In a nine-page unpublished decision, the three justices unanimously upheld Renato Hughes Jr.'s conviction, handed down in August 2008 in a Martinez court, where it was moved due to pretrial publicity.
Hughes also was convicted of a special allegation of being armed with a shotgun during the commission of a burglary.
Hughes, now 25, was at the center of a widely publicized case centering on a break-in that occurred on Dec. 7, 2005.
He and two friends, Christian Foster, 22, and Rashad Williams, 21, had allegedly broken into the Clearlake Park home of Shannon Edmonds and his then-girlfriend, Lori Tyler, to steal marijuana.
During the incident, Edmonds, Tyler and Tyler's 17-year-old son, Dale Lafferty, were assaulted, with Lafferty being beaten with a bat, causing longterm brain injury.
Edmonds shot Foster and Williams as they fled from his house. Williams died at the scene, while Foster – who was found alive in some bushes across from the home – later died of his wounds, according to court documents.
Hughes was charged under the provocative act law with homicide for Foster's and Williams' deaths because he allegedly had been part of committing crimes that could result in a lethal response. During the trial, District Attorney Jon Hopkins said the three were part of a “crime team.”
However, Hughes was acquitted of those murder charges, as well as robbery and the attempted murder of Lafferty, with the court hanging on a lesser assault charge of assault causing great bodily injury.
According to state law, the trial court was able to send Hughes back to Lake County for sentencing. On Sept. 8, 2008, Judge Arthur Mann gave Hughes an eight-year prison sentence, although with time served and credits Hughes was only expected to serve about four years, as Lake County News has reported.
He filed his appeal in October 2008.
In Hughes' appeal, his attorney, Marylou Elin Hillberg of Sebastopol, sought a review of a pre-trial order that found there was no discoverable material in the personnel records of a Clearlake Police Officer Michael Ray.
The appeal also contended that Mann erred in imposing the upper term of six years for the burglary conviction.
Before Hughes' case was moved to Martinez, his defense attorney, San Franciscan Stuart Hanlon, filed a Pitchess motion based on allegations that Ray, who participated in the investigation, had tampered with blood evidence in the case. Mann held an in camera review – held confidentially in chambers – of Ray's records and ruled there was nothing discoverable.
The justices faulted both Hughes' attorney and the California Attorney General's Office, who argued against the appeal, for misidentifying Ray in court documents, noting that “recycling arguments written for other cases is a dangerous practice.”
In arguing against the sentencing, Hughes contended that Mann violated his Sixth Amendment rights “by imposing an upper term sentence for burglary based on aggravating circumstances that were not independently proven to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The appellate court, noting, “we are disappointed by both parties' failure to tailor their arguments to the facts of this case,” stated in the decision that, based on a new sentencing scheme adopted before Mann passed sentence in September 2008, the trial court didn't abuse its discretion by imposing the upper term for the burglary.
Although Edmonds stated to investigators and in court that he shot Foster and Williams, he was not prosecuted in the case.
However, Edmonds, 35, currently is facing a homicide charge for the Sept. 22 stabbing death of 25-year-old Montanan and recent Lake County resident Shelby Uehling, as Lake County News has report.
On the same day as Hughes' sentence was upheld, Edmonds and his co-defendant in the Uehling murder case, Melvin Norton, 38, were in Mann's court with their attorneys, Doug Rhoades and Stephen Carter, respectively, going over evidence in the case. Testimony is set to start Thursday morning.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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