California Supreme Court
People v. Barrera
June 1, 2026
Summary
The court upheld Barrera’s convictions for two first degree murders, related child-abuse offenses, torture-murder special-circumstance findings, and death sentence. It concluded that substantial evidence supported both torture-murder and premeditated-murder theories, and that any assumed evidentiary or instructional errors were harmless under the applicable standards. The court also rejected challenges concerning lesser-included offenses, jury instructions, and penalty-phase prosecutorial comments.