a bullet hole in the motel room door
and the shattered side window. There were three expended
Federal brand .45 caliber bullet casings inside the room—two
near the door and one at the bed. A forensics specialist collected
the bullet casings and Williams’s jacket, which had a narcotics
pipe and a lighter in the pocket. There were also some
counterfeit bills inside the jacket as well as in Sandra Pryor’s
purse. All the counterfeit bills had the same writing on them:
“For Motion Picture Use Only.” Sandra Pryor had never seen her




                                11
husband with counterfeit bills before and she did not notice any
in the room before Bean and Williams arrived. DNA from the
pipe in Williams’s jacket was later matched to her and DNA from
the motel window sill around the shattered window was matched
to Bean.
       The three casings and two bullets discovered in the motel
room were later determined to be from the same gun used in
Wilkerson’s killing. The bullet fragment taken from Shawn
Pryor’s body could not be either positively matched or excluded
from use by the same gun.
       According to Williams’s testimony, she, Bean, and Doxy
went to the motel to buy cocaine from Shawn Pryor. She had
never met Doxy before and didn’t know Bean had a gun on him or
that a gun would be used. After Doxy left the motel room,
Williams asked Pryor for $30 worth of cocaine and gave him one
of three counterfeit $50 bills she was carrying. Pryor gave her
the cocaine and $20 in change. Pryor noticed the $50 bill did not
look right and he confronted Williams as she was leaving the
room. She denied the bill was counterfeit and he yanked her
back into the room, telling his wife to “go get the thing” because
“this bitch is trying to play me.” Williams screamed and Bean
then appeared at the motel room door, stepped into the room, and
asked what was happening. Williams responded that Pryor was
upset about the money. Williams denied pushing Sandra Pryor
behind the door. According to Williams, Pryor grabbed her arm
and pulled her back and they started fighting while someone
closed the door on Bean. Williams left the room after Bean fired
the gun through the window. Williams said she had no intention
of robbing Pryor or committing a burglary when she entered the




                               12
room and that she wanted only to buy drugs from him using the
counterfeit money.
       In his testimony, Bean admitted having shot Shawn Pryor
but claimed he acted in defense of Williams. He said he,
Williams, and Doxy had gone to the motel to buy cocaine from
someone Doxy knew. When they arrived, Doxy told him to hang
back while she approached the dealer. Doxy and Williams went
to the door of the motel room. After he felt too much time had
passed, Bean went to the room and saw Shawn Pryor trying to
prevent Williams from leaving. Bean said he heard Pryor say to
Williams, “You ain’t fittin’ to leave. Here you trying to play
games,” referring to the counterfeit money. Pryor grabbed the
change back out of Williams’s hand and pulled her back into the
room. According to Bean, Pryor fired a shot at him while
struggling with Williams and before slamming the door on Bean.
Bean always kept a gun on him for protection and he used it to
fire a shot back at Pryor through the door. Bean then broke the
motel-room window and fired two more shots into the room. Bean
said he fired the shots to “d[if]fuse the situation,” intending to
allow Williams the opportunity to leave the room and escape.
Williams ran out of the room and they fled the motel.
       According to Bean, they went to the home of his friend,
Jeffrey Burton, known as “Doughboy,” and Bean took a shower
because of his bleeding hand that had been cut when he broke the
motel-room window. Doxy drove herself somewhere else. Bean
left his gun in his car parked at Burton’s house and his car keys
on a table inside the residence. Bean could not explain how the
gun used in the shooting of Shawn Pryor was also used to kill
Doxy some 15 minutes later and he did not know what happened
to his gun after he got to Burton’s house.




                               13
       Surveillance video from the motel showed no physical
contact or struggle between Shawn Pryor and Williams before
Bean was at the door and then stepped inside, appearing to fire
the first shot into the motel room. According to Sandra Pryor,
her husband did not have a gun in the room and no forensic
evidence supported that Pryor either had or fired a gun.
       4.     August 9, 2016 Murder of Tiffany Doxy (Ct.8)
        As shown on surveillance video, approximately 12 minutes
after leaving the motel where Pryor had been shot, Williams,
Bean, and Doxy arrived about two miles away at a parking lot
near a liquor store, Doxy having driven her own Volvo with
Williams as a passenger behind what resembles Bean’s Chevy
Malibu. That car did not enter the parking lot but turned and
waited on the street nearby. Doxy stopped the Volvo in the
parking lot after backing it into an angled parking space, but she
left the car running. Williams then shot her in the face. Video
footage from the nearby liquor store showed a flash of light inside
the Volvo consistent with the muzzle flash of a gun being
discharged. Williams got out of the passenger side of the Volvo,
wearing clothing that matched Sandra Pryor’s description of
what Williams had been wearing in the motel room, and went to
the nearby car resembling Bean’s, which had flashed its
headlights, and they drove away. Immediately after the shot,
Doxy’s car in reverse struck a wall in the parking lot at a
diagonal angle and the car was left running. There was a .45
caliber spent bullet casing later discovered on the front passenger
seat, which was matched to the gun used in all four murders.
       Law enforcement initially realized Pryor’s and Doxy’s
murders were connected because Doxy had been at the motel
location where Pryor had been shot, the two murders occurred




                                14
close in time and location, and Doxy was wearing the same
clothes in both locations, as seen on video from the motel. An
autopsy later revealed that Doxy had stippling on her face,
indicating that the gun had been discharged from one to three
feet away, consistent with the surveillance video showing the
flash of light from inside the car. The bullet to her face was
lodged in her neck and she died from the gunshot wound in the
manner of homicide. Sandra Pryor identified Doxy from a
photograph as the victim of the gunshot and as the person who
had earlier come into the Pryors’ motel room with Williams.
       Williams denied any involvement in or presence at Doxy’s
murder and suggested that a third party may have committed
the crime. Williams said that after she and Bean left the motel
where Pryor had been shot, they immediately drove in Bean’s car
to his friend Burton’s house, and it took about 10 minutes to get
there. When they got there, Doxy was outside the house in her
own car and she did not come into the house. At Burton’s
request, Williams gave him the keys to Bean’s car, where the gun
was in the center console. Williams then got into the shower with
Bean, so she did not actually see Burton or Doxy leave the house.
After Williams got out of the shower at Burton’s house, he
returned, but Doxy did not.
       Williams acknowledged that the surveillance video showed
Doxy’s Volvo drive into a parking lot near Burton’s residence
after they left the motel where Pryor was killed. She said that
neither she nor Bean were in the car with Doxy. She denied that
the person who got out of the Volvo after the muzzle flash was
her and further denied having killed Doxy or ever having been in
that car.




                               15
       According to Bean’s trial testimony, after he and Williams
left the motel where Pryor had been shot, they went directly to
his friend Burton’s house, where he took a shower because his
hand was bleeding. He did not mention, but did not deny, that
Williams showered with him. Williams never told him she had
shot Doxy. He put the gun in his car console after they left the
motel, and he left it there. He could not explain how the same
gun that killed Pryor was used to shoot Doxy.
       5.    August 13, 2016 Murder of Kenyada Thornton (Ct.9)5
        On August 13, 2016, at around 10:40 a.m., Jose N., who
lived near 11th Avenue and West 63rd Street in the City of Los
Angeles, was at home drinking with friends. He saw a black
Chevy Malibu approach his house and double park in the street
in front, next to his own car. Williams got out of the driver’s side
of the Malibu and asked Jose N. if he wanted to buy a cell phone.
Bean remained seated in the passenger side of the parked
Malibu, reclining.
       Jose N. repaired cars for Kenyada Thornton. As he was
speaking with Williams about the cell phone, Jose N. saw
Thornton walking up 63rd Street towards them with two black
objects in his hands. When Thornton approached, he asked
Williams who was in her car, referring to Bean. She responded,
“Don’t worry about it. It’s nobody.” After observing this, Jose N.
turned around to go inside his house to speak with his mother
about buying the phone. But he saw Thornton tap on the
Malibu’s front window on the passenger side with one of the

5      Although Williams was acquitted of this murder, the facts
are relevant for context and a full understanding of the
relationship between Williams and Bean in connection with the
other crimes of which she was convicted.




                                 16
objects in his hands, likely the gun (“probably a nine” millimeter
), and then Thornton pointed the object in his hand downward
toward the ground. Thornton said to the man in the car, “What
are you doing around here?” and “You better get out of here,
motherfucker.” While inside his house but through a front
window, Jose N. could see Thornton then put both his hands in
front of his body while holding the objects in them, palms down.
Thornton turned around to walk away with his back to the car
before any shots were fired.
       Jose N. then heard lots of gunshots, one kind distinctly
louder than the other with the louder ones coming first.
According to ballistics evidence, .45 caliber bullets are louder
when shot than nine-millimeter bullets shot from a less powerful
gun. Williams, who was still outside Jose N.’s house but
interacting with him from inside about the phone, said to him,
“I’ve gotta go.” She got back into the black Malibu and drove
away with Bean in the car.
       Jose N. remained inside his house for about five minutes
and someone called paramedics to assist Thornton, who had been
hit and had collapsed. When Jose N. went outside, he saw
Thornton lying on the sidewalk. There was a phone and a gun
near Thornton’s hand but someone in the gathered crowd
removed those items before law enforcement arrived on scene.
Law enforcement did not locate a firearm near Thornton’s body
later when securing the scene. Jose N. later noticed that his car
parked in front of his house had been hit with bullets.
       Thornton was not breathing when paramedics responded to
the scene and transported him to a local hospital. An autopsy
revealed Thornton had sustained a fatal gunshot wound to the
chest and the manner of death was homicide.




                               17
       Crime scene investigators arrived about a half hour after
the shooting. They found eight .45 caliber casings and five or six
fired .45 caliber bullets and bullet fragments. They also found
multiple nine-millimeter bullet casings. The two different kinds
of casings were generally located in two distinct areas. Car
windows nearby had been shattered from bullet impacts. Two
bullets were recovered from Jose N.’s car and a bullet casing was
found in some grass nearby. The .45 caliber casings recovered
from the Thornton crime scene were later found to match those
from the Wilkerson and Pryor murders.
       According to Williams, she drove Bean in his car to Jose
N.’s house. She knew Jose N. as “Victor.” While she and Victor
spoke about the phone, Thornton, who was her friend and a
Rollin’ 60’s gang member, approached her and asked, “What’s up,
Gigi?” He then asked her who was sitting in the Malibu,
referring to Bean, and she responded not to worry, “It’s nobody.”
She was attempting to diffuse any tension or conflict from her
having brought an Eight-Trey gang member into Rollin’ 60’s
territory. But at some point, Williams saw Thornton at the car
asking Bean something like “Where are you from” and “Why are
you here.” She did not hear Bean’s response but she walked over
to Thornton and said, “Can you just leave us alone?” and “He’s
not over here for that.” Williams turned back to trying to sell
Victor the phone and then heard gunshots. She ducked behind a
tree and saw Thornton shooting at the Malibu. She got into the
car and she and Bean drove away.
       According to Bean’s testimony, Thornton, whose body was
later found to have a Rollin’ 60’s tattoo, approached Bean’s car
while it was double parked in front of Jose N.’s house. Bean had
accompanied Williams to the location inside Rollin’ 60’s gang




                                18
territory where she was trying to sell a phone. Bean knew that
Rollin’ 60’s had a hit out on him for being an Eight-Trey member
and dating Williams. He was reclining in the passenger seat of
his parked car, trying to lay low. Thornton threw a gang sign,
meaning he made a hand gesture to indicate his Rollin’ 60’s
gang’s claim of the neighborhood as its territory. Thornton then
approached Williams and asked who was in the car. She told
Thornton not to worry who was in the car and that they were just
trying to “take care of [her] business.” Then Thornton walked
toward the car with his gun out, banged on the car with it, and
said, “What you doing over here? You know where you at.” After
starting to walk away, Thornton turned around and began
shooting at Bean through the car window while Bean was trying
to get out or duck. Bean fired back at Thornton in self-defense.
Thornton then ran away without Bean knowing whether he had
shot him.
       6.    The August 15, 2016 Arrest of Williams and Bean
             and Retrieval of the Gun
        On August 11, 2016, law enforcement obtained
identification information on the black Chevy Malibu found to be
related to the crimes. The license plate could be seen on
surveillance videos, from which it was determined that Bean was
the registered owner. On August 15, 2016, Detective Garza
alerted patrol officers to be on the lookout for the Malibu. That
day, Detective Garza saw and followed the Malibu, in which Bean
and Williams were riding, traveling on 80th Street. At around
noon, Sergeant Ramirez, while on patrol, saw the car stop near a
cannabis dispensary on Florence Avenue.
       The dispensary was located next to a tobacco shop.
Sergeant Ramirez parked his car up the street—a vantage point




                               19
from where he could watch the vehicle after calling for backup.
While watching, the sergeant saw Bean get out from the driver’s
side of the Malibu and Williams get out from the passenger side
and they both entered the tobacco shop. They seemed to be
aware of the sergeant’s presence. While Bean stood in front of
the dispensary, Williams went back to the Malibu and retrieved a
large purse from the passenger side, and then she went inside the
dispensary. Sergeant Ramirez lost sight of Williams and Bean
for up to half a minute but then he saw them leave the
dispensary together and walk towards his location. They then
began to walk in different directions. Sergeant Ramirez drew his
weapon and stopped Bean, waiting for assistance while Bean lay
on the ground. After Bean was handcuffed, Ramirez saw
Williams standing across the street. She too was arrested and
taken into custody without incident. DNA samples were taken
from both Bean and Williams.
      Detective Bellows arrived after Williams and Bean had
been taken into custody. Sergeant Ramirez informed him that
Bean and Williams had entered the dispensary before walking up
the street. Bellows went inside the dispensary and obtained
consent to search the premises from the owner. He found on the
underside of a couch a semiautomatic firearm with a .45 caliber
bullet in the chamber and more bullets in the magazine. The
gun, bullets, and magazine were swabbed for DNA and booked
into evidence.
      Detective Garza located Bean’s car, still running, outside
the dispensary. It was impounded and taken to a tow yard.
Bean’s driver’s license was found in a wallet recovered from
inside the car. The license had the same address as the vehicle
registration. A cell phone and some other items, including a




                               20
citation from August 9, 2016, during the crime spree, were also
found inside the car.
       Surveillance video from the dispensary and tobacco shop
from August 15, 2016, at 11:31 a.m., showed Bean parking his car
outside the dispensary in the same place where it was later
seized by police. The footage also depicted Williams and Bean
getting out of the car in the same clothing each was wearing
when arrested. It further showed Williams retrieving the large
purse from the car and then going into the dispensary, and Bean
standing outside with his back turned to the camera. Williams
was also shown on video from inside the dispensary secreting
something in the couch where the gun was found.
       7.    Bean’s Post-Arrest Statements to Police
       The day after his arrest, Bean was interviewed by police
detectives. He was advised of his rights and impliedly waived
them by answering questions. He admitted membership in the
Eight-Trey gang but said he didn’t “bang” anymore because of his
age of 36. He said there was “no denying” that the Eight-Trey
and Rollin’ 60’s gangs were enemies and that he was in Rollin’
60’s territory during the Thornton shooting. He denied that he
and Williams were in a sexual relationship. He denied having
shot at Thornton first and claimed he was at a smoke shop
around the corner from the crime scene when Wilkerson was
killed and only ran into Williams unexpectedly after that.
       8.    Bean’s Jail Calls
        Bean made a few recorded jail phone calls between the day
of his arrest on August 15, 2016, and August 18, 2016. Law
enforcement obtained the recordings, portions of which were
played for the jury, with transcripts provided (with some
sanitization by redactions). On August 15, 2016, the day of his




                               21
arrest, Bean called his friend Jeffrey Burton, known as
“Doughboy,” and in coded language suggested that Burton check
“up under your couch” at the “smoke shop” on Florence Avenue
for his items, referring to the gun Williams had left beneath the
couch at the dispensary.
       Bean made a second call on August 15, 2016, to a woman
named Antoinette. In that call, he explained that the Rollin’ 60’s
gang had put “a hit out on” him and were coming after him,
“hunting for [him] every day,” so he had “brought it to them” in
their own territory, seemingly referring to his presence in Rollin’
60’s territory when Thornton was killed. In his trial testimony,
Bean denied that he had intentionally gone to Rollin’ 60’s
territory to kill someone and said he was only defending himself.
       Bean made a second call to Doughboy on August 16, 2016.
In that call, again in coded language, Bean followed up on
whether Doughboy had retrieved his “laundry” from under the
couch by “lift[ing] the whole thing up.” Doughboy responded that
Bean’s “laundry [was] not there” and that when Doughboy had
inquired, the “manager” had said “the worst.” This led Bean to
ask, if the “worst” had occurred, implying that if the gun
Williams had hidden under the couch at the dispensary had been
found by law enforcement, why was he not then being charged
with more than what he understood to be a probation violation.
Bean later admitted in trial testimony that in the call, he was
asking Doughboy to find and get rid of the gun hidden in the
dispensary couch. He knew the gun had been used to shoot
people, so he did not want it to be found. He and Williams did
not discuss hiding the gun and he said he didn’t know she had
put it in or underneath the couch until after they left the
dispensary.




                                22
       On August 18, 2016, Bean called his mother. In that call,
he relayed that the gun connected to “all that shit”—the
murderous crime spree—had been found by law enforcement but
he denied it was his gun. He blamed everything on “that bitch”
or “that girl” and tried to distance himself. At trial, Bean
testified that he was not referring to Williams in the call to his
mother and that if he had ever said that Williams had used or
owned the gun, he was lying and that he never let anyone use his
gun.
       9.     Ballistics Evidence Summary
        The bullet casing found at the Wilkerson crime scene, the
three casings and two bullets recovered at the Pryor crime scene,
the bullet casing found on the passenger seat of Doxy’s car, and
the .45 caliber bullet casings from the Thornton crime scene and
the bullet recovered from Thornton’s body were all fired from the
same gun retrieved from the cannabis dispensary near where
Bean and Williams were arrested. The bullet recovered from
Pryor’s body and the bullet fragment recovered from Doxy’s body
were both of .45 caliber but neither could be positively matched to
or excluded from that same gun. The bullet fragment recovered
from Wilkerson’s body was too small and damaged to be
compared to the gun.
       10. Gang Expert Evidence
        Although there were no gang charges or allegations, the
prosecution presented opinion evidence from a gang expert. He
testified that the Rollin’ 60’s and Eight-Trey gangs have been
mortal rivals involved in an ongoing feud for many years. The
rivalry had produced murders, shootings, vandalism, and graffiti.
It was still ongoing in the summer of 2016.




                                23
       The expert identified Bean from his tattoos as an Eight-
Trey gang member with the moniker of “Tiny Diamond.” A gang
“associate,” as Williams had been identified, is not a full-fledged
member of a gang who has gone through some form of initiation,
known as being “jumped in.” A gang associate can be a friend or
relative of a gang member, someone who grew up in the
neighborhood, or just someone the gang members know.
       The neighborhood where Thornton was killed is a “hot spot”
for the Rollin’ 60’s gang. If an Eight-Trey gang member entered
that territory in July or August of 2016, there would have been a
“very high likelihood” of a response. Rollin’ 60’s gang members
would have considered that action to be one of an enemy
disrespecting the gang. In answer to a hypothetical question
reflecting facts from Thornton’s killing, the expert testified that if
an Eight-Trey member ventured into a Rollin’ 60’s hot spot area
armed with a gun, and the Eight-Trey member was approached
by an armed Rollin’ 60’s gang member, depending on the Eight-
Trey member’s purpose in entering Rollin’ 60’s territory, the gun
would be used either for self-protection or to shoot a rival.
       The expert was not aware of any situation in which a male
member of Eight-Trey and a male member of the Rollin’ 60’s were
friends. But he could not rule out the possibility of a Rollin’ 60’s
associate “hanging around” with an Eight-Trey member if they
were dating across gang lines. Still, the consequences of a Rollin’
60’s associate bringing a male Eight-Trey member into Rollin’
60’s territory could be “physical violence on up.”
B.    Procedural Background6


6     Additional procedural events as relevant to Williams’s
claims on appeal are discussed in connection with those claims.




                                 24
       An information alleging charges against Williams and Bean
was filed on February 8, 2018. At trial, on January 19, 2023, the
People filed a second amended information. The pleading alleged
as against Williams four counts of first degree murder (Pen.
Code, § 187, subd. (a)) (counts 1 (Wilkerson), 4 (Pryor), 8 (Doxy),
and 9 (Thornton)); three counts of being a felon in possession of a
firearm (§ 29800, subd. (a)(1)) (counts 3, 7, & 11); and one count
of assault with a firearm (§ 245, subd. (b)) (count 5, Sandra
Pryor). As to all four murder counts, multiple-murder special
circumstances within the meaning of section 190.2, subdivision
(a)(3) were alleged. Special circumstances for murder committed
during a robbery or burglary within the meaning of section 190.2,
subdivision (a)(A) and (G) were alleged for the Pryor murder, and
special circumstances for the murder of a witness within the
meaning of section 190.2, subdivision (a)(10) for the Doxy
murder. Several aggravating factors were also alleged. (Cal.
Rules of Court, rule 4.421).
       As to the murder count 1 (Wilkerson), the second amended
information alleged that Williams had personally used,
intentionally discharged, and proximately caused death with a
firearm (§ 12022.53, subds. (b)-(d)). Williams’s prior strike and
prior serious and violent felony conviction was also alleged as to
all counts (§§ 667, subd. (a)(1); 667.5, subd. (b); 1170.12).
       Ultimately, Williams was acquitted of Thornton’s murder
(count 9). And the court dismissed the assault count 5 as to
Williams after the jury hung as to this count and the court
declared a mistrial. Williams was convicted of the remaining
charges, except as to the Wilkerson murder (count 1), she was
acquitted of first degree murder and the conviction was for the
lesser murder in the second degree. The special circumstances




                                25
and enhancement allegations were found true, and the People at
trial abandoned proof of the aggravating factors after Williams
waived a jury trial as to these. As noted, Williams admitted the
prior strike and serious and violent felony conviction.
       Williams ultimately received a sentence of two consecutive
life terms without the possibility of parole for the two first degree
murders (counts 4 (Pryor) and 8 (Doxy)), plus an aggregate term
of 55 years to life, consecutive, for second degree murder (count 1
(Wilkerson)), 15 years, doubled, plus 25 years to life for the §
12022.53, subd. (d) enhancement), plus an aggregate determinate
term of six years and eight months, consecutive, for the three
gun-possession charges (counts 3 (two-year midterm, doubled), 7,
and 11 (eight months (one-third midterm) doubled, for each). The
court declined to exercise its discretion to dismiss the prior strike
or to impose a lesser gun enhancement. As to two of the murder
counts (1 & 4), the court imposed but stayed punishment for the
five-year prior enhancements under section 667, subdivision
(a)(1). The court granted 2,396 days of actual credits and
imposed a restitution fund fine and two fee assessments, along
with victim restitution, imposed jointly and severally as against
Williams and Bean.7
                      III. DISCUSSION
A.    No Abuse of Discretion in the Denial of Severance

7     Bean was convicted of first degree felony murder in count 4
(Pryor); first degree murder in count 8 by aiding and abetting
(Doxy); second degree murder in count 9 (Thornton); and assault
with a deadly weapon in count 5 (Sandra Pryor), with true
findings of firearm enhancements and special circumstances, as
alleged. He was also convicted of gun-possession charges in
counts 2, 6, and 10, and he admitted two prior strikes. He was
acquitted of murder in count 1 (Wilkerson).




                                 26
       Williams moved pretrial for severance of parties by filing
two separate written motions. On appeal, she challenges the
trial court’s denial of those motions. The factual bases of her
challenge rest on: (1) Bean’s jail-call recordings that allegedly
implicated her; (2) Bean’s trial testimony, allegedly negating her
version of facts; and (3) the joint trial having allowed the
prosecutor to prejudicially associate Williams and Bean as a
“crime couple” who acted jointly with a single intent.
       Williams’s first motion, filed on February 23, 2021, sought
separate trials for her and Bean on the ground that a joint trial
would deprive Williams of her right to confront witnesses and to
due process under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments,
respectively, and would also violate the principles of section 1098,
as enunciated in People v. Aranda (1965) 63 Cal.2d 5188, and
Bruton v. United States (1968) 391 U.S. 123. Also cited in the
stated grounds were People v. Fletcher (1966) 13 Cal.4th 451 and
Gray v. Maryland (1998) 523 U.S. 185 (co-defendant’s extra-
judicial statements inculpating defendant barred as hearsay and
by the Sixth Amendment). The motion factually focused on
Bean’s post-arrest statements to law enforcement that placed
Williams at or near the scenes of the Wilkerson and Thornton
murders (the latter of which she was acquitted). It attached
transcripts of these statements and contended they could not be
effectively sanitized to avoid prejudice at trial.
       Williams’s second severance motion was filed on August 18,
2021, and its caption referenced “antagonistic defenses.” The
motion’s stated grounds were that her defense was precluded by
Bean’s. The factual issues cited in support of this motion were

8     Superseded by statute on another ground as stated in
People v. Lamb (2024) 16 Cal.5th 400, 431.




                                27
that with respect to Wilkerson’s murder for which both
defendants were charged, “it [wa]s possible” Bean would argue at
trial that Williams was the killer and, also, the converse, that
Williams “may” argue at trial that Bean was Wilkerson’s
“shooter.” These potentialities did not come to pass at trial as
neither defendant accused the other of Wilkerson’s murder. Bean
testified that he ran into Williams near the time and place of the
murder, but she herself testified to these facts, asserting she was
then in the area looking for Wilkerson to make sure he addressed
his bail paperwork in connection with a court appearance that
day. Cell phone data also showed her presence there and then.
       The People filed a single opposition to both severance
motions, on June 8, 2022, which attached several exhibits.9
These attachments consisted of some of Bean’s jail-call recordings
and related transcripts and surveillance video footage depicting
Williams taking her purse from Bean’s car and then appearing to
hide the gun in the couch at the dispensary just before she and
Bean were arrested. The People argued that the alleged offenses
and the parties were properly joined and that factors used to
assess prejudice did not defeat the propriety of joinder here and
would not cause undue prejudice at trial.
       The trial court heard argument and denied Willliams’s
severance motions on June 15, 2022, pretrial. As to the denial of
the first motion, the court cited that Bean did not accuse or even
mention Williams in his recorded jail calls that were then before



9       The People’s opposition below references Bean’s separate
motion to sever. It describes Bean’s motion as asserting prejudice
if all four murders were tried together and that his defense was
inconsistent with that of Williams.




                                28
         10
the court and to the extent he might have alluded to her as
having attempted to hide the gun, there was independent video
evidence of her conduct in that regard. The court further
referenced the existence of independent evidence that Williams,
as she maintained, had gone to the location of Thornton’s killing
to sell a phone, not to “br[ing] it to” the Rollin’ 60’s, who were
“after” Bean, as he had suggested in a jail call as his own
possible motive for being there. The court again pointed to the
existence of independent evidence of Williams’s different reason
for being there and suggested it could give the jury a limiting
instruction as to Bean’s statements, if necessary.
       As to the denial of Williams’s second motion to sever for
antagonistic defenses, the trial court concluded that Williams had
not met the burden of showing either a “conflict [] so prejudicial
that the defenses are irreconcilable” or “that the jury [would]
unjustifiabl[y] infer” from the conflict alone that both defendants
are guilty. The court again cited “independent evidence … to
support the defendants’ guilt” such that the burden of overcoming
the preference for a joint trial had not been met.
       The Legislature has expressed a strong preference for joint
trials and the “law of joinder and severance is settled.” (People v.
Holmes, McLain and Newborn (2022) 12 Cal.5th 719, 748
(Holmes, McLain and Newborn).) Section 1098 provides in
relevant part: “When two or more defendants are jointly charged


10     It does not appear that Bean’s jail call to his mother in
which he discussed an unnamed woman as being responsible for
the crimes was before the trial court when it denied severance.
That call was played for the jury at trial. Although the
prosecutor suggested that Bean was referring to Williams in that
call, Bean denied this in his testimony.




                                29
with any public offense, whether felony or misdemeanor, they
must be tried jointly, unless the court order[s] separate trials.”
        “ ‘Joint trials are favored because they “promote [economy
and] efficiency” and “ ‘serve the interests of justice by avoiding
the scandal and inequity of inconsistent verdicts.’ ” ’ (People v.
Coffman and Marlow (2004) 34 Cal.4th 1, 40.) ‘When defendants
are charged with having committed “common crimes involving
common events and victims,” as here, the court is presented with
a “ ‘classic case’ ” for a joint trial.’ (Ibid.)” (People v. Daveggio and
Michaud (2018) 4 Cal.5th 790, 819.) “Separate trials may be
appropriate ‘in the face of an incriminating confession, prejudicial
association with codefendants, likely confusion resulting from
evidence on multiple counts, conflicting defenses, or the
possibility that at a separate trial a codefendant would give
exonerating testimony.’ (People v. Massie (1967) 66 Cal.2d 899,
917.)” (People v. Thomas (2021) 64 Cal.App.5th 924, 966
(Thomas); see also People v. Hardy (1992) 2 Cal.4th 86, 167
[same].)
        But mutually antagonistic defenses are not per se
prejudicial. (Thomas, supra, 64 Cal.App.5th at p. 966, citing
People v. Daveggio and Michaud, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p. 819.) “On
the contrary, severance is required for antagonistic defenses only
when “ ‘ “ ‘the conflict is so prejudicial that [the] defenses are
irreconcilable, and the jury will unjustifiably infer that this
conflict alone demonstrates that both are guilty.’ ” ’ ([People v.]
Coffman and Marlow, supra, 34 Cal.4th at p. 41.)” (Thomas,
supra, 64 Cal.App.5th at pp. 966–967.) “ ‘If the moving party’s
guilt can be established by sufficient independent evidence, “it is
not the conflict alone that demonstrates … guilt,” and severance
is not required.’ [Citation.]” (Id. at p. 967.)




                                   30
       “We review a denial of severance for abuse of discretion,
considering the facts as they appeared at the time of the ruling.
[Citation.] If the ruling was proper when made, a reviewing court
may reverse only upon a showing that joinder ‘ “ ‘ “resulted in
‘gross unfairness’ amounting to a denial of due process.” ’ ” ’
[Citation.]” (Holmes, McClain and Newborn, supra, 12 Cal.5th at
p. 748, italics added; accord Thomas, supra, 64 Cal.App.5th at p.
967.)
       Williams concedes that the statutory requirements for
joinder were met here. Undermining her claim of error, she does
not focus her argument first on whether the trial court’s ruling
was correct when made, failing to isolate that critical temporal
point and the matters then before the trial court that led to its
ruling. Instead, she blurs those circumstances with the later
events of the trial.
       As noted, when Williams’s severance motions were made,
they were grounded in Bean’s post-arrest statements to law
enforcement that placed Williams at or near the scene and time
of the Wilkerson and Thornton killings, and the possibility that
Williams and Bean might each accuse the other of Wilkerson’s
murder. The People’s opposition additionally put before the trial
court post-arrest jail calls in which Bean had spoken in code to a
friend, asking the friend to retrieve the murder gun left hidden in
the couch at the dispensary just before Bean and Williams were
arrested. It also included Bean’s statements in another call that
he was being targeted by the Rollin’ 60’s gang and had “brought
it to them,” referencing his intent or actions or reason for being
in Rollin’ 60’s territory when Thornton was killed.
       As further noted, when the trial court denied Williams’s
motions, it cited that Bean had not accused or even mentioned




                                31
Williams in the jail-call recordings then before the court and that
there was in any event strong independent evidence—
surveillance video—of Williams getting the gun out of Bean’s car
and secreting it inside the dispensary. The court also cited the
existence of independent proof of Williams’s own purpose in going
to the location of Thorton’s murder—to sell a phone—that was
unrelated to Bean’s statements about being targeted by a rival
gang and “br[inging] it to them” as his reason or motive for being
there, and that the court could give a limiting instruction on this
to the jury, if necessary. The court further gave its reasoning
that Williams’s motions had not shown the existence of a conflict
so prejudicial that the respective defenses were unreconcilable or
that the jury would unjustifiably infer from the conflict alone that
both defendants are guilty.
       Williams has not shown that the trial court’s ruling, when
made, was an abuse of discretion. She appears to largely concede
this. Her appellate argument does not point to a claimed abuse
of discretion “considering the facts as they appeared at the time
of the ruling,” citing or analyzing the limited universe of evidence
that was then before the court or the court’s stated reasoning for
denial of the motions. (Holmes, McLain and Newborn, supra, 12
Cal.5th at p. 748; Thomas, supra, 64 Cal.App.5th at p. 967.) She
does not, for example, address the trial court’s observation that
Bean had not accused or even mentioned Williams specifically in
the jail calls that were considered by the court. Nor does she
address the court’s having pointed to the existence of
independent proof of Williams’s efforts to hide the gun or of her
reasons for being present at the location of Thornton’s murder
that were separate and apart from the inculpatory reasons that
could be attributed to Bean from his jail call. Nor does Williams




                                32
address that her severance motions had asserted only a
speculative and potential conflict in defenses that could possibly
come about only if the defendants each chose to accuse the other
of Wilkerson’s murder and were not subject to cross-
examination—possibilities that never ripened.
       In sum, Williams does not identify just how or why, based
on the facts before the court when it ruled, the court’s denial of
severance constituted a prejudicial abuse of discretion. Nor does
she tie her claim of resulting prejudice to the facts asserted in the
unsuccessful pretrial motions, or even to the totality of evidence
that came later at trial or the verdicts. Neither abuse of
discretion nor prejudice has been shown.
       As to Bean’s jail call to his friend using coded language
about the gun hidden in the couch, Williams claims that at trial,
this call allowed Bean to incriminate her by confirming she had
hidden the gun. But Bean never said in the call who did the
hiding and the surveillance video shown to the jury was itself
strong independent evidence that Williams took the gun in her
purse from Bean’s car and hid it in the couch inside the
dispensary. Also, percipient law enforcement testimony at trial
supported at least some of what was seen on the video. It was
not just Bean’s recorded jail calls that allowed the prosecution to
argue that Williams had hidden the gun—far from it.
       As to the jail call in which Bean suggested his reasons for
“br[inging] it to” the Rollin’ 60’s with respect to Thornton’s
murder, Williams indeed offered her own testimony at trial that
she was in that location just to sell a phone. She was acquitted of
this charge in any event.
       As to Bean’s jail call to his mother in which he blamed an
unnamed woman for the crimes, he did not specifically mention




                                 33
or identify Williams, he denied in testimony that he was referring
to Williams in the call, and the call was not even part of what
was before the court when it denied severance. While the court
later cited this call for giving the jury instruction on accomplice
liability, this was certainly not the only evidence supporting the
proper giving of this instruction.
       As to Bean’s trial testimony, he did not blame or accuse
Williams of any of the crimes. Nor did she accuse him. He placed
her near the time and place of Wilkerson’s murder, but her own
testimony and the cell phone data evidence did the same. There
was also independent proof apart from Bean’s testimony—that of
L.S.—that Williams was an associate of the Rollin’ 60’s gang. As
to Bean’s testimony that he and Williams drove directly to his
friend Burton’s house after the Pryor murder and he took a
shower, denying having anything to do with the Doxy murder,
Bean did not say he showered with Williams—her alibi—but he
also did not deny having done so. And he did not accuse Williams
of either this murder or any of the others.
       In short, nothing about Bean’s statements to law
enforcement, jail calls, or trial testimony “negat[ed]” Williams’s
version of the facts, as she now contends, even if there were
minor factual discrepancies presented in their respective
testimony. Nor were the defendants’ respective defenses in fact
inconsistent, irreconcilable, or antagonistic, either at all or to the
point that the prosecution’s burden was lessened. And both Bean
and Williams having testified, they were available for cross-
examination. The record thus presents no basis from which to
conclude that the jury was unable to make a reliable judgment
from the evidence. In fact, the jury was discerning in its
acquittal of Williams of the Thornton murder and its acquittal of




                                 34
Bean of the Wilkerson murder, as well as its having landed on
the lesser included second degree murder verdicts against
Williams for Wilkerson’s murder and Bean for Thornton’s.
       As to the asserted prejudicial association between the
defendants made at trial by the prosecutor’s reference to them as
a “crime couple,” the prosecutor was free to argue and comment
on the facts of the case. “A prosecutor is given wide latitude in
arguing a case to the jury as long as it amounts to fair comment
on the evidence.” (People v. Ramirez (2022) 79 Cal.App.5th 48,
61–62, citing People v. Hill (1998) 17 Cal.4th 800, 819 & People v.
Carter (2005) 36 Cal.4th 1215, 1266 [not improper for prosecutor
to comment on the state of the evidence]; People v. Letner and
Tobin (2010) 50 Cal.4th 99, 153 [prosecution’s argument of joint
action was not appeal to find guilt by association but proper
argument based on reasonable inferences jury could draw from
the evidence].)
       Further, the association did not join unequal characters of
unequal culpability or taint one defendant against whom there
was weaker evidence with stronger evidence against the other.
Williams and Bean were equally accused and stood equally
culpable of the same murders. Our review of the record leads us
to conclude that the evidence presented against each defendant
at trial was, in general, of similar weight. “We cannot say that
the quantity and quality of the evidence implicating one
defendant compared to the other was so dissimilar that the jury
likely convicted” Williams on the strength of the evidence against
Bean. (People v. Letner and Tobin, supra, 50 Cal.4th at p. 151.)
The evidence showed them romantically involved and together
regularly during the two-week spree—acting together, protecting
each other, and sharing the same car and gun. And the jury was




                                35
instructed that it had to consider each defendant’s guilt
separately. Their verdicts were true to that directive, with
varying acquittals and findings of guilt of lesser included
offenses. Williams’s claim that the casting of her and Bean as a
“crime couple” allowed verdicts with a unitary intent and caused
extreme prejudice depriving her of fair trial is simply not borne
out by the result of the trial or the whole record.
      “ ‘In short, the joint trial was not unfair to [Williams] at all,
much less grossly unfair. The [trial] court acted within its
discretion in implementing the legislative preference for
conducting joint trials.’ [Citation.]” (People v. Anderson (2018) 5
Cal.5th 372, 388.) Williams has not shown an abuse of
discretion, much less a prejudicial one, or undue prejudice or
gross unfairness resulting in a due process violation in the trial
court’s denial of her severance motions.
B.    Sixth Amendment Claim Re Autopsy Testimony
      Williams contends the trial court violated her Sixth
Amendment right of confrontation by admitting the trial
testimony of a medical examiner that was based on autopsy
reports of other nontestifying examiners who had conducted the
autopsies of Wilkerson and Doxy. The testifying medical
examiner reviewed the reports and made factual observations
about the bodies’ conditions, and he formed and offered his own
conclusions on the manner and cause of death, mostly from
photographs and diagrams. Williams argues her convictions for
these two murders (counts 1 and 8) must be reversed as this
amounted to a violation of her federal right of confrontation.
      The People called Odey Ukpo, M.D., a medical examiner, as
a witness at trial. As he testified, a medical examiner is a
physician who specializes in determining the manner and cause




                                  36
of death and who performs autopsies to make these
determinations. A medical examiner will perform an autopsy and
then document their findings in a report. Notes are made at the
examination, which include a diagram or chart of the body, and
photographs are taken. The written report is generated from
these. There are standard forms used in autopsy reports but
each medical examiner produces their own reports in their own
manner, whether generating the report themselves or using a
transcriber. Photographs taken during an autopsy “are a
permanent record of the case” and allow review of the autopsy
results and an independent conclusion. The autopsy photos are
taken by a forensic technician who can assist the medical
examiner during the autopsy and can take photos beforehand, as
is often done in homicide cases.
       After explaining this general autopsy information, Dr.
Ukpo gave testimony about the general practices of the Los
Angeles County Medical Examiner, including its procedures for
maintaining chain of custody and business records to enable later
testimony, including by a medical examiner who did not perform
the autopsy in a given case.
       He then offered testimony and conclusions from the
autopsy of Pryor, which he had performed, including his opinions
on the manner and cause of death. He moved on to testimony
about the autopsies of Wilkerson and Doxy, which he did not
personally conduct, those procedures having been performed by
other medical examiners. Dr. Chinwah, who had performed the
Doxy autopsy in 2016, had by 2023 retired. Dr. Miller conducted
the autopsy of Wilkerson in 2016. No reason was given for his
unavailability at trial in 2023. The trial court made no
unavailability findings. Dr. Ukpo concluded with his testimony




                               37
on the Thornton autopsy. His entire testimony was relatively
brief.
       As to Doxy, Dr. Ukpo testified he had reviewed the autopsy
report, associated documents, diagrams, photographs, and charts.
Exhibits 61A and 61B, a photograph of Doxy’s face showing a
bullet wound and a coroner’s chart, respectively, were identified
and admitted in evidence without objection. The autopsy report
itself was not offered. Dr. Ukpo answered questions about what
the photograph depicted; he testified it showed the “entrance
gunshot wound of [Doxy’s] right cheek that has stippling
present.” He concluded from the presence of stippling shown in
the photograph that the gunshot had come from a range of one to
three feet away. Dr. Ukpo also testified about the diagram,
which he said showed the entry wound and stippling in the face
region but no exit wound. From the diagram, Dr. Ukpo testified
there was a known bullet trajectory from “front to back and
downward” and the bullet projectile was “located in the neck, in
the spine region.”
       Dr. Ukpo testified that after reviewing the Doxy autopsy
documentation, the conclusions of which he did not relay, he
formed his own opinion that she had died of a gunshot wound to
the face with homicide as the manner of death.
       As to Wilkerson, Dr. Ukpo was likewise provided with the
autopsy report, charts, and photographs. Five photographs and
one coroner’s chart or diagram were identified as Exhibits 62A-E,
and admitted into evidence without objection, with the report
itself again not offered. One photograph, as explained by Dr.
Ukpo, depicted “the right thigh, where there’s an entrance
gunshot wound and there’s a rod placed through that” to “show
the direction of the bullet as it traveled through the body.” The




                               38
gunshot wound was shown on the photograph on “the front side
of the thigh, near the groin region.” As explained by Dr. Ukpo,
another photograph showed the “entrance gunshot wound of the
right thigh” with yet another showing “the exit gunshot wound of
the right thigh.”
       Dr. Ukpo reviewed the coroner’s chart or diagram
accompanying the photographs to render his “own opinion as to
the cause and manner of death.” He showed the jury the
locations of the bullet entrance and exit wounds on the diagram,
testifying there was “a path of travel” of the bullet “from
[Wilkerson’s] front to back, his left to right, and downward.” Dr.
Ukpo said there were no “projectiles recovered” from Wilkerson’s
body but “fragments,” not a “completely intact bullet,” were
recovered and “collected and preserved for evidence.” He opined
that the “gunshot wound cause[d] massive blood loss and
[Wilkerson’s] death.” After reviewing “the autopsy report,
photos, charts, [and] notes,” Dr. Ukpo came to his “own
conclusion” that the cause of death was “gunshot wound of [the]
leg” and that the “manner of death” was “homicide.” When
asked, Dr. Ukpo was not able to determine from the autopsy
documentation exactly how close the gunshot wound was to
Wilkerson’s genitalia but he could see from the photo and
diagram that it was “fairly close” and there was no stippling
found.
       In sum, as to the Doxy and Wilkerson murders, Dr. Ukpo
relayed to the jury brief, objective, and factual information about
the conditions of the bodies from the two autopsy reports
prepared by other medical examiners. He formed his own
conclusions and opinions on the cause and manner of death as
derived from his review of the reports and his observations from




                                39
the autopsy photographs and diagrams. Williams did not object
to the admission of his testimony or to the autopsy photos and
diagrams either on hearsay or Sixth Amendment grounds. Her
appellate challenge appears to be limited to a claimed violation of
her federal right of confrontation based on Dr. Ukpo’s oral
testimony alone.
       We conclude the challenge is forfeited. Williams
acknowledges she did not object to Dr. Ukpo’s testimony. But,
citing inapt authority, she contends a failure to object at trial
does not preclude her from raising a constitutional violation.
(See, e.g., Caldwell v. Mississippi (1985) 472 U.S. 320, 326–328
[existence of state procedural bar such as waiver does not deprive
federal court of jurisdiction].) She also cites California authority
recognizing a reviewing court’s discretion to reach a forfeited
claim and urges that the “stark violation of [her] fundamental
right of confrontation under the Sixth Amendment” warrants the
exercise of our discretion to overlook the forfeiture and reach the
merits.
       As argued by respondent, an appellant is ordinarily
precluded from challenging the admissibility of evidence on
appeal if no objection was raised in the trial court. (Evid. Code, §
353; People v. Dykes (2009) 46 Cal.4th 731, 756.) As to challenges
based on the federal right of confrontation, the California
Supreme Court has repeatedly applied the forfeiture rule. (See
People v. Arredondo (2019) 8 Cal.5th 694, 710; People v. Riccardi
(2012) 54 Cal.4th 758, 827, fn. 33, overruled in part as stated in
People v. Gomez (2018) 6 Cal.5th 243, 297; People v. Dement
(2011) 53 Cal.4th 1, 23, overruled in part as stated in People v.
Rangel (2016) 62 Cal.4th 1192, 1216; People v. Redd (2010) 48




                                40
Cal.4th 691, 730; People v. D’Arcy (2010) 48 Cal.4th 257, 289–
290.)
      In People v. Nadey (2024) 16 Cal.5th 102, 162 (Nadey), a
recent case, the high court concluded the claim was not forfeited,
because the trial had occurred five years before Crawford v.
Washington (2004) 541 U.S. 36, 68 (Crawford), the seminal case
from which the currently operative legal principles evolved. We
see no reason to deviate from the forfeiture rule here.
      But Williams alternately claims ineffective assistance of
counsel for her trial attorney’s failure to object to Dr. Ukpo’s
testimony. We reject this claim, effectively reaching the merits of
the alleged constitutional violation, and finding neither deficient
performance by counsel nor any prejudice. (Strickland v.
Washington (1984) 466 U.S. 668, 687 (Strickland).) Any objection
to Dr. Ukpo’s testimony would have lacked merit or been
pointless. His testimony was admissible as consisting either of
generalized autopsy practices, factual observations about the
condition of a victim’s body, which is not testimonial hearsay, or
his own opinions and conclusions on the manner and cause of
death. These opinions and conclusions were based on his own,
independent review of the autopsy reports and were largely
derived from photographs and diagrams. Any arguably
testimonial hearsay was minor, was independently established by
other proof, and was not prejudicial.
       To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel,
an appellant must show that counsel’s representation fell below
an objective standard of reasonableness under prevailing
professional norms and that there was prejudice resulting from
the acts or omissions, meaning a reasonable probability the result
would have been different without the deficient performance.




                                41
(Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at p. 687–688; accord Bell v. Cone
(2002) 535 U.S. 695; Williams v. Taylor (2000) 529 U.S. 362, 390;
People v. Mai (2013) 57 Cal.4th 986, 1009 (Mai).) This is a
“highly demanding” standard requiring proof of “gross
incompetence.” (Kimmelman v. Morrison (1986) 477 U.S. 365,
382.) When the claim is brought in the context of a direct appeal,
the court examines the record to ascertain the existence of any
explanation for the challenged aspects of the representation.
(Mai, supra, 57 Cal.4th at p. 1009.)
       Neither deficient performance nor prejudice is shown here
based on the state of the law and the state of the record.
       The admission of testimonial, hearsay statements by a
nontestifying witness without a prior opportunity for cross-
examination violates the defendant’s right to confrontation under
the Sixth Amendment. (Crawford, supra, 541 U.S. at p. 68.) This
right to confrontation “bars the admission at trial of a testimonial
out-of-court statement against a criminal defendant unless the
maker of the statement is unavailable to testify at trial and the
defendant had a prior opportunity for cross-examination.” (People
v. Lopez (2012) 55 Cal.4th 569, 580–581; accord, Crawford, supra,
at p. 68; Nadey, supra, 16 Cal.5th at p. 162.)
       The high court in Crawford did not provide a
comprehensive definition of “ “testimonial,” ” and such a
definition “ ‘awaits articulation.’ ” (People v. Gonzalez (2021) 12
Cal.5th 367, 398 (Gonzalez); Nadey, supra, 16 Cal.5th at p. 164.)
But it is clear that a testimonial statement has two critical
components. “First, to be testimonial the statement must be
made with some degree of formality or solemnity. Second, the
statement is testimonial only if its primary purpose pertains in




                                42
some fashion to a criminal prosecution.” (People v. Dungo (2012)
55 Cal.4th 608, 619 (Dungo).)
      Both the United States Supreme Court and the California
Supreme Court have addressed Crawford’s application to forensic
reports. (See Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts (2009) 557 U.S.
305, 310–311 [affidavits reporting forensic analysis were
testimonial as they were functionally identical to live testimony];
Bullcoming v. New Mexico (2011) 564 U.S. 647, 652, 665 [certified
forensic laboratory report required to assist police investigations
constituted testimonial statements]; Williams v. Illinois (2012)
567 U.S. 50, 56–58, 84–85 [expert testimony that DNA profile
produced by outside lab matched profile produced by state police
not testimonial hearsay; testimony was not admitted to establish
truth of the report, only to explain basis of expert’s independent
conclusion and report’s primary purpose was not related to
criminal investigation]; Dungo, supra, 55 Cal.4th at pp. 619–621
[autopsy reports and related testimony]; Nadey, supra, 16 Cal.5th
at pp. 161–165 [same].)
      Dungo, in which the victim’s autopsy report was likewise
not admitted into evidence, defined the parameters for a
substitute coroner’s testimony. Our Supreme Court held that
statements in an autopsy report describing the condition of the
murder victim’s body were not testimonial under the Sixth
Amendment. (Dungo, supra, 55 Cal.4th at pp. 617–621.) The
court specifically considered whether a pathologist may testify
about statements in an autopsy report prepared by another,
nontestifying pathologist. It concluded that factual and objective
observations about the condition of the victim’s body by a
nontestifying pathologist and recorded in an autopsy report were
not testimonial because they lacked formality and criminal




                                43
investigation was not the autopsy’s primary purpose. (Id. at pp.
619–621.) The court distinguished statements merely describing
anatomical and physiological observations from statements
setting forth the pathologist’s conclusions, the former less formal
and therefore not testimonial. (Id. at pp. 619–620.) The testifying
pathologist’s “description to the jury of objective facts about the
condition of [the victim’s] body, facts he derived from the
[nontestifying expert’s] autopsy report and its accompanying
photographs, did not give defendant a right to confront and cross-
examine [the nontestifying expert].” (Id. at p. 621.)
       In People v. Leon (2015) 61 Cal.4th 569, our high court
further explained: “It is clear that the admission of autopsy
photographs, and competent testimony based on such
photographs, does not violate the confrontation clause. . . . It is
also clear that testimony relating the testifying expert’s own,
independently conceived opinion is not objectionable, even if that
opinion is based on inadmissible hearsay. [Citations.] . . . The
hearsay problem arises when an expert simply recites portions of
a report prepared by someone else, or when such a report is itself
admitted into evidence.” (Id. at p. 603, italics omitted; see also
People v. Gonzales (2019) 34 Cal.App.5th 1081, 1090; Nadey,
supra, 16 Cal.5th at pp. 162–163 [autopsy photographs and
competent testimony on them are not hearsay; nor are an expert’s
independently formed opinions even if they were based on
inadmissible hearsay].)
       Attempting to avoid Dungo’s application here as to the lack
of formality of autopsy reports, Williams argues the primary
purpose of an autopsy is for use in criminal investigations. But
this contention is directly contrary to Dungo’s authoritative
holding—a report generated from an autopsy is not testimonial




                                44
hearsay. We are bound by this precedent. (Auto Equity Sales,
Inc. v. Superior Court (1962) 57 Cal.2d 450, 455.)
       Williams also claims that the California Supreme Court
abandoned Dungo’s explication of the formality requirement in
People v. Sanchez (2016) 63 Cal.4th 665 (Sanchez). Not so.
Sanchez reaffirmed this principle and even used the formality
requirement in assessing whether statements in that case were
testimonial. (See Sanchez, at pp. 689, 694, 694–697.) Further,
Sanchez confirmed that an expert “may rely on hearsay in
forming an opinion, and may still tell the jury in general terms
that he did so” without violating either hearsay rules or the
confrontation clause. (Id. at p. 685, italics omitted; see also People
v. Perez (2018) 4 Cal.5th 421, 456 (Perez); Nadey, supra, 16
Cal.5th at p. 163.) Sanchez also held that general knowledge in
an expert’s field and background information within an area of
expertise, as opposed to case-specific facts, is admissible, such as
habit or custom offered to prove conduct on a specified occasion
was in conformity with that. (Sanchez, supra, 63 Cal.4th at p.
683–686.)
       In the 2018 cases of Perez and People v. Garton (2018)
4 Cal.5th 485 (Garton), the California Supreme Court held that
the admission of pathologists’ testimony about autopsy reports
prepared by nontestifying pathologists did not constitute
reversible error. In Perez, the testifying pathologist’s description
of hemorrhaging in the victim’s eyes, the depth of the knife
wounds, and internal injuries “related case-specific facts about
the victim’s body that were taken directly from the [nontestifying
pathologist’s] autopsy report and no other sources,” and therefore
constituted hearsay under Sanchez. (Perez, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p.
456.) Nevertheless, declining to address “Dungo’s continued




                                 45
viability,” Perez concluded that any federal constitutional error
was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Ibid.) It was
undisputed that the victim had been choked and stabbed, and the
pathologist’s testimony about the details of the victim’s injuries
were such “minor pieces of evidence” in light of other evidence
presented at trial that they had no effect on the jury’s guilt
determination. (Id. at p. 457.) Nor was it error for the testifying
pathologist to rely on hearsay in forming his opinion about the
cause of death. (Ibid.)
       Garton held the testifying coroner’s own opinions—based
on an autopsy report a retired coroner had prepared—were not
objectionable to the extent the testifying coroner did not directly
or implicitly convey any statements the nontestifying coroner had
made in the report. (Garton, supra, 4 Cal.5th at pp. 504, 506.)
Without mentioning Dungo, Garton reasoned that certain
statements made in the autopsy report and related by the
testifying coroner “did communicate out-of-court statements to
the jury because the autopsy report contained the out-of-court
statements of [the nontestifying coroner]. . . . Because these facts
were offered for their truth, they were hearsay.” (Id. at p. 506.)
But Garton concluded that, even if those statements were
testimonial, any constitutional error was harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt. Only a few of the testifying coroner’s
statements amounted to hearsay, and the state of the victim’s
body and the manner of her death were undisputed. (Id. at p.
507.)
       In Nadey, again without comment on Dungo’s formality
explication, the high court, on facts with almost no daylight
between them and those presented here, determined that autopsy
photos and testimony on them and the testifying examiner’s own




                                46
opinions derived from a nontestifying examiner’s autopsy report
did not violate the confrontation clause. (Nadey, supra, 16
Cal.5th at pp. 161–165.) The court categorized the testimony as
consisting of (1) statements relating to the nontestifying
examiner’s autopsy report and relaying that person’s
observations and opinions; (2) testimony describing or explaining
photos from the autopsy; (3) testimony covering the testifying
examiner’s own opinions based on information conveyed in the
autopsy report or his examination of accompanying photographs;
and (4) testimony describing the custom and practice the
nontestifying examiner would have followed in collecting and
preserving evidence samples for forensic analysis. (Id. at p. 162.)
       Only the first category of testimony was determined to
raise a “potential confrontation clause issue.” (Nadey, supra, 16
Cal.5th at p. 162.) Ultimately, even that did not. While the
testifying examiner referred to the report in answering some
questions, and in doing so, “he may have relayed some details
from the report in giving his answers,” any “confrontation error
was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. (Chapman [v.
California (1967) 386 U.S. 18,] 24; [Citation].) The jury received
ample evidence of [the victim’s] wounds and sexual assault from
nonhearsay sources, including the autopsy and crime scene
photographs and police testimony. Moreover, the condition of
[the victim’s] body and the cause of [] death were undisputed.
(See Garton, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p. 507; Perez, supra, 4 Cal.5th at
p. 457.) The defense did not contest the manner of [the victim’s]
death. Instead, it challenged who had caused it.” (Nadey, supra,
16 Cal.5th at p. 164.)
       This case is no different. As framed by these operative
legal principles, Dr. Ukpo’s testimony on the autopsies of Doxy




                                47
and Wilkerson did not violate the Sixth Amendment, and
therefore counsel’s lack of objection did not amount to deficient
performance.
      Dr. Ukpo’s testimony about the condition of the bodies of
Doxy and Wilkerson consisted of objective and factual
information and it was not testimonial. (Dungo, supra, 55 Cal.4th
at pp. 619, 621 [factual observations about the conditions of a
victim’s body are not testimonial hearsay].) His conclusions and
opinions were his own, drawn from photographic evidence and
the autopsy reports, the conclusions of which he did not relate to
the jury. He was permitted to rely on the autopsy reports of
nontestifying examiners and related documentation in reaching
his own conclusions and to state that he had. (Sanchez, supra, 63
Cal.4th at p. 685.) A fair reading of the record does not support
that Dr. Ukpo was simply repeating conclusions from the
nontestifying examiners’ reports. (See Nadey, supra, 16 Cal.5th
at pp. 163–164, fn. 23.) Further, photographs, and conclusions
from them, are not hearsay, let alone testimonial hearsay. (Leon,
supra, 61 Cal.4th at p. 603; Garton, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p. 603
[autopsy photos not hearsay because they are not out-of-court
statements].)
      Finally, here, as in Nadey, Perez and Garton, “the state of
[the victims’] bod[ies] and the manner in which [they] died” were
not in dispute. (Garton, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p. 507; Perez, supra, 4
Cal.5 th at p. 457 [“evidence bearing no connection to the hearsay
statements, such as photographs and police testimony, showed
that someone had choked [the victim] and stabbed her multiple
times”].) There was no dispute here that Wilkerson and Doxy
were killed by gunshot. And there was other proof of this—from
percipient observations of law enforcement who investigated the




                                48
crime scenes to photographs to surveillance video showing the
muzzle shot in Doxy’s face. Other evidence, for example, showed
that Wilkerson had been shot near or in the general area of his
groin, which the prosecutor pointed out in arguing that the
location of the shot showed a jealous lover. An investigating
detective present when Wilkerson’s body was collected testified to
personally observing the gunshot wound “on the right upper
thigh area next to his groin.” And the autopsy photos showing
the gunshot wound and its location on Wilkerson’s body were
admitted in evidence without objection.
       As to the ballistics evidence connecting the same gun to all
four murders, it was not bullets or fragments recovered from the
bodies of Doxy and Wilkerson that made this connection. It was,
rather, casings from these crime scenes—unrelated to the
autopsies—that showed the link. Thus, even assuming a
confrontation clause violation by some challenged aspect of Dr.
Ukpo’s testimony, however minor, on this record, there was no
prejudice. (See Chapman, supra, 386 U.S. at p. 24; accord
Gonzalez, supra, 12 Cal.5th at p. 398 [confrontation-clause error
is harmless where it is clear beyond reasonable doubt a rational
jury would have found defendant guilty absent the error].)
       While we view Williams’s claim of a Sixth Amendment
violation as forfeited, we nonetheless have effectively reached the
merits in disposing of her claim of ineffective assistance of
counsel. Because there was no confrontation-clause violation,
any objection to the testimony of Dr. Ukpo on the autopsies of
Doxy and Wilkerson would have been pointless or lacking in
merit. There was thus no deficient performance. Moreover, given
what would have been an unmeritorious or pointless objection,
counsel may well have tactically chosen to refrain from objecting.




                                49
Williams claimed she did not shoot Wilkerson or Doxy, and was
not present when they were shot, so any tactical advantage to be
gained by questioning the causes of their deaths was elusive and
beside the point. As our high court has “repeatedly stressed,” if “
‘ “the record on appeal sheds no light on why counsel acted or
failed to act in the manner challenged[,] . . . unless counsel was
asked for an explanation and failed to provide one, or unless
there simply could be no satisfactory explanation,” the claim on
appeal must be rejected.’ ” (People v. Mendoza Tello (1997) 15
Cal.4th 264, 266.) “[T]actical choices presented . . . on a silent
record . . . are better evaluated by way of petition for writ of
habeas corpus, and on direct appeal we reject them.” (People v.
Mayfield (1993) 5 Cal.4th 142, 188.)
       And as in Nadey, even if some aspects of the testimony
were testimonial, they were minor in nature and not prejudicial
in effect. Thus, there was no reasonable probability the outcome
would have been different absent the alleged failure to have
objected to Dr. Upko’s testimony. (Strickland, supra, 466 U.S. at
p. 687; People v. Woodruff (2018) 5 Cal.5th 697, 736.)
       We accordingly find Williams’s claim that her federal right
of confrontation was violated to be forfeited. And we reject her
related claim of ineffective assistance of counsel finding no
deficient performance, but even assuming such a breach, no
prejudice.
C.     No Instructional Error Re CALCRIM No. 540B
       1.     Williams’s Claim as Affecting Her Felony Murder
              Conviction on Count 4
       As to Williams, not Pryor’s actual shooter, the trial court
instructed the jury with respect to first degree felony murder
with a modified CALCRIM No. 540B and, relatedly, CALCRIM




                                50
        11
No. 703. As given here, the modified CALCRIM No. 540B
included an optional statement that a “person acts with reckless
indifference to human life when she knowingly engages in
criminal activity that she knows involves a grave risk of death.”
(Italics omitted.) This exact language has been interpreted by
our Supreme Court to mean that “ ‘[t]he defendant must be
aware of and willingly involved in the violent manner in which
the particular offense is committed, demonstrating reckless
indifference to the significant risk of death his or her actions
create.’ (People v. Banks (2015) 61 Cal.4th 788, 801 [(Banks)].)”
(People v. Gonzalez (2018) 5 Cal.5th 186, 203.)
       As given, the modified CALCRIM No. 540B also included
the optional non-exclusive enumerated factors for the jury to
consider when assessing whether Williams, again not Pryor’s
actual shooter, was a “major participant” and acted with “reckless
indifference to human life” in committing a targeted offense—
attempted robbery or burglary—for felony murder purposes
under Banks, supra, 61 Cal.4th at pp. 803–808 and People v.
Clark (2016) 63 Cal.4th 522, 614–620 (Clark).
       Williams did not object to the giving of CALCRIM No. 540B
as modified. Nor did she request that additional definitions of
the phrase “reckless indifference to human life” be given. On
appeal, she claims the giving of the modified CALCRIM No. 540B
was instructional error because, she argues, it is incomplete as to
the definition of reckless indifference to human life. She


11     As given, CALCRIM No. 703, the instruction for felony-
murder special-circumstances under section 190.2, subdivision
(d), referenced CALCRIM No. 540B for the “factors to consider if
defendant was a major participant who acted with reckless
indifference to [human life].”




                                51
contends this allowed the jury to find her guilty of first degree
felony murder without finding that she “consciously accepted
death as a permissible consequence of achieving the goals of her
criminal activity” in addition to finding that she subjectively
knew her actions during the criminal activity—attempted
robbery or burglary—created a grave risk of death.
       This claim derives from Clark’s explication of reckless
indifference to human life as having two components—both
subjective and objective elements. “The subjective element is the
defendant’s conscious disregard of risks known to him or her. But
recklessness is not determined merely by reference to a
defendant’s subjective feeling that he or she is engaging in risky
activities. Rather, recklessness is also determined by an objective
standard, namely what ‘a law-abiding person would observe in
the actor’s situation.’ [Citation.]” (Clark, supra, 63 Cal.4th at p.
617.)
       As summed up by Williams, this twofold definition requires
evidence—and an instruction—that the defendant both “(1) was
aware of and willingly involved in the violent manner in which
the target felony was committed …, and (2) personally harbored a
willingness to kill to achieve the goal of the target offense, even if
the defendant does not specifically desire that a death results
from the defendant’s actions.” She contends “the second part of
this definition is missing from CALCRIM No. 540B,” rendering it
a misstatement of the law. Her focus is on a requirement—
allegedly missing from the given instruction—that a defendant
consciously accept death as a permissible consequence of
achieving the goals of the criminal activity, beyond that which is
inherent in the statutorily enumerated targeted offenses of felony
murder. (See § 189, subd. (e)(3).)




                                 52
       As applied to the facts here, and without regard to the full
trial record, Williams contends the claimed instructional error
allowed the jury to erroneously find she acted with reckless
indifference to human life merely by entering Pryor’s motel room
with the intent to use counterfeit money to obtain cocaine, while
being aware that Bean was likely armed with a loaded gun. She
claims more was specifically required from the evidence and from
the instruction—that she also consciously accepted death as a
permissible consequence of achieving the goals of her criminal
activity.
       As we explain, no more was legally required from the
modified CALCRIM No. 540B, as given.
       2.      Standard of Review and Forfeiture of the Issue
       “In a criminal case, a trial court has a duty to instruct the
jury on ‘ “ ‘ “the general principles of law relevant to the issues
raised by the evidence.” ’ ” ’ [Citation.] The ‘general principles of
law governing the case’ are those principles connected with the
evidence and which are necessary for the jury’s understanding of
the case. [Citations.] As to pertinent matters falling outside the
definition of a ‘general principle of law governing the case,’ it is
‘defendant’s obligation to request any clarifying or amplifying
instruction.’ [Citation.]” (People v. Estrada (1995) 11 Cal.4th 568,
574 (Estrada); accord People v. Thomas (2023) 14 Cal.5th 327,
385.)
       The “ ‘language of a statute defining a crime or defense is
generally an appropriate and desirable basis for an instruction,
and is ordinarily sufficient when the defendant fails to request
amplification. If the jury would have no difficulty in
understanding the statute without guidance, the court need do no
more than instruct in statutory language.’ ” (Estrada, supra, 11




                                 53
Cal.4th at p. 574; accord People v. Ramirez (2021) 10 Cal.5th 983,
1001.)
       As relevant here, section 189, subdivision (a) provides that
murder “committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to
perpetrate, … robbery [or] burglary … is murder in the first
degree.” Under section 189, subdivision (e), a “participant in the
perpetration or attempted perpetration of a felony listed in
subdivision (a) in which death occurs is liable for murder only if
one of the following is proven: [¶] (1) The person was the actual
killer. [¶] (2) The person was not the actual killer, but, with the
intent to kill, aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced,
solicited, requested, or assisted the actual killer in the
commission of murder in the first degree. [¶] (3) The person was a
major participant in the underlying felony and acted with reckless
indifference to human life, as described in subdivision (d) of
Section 190.2 [felony-murder special circumstance].” (Italics
added; see People v. Arellano (2024) 16 Cal.5th 457, 467–468.)
Section 190.2, subdivision (d) states that if the felony-murder
special circumstance is found true, the prescribed penalty applies
to “every person, not the actual killer, who, with reckless
indifference to human life and as a major participant, aids, abets,
counsels, commands, induces, solicits, requests, or assists in the
commission of a felony enumerated in … subdivision (a) which
results in the death of some person or persons, and who is found
guilty of murder in the first degree therefor.” (Italics added; see
People v. Strong (2022) 13 Cal.5th 698, 704 (Strong).)
       “We review a claim of instructional error de novo.” (People
v. Thomas, supra, 14 Cal.5th at p. 382; see People v. Myles (2023)
89 Cal.App.5th 711, 728 (Myles).) We evaluate “ ‘ “ ‘the entire
charge of the court, not from a consideration of parts of an




                                54
instruction or from a particular instruction.’ [Citations.]” ’
[Citation.] ‘ “A defendant challenging an instruction as being
subject to erroneous interpretation by the jury must demonstrate
a reasonable likelihood that the jury understood the instruction
in the way asserted by the defendant.” ’ ” (People v. Thomas,
supra, at p. 382; see Myles, at p. 729.) We consider the entire
trial record and the arguments of trial counsel in assessing the
probable impact of the instructions on the jury. If that meaning
was not objectionable, the instructions cannot be deemed
erroneous. (People v. Kumar (2019) 39 Cal.App.5th 557, 564.) “
‘Jurors are presumed able to understand and correlate
instructions and are further presumed to have followed the
court’s instructions.’ ” (Ibid.)
       Williams does not contend that the trial court’s giving of
the modified version of CALCRIM No. 540B here for felony
murder as pertains to her for Pryor’s murder included an
affirmative but erroneous statement of the law. Rather, she
claims that the omission of her added component to the definition
of reckless indifference to human life that a defendant must
consciously accept death as a permissible consequence of
achieving the goals of the criminal activity rendered the
instruction a misstatement of the law.
       We conclude that the challenged instruction, as given,
satisfied the trial court’s sua sponte duty to instruct the jury on
the general principles of the law of felony murder, as relevant to
the issues raised by the evidence, including as to the phrase
“reckless indifference to human life” as applicable to a defendant
not the actual killer. The court, in fact, provided more than the
language of the statute (§§ 189, subd. (e); 190.2, subd. (d)) or
authoritative case law require. And it did so without objection or




                                55
a request from Williams to add the language she now claims was
necessary, resulting in forfeiture of the appellate issue. (People v.
Sanchez (2016) 63 Cal.4th 411, 461 People v. Lee (2011) 51
Cal.4th 620, 638; see also People v. Howard (2024) 104
Cal.App.5th 625, 660 [failure to request clarification of an
otherwise correct instruction forfeits the claim for purposes of
appeal]; see People v. Nelson (2016) 1 Cal.5th 513, 542 [on
request, criminal defendant entitled to pinpoint instructions that
relate particular facts to an element of a charged offense and
highlight or explain a defense theory if the proffered instruction
is supported by substantial evidence].)
       As we see it, Williams’s claim of instructional error thus
distills to an argument that the trial court did not include a
pinpoint instruction she never requested. (See generally, e.g.,
People v. Saille (1991) 54 Cal.3d 1103, 1119.) We nonetheless
address the merits to show that the modified CALCRIM No.
540B, as given, satisfied the trial court’s sua sponte instructional
duties and was not erroneous or a misstatement of the law.
       3.     Applicable Law of Felony Murder
       As noted, to be guilty of felony murder, the trier of fact
must find that the defendant was either (1) the actual killer; (2) a
direct aider and abettor who acted with intent to kill; or (3) a
major participant in the underlying enumerated felony who acted
with reckless indifference to human life. (§ 189, subd. (e); People
v. Lewis (2021) 11 Cal.5th 952, 959.) The same requirements
apply to a true finding of the felony-murder special circumstance
under section 190.2, subdivision (d) (so the law interpreting and
applying that statute before the changes to section 189,
subdivision (e) on felony murder, effective January 1, 2019, are
relevant and controlling). (People v. Superior Court (Ferraro)




                                 56
(2020) 51 Cal.App.5th 896, 907.) When section 189, subdivision
(e) was amended as part of Senate Bill 1437 (Reg. Sess. 2017-
2018) (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 4.) to incorporate major
participation and reckless indifference requirements, it codified
the understanding of those requirements as they were elucidated
in Banks and Clark. (Strong, supra, 13 Cal.5th at p. 710.)
       Banks and Clark delineated the meaning of “major
participant” and “reckless indifference” and announced non-
exclusive factors to be considered as part of these inquiries.
Banks focused primarily on what it means to be a “major
participant” while Clark addressed the “reckless indifference”
requirement, although there is significant overlap among the
non-exclusive factors considered for each. (Strong, supra, 13
Cal.5th at p. 706.) As developed in Banks and Clark, these
factors derive from Tison v. Arizona (1987) 481 U.S. 137 (Tison)
and Enmund v. Florida (1982) 458 U.S. 782 (Enmund). (Banks,
supra, 61 Cal.4th at p. 794.) Banks concluded that these cases
were placed on a spectrum and permitted the imposition of the
death penalty only when defendants’ “involvement is substantial
and they demonstrate a reckless indifference to the grave risk of
death created by their actions.” (Ibid.)
       Banks set forth non-exclusive factors to consider in
evaluating whether the defendant was a major participant and
exhibited reckless indifference to human life: (1) the defendant’s
role in planning the criminal enterprise that led to one or more
deaths; (2) the defendant’s role in supplying or using lethal
weapons; (3) the defendant’s awareness of the particular dangers
posed by the nature of the crime, the weapons used, or the past
experience or conduct of the other participants; and (4) whether
the defendant was present at the scene of the killing, in a




                                57
position to facilitate or prevent the actual murder, or played a
particular role in the death. (Banks, supra, 61 Cal.4th at p. 803.)
“No one of these considerations is necessary, nor is any of them
necessarily sufficient. All may be weighed in determining the
ultimate question, whether the defendant’s participation ‘in
criminal activities known to carry a grave risk of death’ [citation]
was sufficiently significant to be considered ‘major.’ ” (Ibid.)
         Banks concluded that section 190.2, subdivision (d)—
special circumstances for felony murder—codified the language
from the United States Supreme Court cases of Tison and
Enmund that looks “to whether a defendant has” ‘ “knowingly
engag[ed] in criminal activities known to carry a grave risk of
death.” ’ ” (Banks, supra, 61 Cal.4th at pp. 799, 801; see also
Estrada, supra, 11 Cal.4th at p. 577 [reading Tison to have
instructed that culpable mental state of “ ‘reckless indifference to
life’ ” is one in which defendant “ ‘knowingly engag[es] in criminal
activities known to carry grave risk of death’ ” and so ascribed
that meaning to the statutory phrase in section 190.2,
subdivision (d)].) Banks characterized the United States
Supreme Court in Tison and Enmund as having held: “The
defendant must be aware of and willingly involved in the violent
manner in which the particular offense is committed,
demonstrating reckless indifference to the significant risk of
death his or her actions create.” (Id. at p. 801.)
         After Banks, Clark observed that “ ‘reckless indifference,’ ”
the mens rea requirement, has “subjective and objective
elements.” (Clark, supra, 63 Cal.4th at pp. 616–617.) “The
subjective element is the defendant’s conscious disregard of risks
known to him or her,” while the objective element considers
“what ‘a law-abiding person would observe in the actor’s




                                 58
situation.’ ” (Ibid.) Clark identified the following factors as
pertinent to whether a defendant acted with reckless indifference
to human life, without assigning or isolating the factors to either
the subjective or objective components: (1) the defendant’s
knowledge that weapons would be used and/or their personal use
of weapons; (2) the defendant’s physical presence at the scene
and their opportunity to restrain the crime or aid the victim; (3)
the duration of the felony; (4) the defendant’s knowledge of their
accomplice’s propensity to kill; and (5) the defendant’s efforts to
minimize the risk of violence in the commission of the felony. (Id.
at pp. 618–623; see also In re Scoggins (2020) 9 Cal.5th 667, 680–
681.) The court cautioned that “ ‘[n]o one of these considerations
is necessary, nor is any one of them necessarily sufficient.’ ”
(Clark, supra, 63 Cal.4th at p. 618.)
       The Supreme Court in Clark did not hold that a trial court
had a sua sponte obligation to instruct on these factors. And no
authority has since so held. (See People v. Price (2017) 8
Cal.App.5th 409, 444 (Price) [where jury is instructed in language
of section 190.2, subdivision (d), trial court has no sua sponte
duty to further amplify “reckless indifference to human life”]; see
also Strong, supra, 13 Cal.5th at pp. 719–720 [the “mandatory
instructions” on the felony-murder special circumstance did not
change after Banks and Clark, but defense counsel may ask the
court to instruct the jury on the relevant factors]; People v.
Farfan (2021) 71 Cal.App.5th 942, 956 [jury’s true finding on
felony-murder special circumstance under CALCRIM No. 703,
which did not include Clark factors, still established defendant
was ineligible for resentencing relief under section 1172.6 by
preclusive effect]; People v. Allison (2020) 55 Cal.App.5th 449,
458 [jury instructions on the mental state for felony murder are




                                59
not defective if they do not include the Banks and Clark factors],
disapproved on another ground as stated in Strong, supra, 13
Cal.5th at p. 718, fn. 3.)
       Clark noted there is “ ‘significant[] overlap’ ” between the
“major participant” and “reckless indifference to human life”
requirements because “ ‘the greater the defendant’s participation
in the felony murder, the more likely that [they] acted with
reckless indifference to human life.’ ” (Clark, supra, 63 Cal.4th at
pp. 614–615.) Further, “ ‘there are some felonies as to which one
could properly conclude that any major participant necessarily
exhibits reckless indifference to the value of human life.’ ” (Id. at
p. 615.) But Clark also observed that a defendant who is merely
involved in a first-degree felony murder does not automatically
act with reckless indifference to human life. (Id. at p. 616.)
       In Estrada, supra, 11 Cal.4th 568, the California Supreme
Court held that the phrases “major participant” and “reckless
indifference to human life” have ordinary meanings that are
commonly understood without the need for further amplification.
(Id. at p. 578; see also Price, supra, 8 Cal.App.5th at p. 444 [trial
court’s definition of “ ‘reckless indifference to human life’ as
‘knowingly engag[ing] in criminal activity that he or she knows
involves a grave risk of death’ ” was “one that a jury may
reasonably be expected to understand”].) Because of this, a trial
court does not have a sua sponte duty to define for a jury
“reckless indifference to human life,” whether by inclusion of the
enumerated factors or anything else. (Ibid., italics added) The
Estrada court also clarified that its holding should not be
understood to discourage trial courts from amplifying the
statutory language for the jury if requested. (Id. at p. 579.)




                                 60
       The Banks and Clark factors for considering whether a
defendant was a major participant who acted with reckless
indifference to human life were added to CALCRIM No. 540B in
2020, but they are bracketed and still considered optional, not
mandatory. (Judicial Council of Cal., Crim Jury Instns. (2024).)
As explained in Strong, the Banks and Clark factors changed “the
trial environment” (Strong, supra, 13 Cal.5th at p. 719), and
defense counsel are free to take advantage of this change. Banks
and Clark “offered a range of guiding factors and made clear that
simple participation in, e.g., a ‘garden-variety armed robbery’ was
not sufficient, without more, to establish the truth of the felony-
murder special circumstance. [Citation.] The newly articulated
guiding factors might also have altered what evidence defense
counsel would have sought to introduce. And more broadly, the
clarifications Banks and Clark offered about the height of the bar
needed to prove a felony-murder special-circumstance finding
might have fundamentally altered trial strategies . . . . As for
instructions, after Banks and Clark, defense counsel could have
asked that optional additional instruction on the Banks and
Clark factors be given to guide the jury in its deliberations . . . .”
(Id. at pp. 719–720.)
       These observations hold equally true for what is now
required under section 189, subdivision (e) for felony murder for
one not the actual killer or an aider and abettor with intent to
kill. No authority holds that the Banks and Clark factors or any
other additional language are legally required as part of
CALCRIM No. 540B to define the phrase “reckless indifference to
human life.”




                                 61
       4.    No Error and No Prejudice
       As our discussion of the relevant authorities shows, there
was no claimed instructional error here. The trial court was not
required, on top of the optional Banks and Clark factors, and on
top of the added optional definition of the phrase “reckless
indifference to human life” given here as “knowingly engag[ing]
in criminal activity that [defendant] knows involves a grave risk
of death” —language almost identical to that suggested in
Estrada, supra, 11 Cal.4th at page 578—to further define this
phrase when giving CALCRIM No. 540B. Contrary to Williams’s
claim, the instruction does not require the additional
component—“encompass[ing] a willingness to kill (or to assist
another in killing) to achieve a distinct aim, even if the defendant
does not specifically desire that death as the outcome of his
actions”—to be accurate. The instruction, as given, subsumes
this additional definition. And the omission of this additional
language did not render the modified CALCRIM No. 540B a
misstatement of the law. Instead, the reckless-indifference-to-
human-life standard as defined by the trial court here in its
instruction was correct and was one the jury may reasonably
have been expected to understand without further amplification.
Williams cites no authority holding otherwise.
       The context of the whole trial record and counsels’
arguments to the jury as to the Clark factors on reckless
indifference to human life also show no prejudice from the
omission of Williams’s newly added component. There was
evidence that Williams, having previously killed Wilkerson with
the same gun used in the Pryor killing and having testified that
she and Bean jointly owned the gun, provided the same gun to
Bean for use in robbing Pryor and knew the gun would be present




                                62
during the attempted robbery or burglary. There was also
evidence that Williams was involved in planning the robbery or
burglary as Doxy, a friend or customer of Pryor, was used to set
up the ruse of a drug-buy; Doxy, Williams, and Bean arrived
together at the motel and proceeded directly to Pryor’s room, with
Doxy gaining entry by knocking and responding that it was she, a
friend and not a foe, at the door and with Bean hanging back
with the gun until Pryor opened the door. There was also
evidence that Williams, present in the room, threatened Sandra
Pryor and restrained her against the wall behind the door while
Bean pushed on it and entered the doorway with the gun,
inhibiting Sandra Pryor’s ability to assist her husband in
shutting the door. There was also evidence that Williams fought
with Pryor after Bean took the first shot through the door,
increasing the possibility of violence and death and inhibiting the
Pryors’ ability to summon aid. And then there was evidence of
Williams’s flight from the scene with Bean, leaving Pryor, bloody
and face down on the floor, and Williams’s immediately planned
execution of Doxy with the same gun to eliminate her as a
witness.
      Williams’s counsel, for his part, argued there was no
reckless disregard of human life present because, according to her
testimony, she had only gone to Pryor’s motel room to defraud
him by giving him counterfeit money in exchange for drugs, and
when he discovered the scheme and attacked her, Bean showed
up to defend her, and they escaped. This, counsel argued, fell
short of the standard for reckless disregard, which he described
to the jury as: “Somebody’s likely to die in what I’m about to do
[and] I don’t care.” It was more like someone “might die,” which
would not be enough for reckless indifference.




                                63
       As argued by respondent here, Williams’s theory of the case
as to the Pryor murder was not that she had participated in an
armed robbery gone bad but still lacked the mens rea of reckless
indifference to human life. It was, rather, that all she did was try
to buy drugs from Pryor with fake bills and without knowing
Bean would use the gun—a situation presenting a low likelihood
of risk to human life even if she were a major participant in that
plan. When the plan failed, Pryor attacked her first and she was
only able to escape once he had been incapacitated. On this
argued theory, and in the context of the entire instructional
charge, Williams’s additional language—that she “personally
harbor[ed] a willingness to kill to achieve the goal of the target
offense, even if [she did] not specifically desire that a death
result[] from [her] action”—would not have made a difference.
The jury’s verdicts showed they did not believe her version of the
events of Pryor’s murder and were not persuaded by counsel’s
argument on that evidence of the absence of reckless indifference.
D.     Unauthorized Sentence Re Imposed but Stayed Five-Year
       Prior Enhancement Under Section 667, Subdivision (a)(1)
       The trial court imposed but stayed two five-year sentence
enhancements for a prior conviction under section 667,
subdivision (a)(1) in connection with the two murder counts 1 and
4. Williams contends this was an unauthorized sentence and
that these two five-year enhancements should instead have been
stricken. The People concede the error.
       The argument flows from the legislative enactment of
Senate Bill No. 1393 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.), effective January 1,
2019, which amended sections 667, subdivision (a) and 1385 to
provide trial court discretion to strike enhancements for prior
felony convictions. (Stats. 2018, ch. 1013, § 1.) But there is no




                                64
statutory authorization for the trial court to impose but stay
punishment for an enhancement rather than striking it, “at least,
when the only basis for doing either is its own discretionary sense
of justice,” as it appears here. (People v. Lopez (2004) 119
Cal.App.4th 355, 364.) Rule 4.447 of the California Rules of
Court provides authority for imposing but staying an
enhancement, but this rule applies only “when ‘an enhancement
that otherwise would have to be either imposed or stricken is
barred by an overriding statutory prohibition,’ ” a circumstance
not present here. (People v. Bay (2019) 40 Cal.App.5th 126, 139.)
       Although Williams did not object to the court imposing but
staying the two five-year enhancements, this aspect of the
sentence is unauthorized and is reviewable on appeal in the
absence of an objection below. (See In re Sheena K. (2007) 40
Cal.4th 875, 886–887.) It is clear from the court’s entire sentence
and its comments when addressing these two enhancements that
the court intended not to impose additional punishment for them.
We will therefore accept the concession and strike the two five-
year enhancements imposed but stayed under section 667,
subdivision (a)(1) in connection with counts 1 and 4. (See People
v. Gutierrez (2014) 58 Cal.4th 1354, 1391 [remand not required if
record clearly indicates trial court would have exercised
discretion and reached the same conclusion]; People v. McDaniels
(2018) 22 Cal.App.5th 420, 425 [remand to trial court not
required when it would be an idle act].)
E.     Correction of the Abstract of Judgment
       Williams validly claims the abstract of judgment requires
correction in that it reflects a $10,000 parole revocation fine
imposed but suspended under section 1202.45 that the court did
not impose at all. As the court imposed two terms of life without




                                65
parole, it properly did not impose (and suspend) the parole
revocation fine under section 1202.45 in addition to the $10,000
restitution fund fine imposed under section 1202.4, subdivision
(d). (People v. Montes (2021) 70 Cal.App.5th 35, 49 [parole
revocation fine cannot be imposed when sentence is life without
parole as it is authorized only when the sentence includes a
period of parole].)
       An abstract of judgment must conform to the oral
pronouncement of judgment and a reviewing court is authorized
to order the correction of a clerical error. (People v. Farell (2002)
28 Cal.4th 381, 384, fn. 2 [court’s oral pronouncement controls
over clerk’s minute order]; People v. Mitchell (2001) 26 Cal.4th
181, 186–187 [appellate court may order correction of clerical
errors]; People v. Rowland (1988) 206 Cal.App.3d 119, 123
[reviewing court has authority to correct clerical errors in minute
order and abstract of judgment].)
       We accordingly direct correction of the abstract of judgment
in this respect in our disposition.
                       IV. DISPOSITION
       We strike the five-year additional punishment imposed but
stayed for the section 667, subdivision (a)(1) prior conviction
enhancements attached to the murder counts 1 and 4. We also
strike the $10,000 parole revocation fine under section 1202.45
from the abstract of judgment. We direct the clerk of the trial
court on remand to issue an amended abstract of judgment
reflecting these corrections and to forward the same to the
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The
judgment is otherwise affirmed.

      NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS




                                 66
                                   WILLIAMS, J. *

We concur:

HOFFSTADT, P. J.

MOOR J.




*     Judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court, assigned
by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the
California Constitution.




                              67