Opinion ID: 2537905
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Sufficiency of the Evidence Defendant Stabbed Navarro

Text: Defendant contends the record contains insufficient evidence he stabbed Navarro, necessitating that we vacate his murder conviction and the multiple-murder special-circumstance finding. The conviction was supported by substantial evidence. In her January 12, 1991 taped statement to police, which was played for the jury, Pauline Mesa recounted seeing defendant, with whom she was acquainted, stab a man in a truck. The victim in the truck was Navarro. Lawrence Casas testified that the guy, identified by other witnesses as defendant, approached Navarro's truck in which Navarro was sitting in the driver's seat with his window open. Defendant was carrying a knife with a blade at least six inches long. Casas saw defendant reach into Navarro's window or doorway and struggle back and forth. Luis Robledo testified that he also saw the assailant, who was the same person who attacked Montoya and Moncada, and who was identified by others as defendant, go towards the truck after attacking Moncada. Robledo saw defendant make stabbing motions at Navarro through the open truck window. (8) This testimony constitutes substantial evidence that defendant stabbed Navarro. Absent exceptions not pertinent here, the testimony of a single witness is sufficient for the proof of any fact. ( People v. Richardson (2008) 43 Cal.4th 959, 1030 [77 Cal.Rptr.3d 163, 183 P.3d 1146]; see People v. Najera (2008) 43 Cal.4th 1132, 1136-1137 [77 Cal.Rptr.3d 605, 184 P.3d 732].) Contrary to defendant's implication, lighting conditions on the night of the crimes, inconsistencies within certain testimony or with prior statements, differences between the witnesses' estimates of defendant's height and his actual height, and whether defendant could physically complete the crimes in the time and manner described by certain witnesses, were matters for the jury to determine.