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Date: 05-08-2023

Case Style:

The People v. Eddie Lopez Montanez

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Judge:

Court: Superior Court, San Diego County, California

Plaintiff's Attorney: San Diego County District Attorney's Office

Defendant's Attorney:




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Description: San Diego, California criminal defense lawyer represented Defendant charged with murder.


Delores Attig was murdered in a secluded area of Balboa Park in 1986. She was with two male friends smoking and talking in their car when they were attacked by four male assailants, two of them armed with guns. The assailants bound her friends and robbed them. Delores was led a short distance away, where she was gang raped and then shot once in the head at close range. Her murder remained a cold case for more than 20 years, until DNA analysis of evidence collected from her body led to the arrest of four men in 2007: Eddie Montanez, his brother Steve Montanez,[1] and two juveniles.

In 2010, a jury convicted Eddie of the first degree felony murder of Delores (Pen. Code,[2] § 187, subd. (a)), and found true a principal personally used a firearm (§ 12022, subd. (a)).[3] The jury rejected special circumstance allegations that Eddie aided and abetted the murder while engaged in the commission and attempted commission of robbery, rape, sodomy, and oral copulation (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)). He was sentenced to an indeterminate term of 25 years to life in prison, plus an additional year for the firearm enhancement. In 2012, this court affirmed the judgment. (People v. Montanez, et al. (Nov. 14, 2012, D058128) [nonpub. opn.].)[4]

In 2018, Eddie petitioned to vacate his murder conviction pursuant to section 1172.6,[5] a procedural provision enacted to allow certain defendants to take advantage of a legislative amendment that restricted the scope of our state's felony murder law. The superior court denied Eddie's petition after an evidentiary hearing, in 2021. The court found the prosecution established beyond a reasonable doubt that Eddie was a major participant in the underlying robbery and sex crimes who acted with reckless indifference to human life, and thus Eddie remained liable for first degree felony murder under the new law. On appeal, Eddie contends there is insufficient evidence to support the superior court's findings he was a major participant in the felonies underlying Delores's murder who acted with reckless indifference to human life.

Outcome: We affirm the order.

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