ANAHEIM/PLACENTIA : Appeals Court Voids 2 Men’s Convictions

A state appeals court on Thursday reversed a second-degree murder conviction against one man and an attempted-murder conviction against another, ruling that the trial judge in each case gave faulty instructions to the juries.

The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana overturned both convictions and ordered the cases sent back to the district attorney’s office for retrial.

The first case involved a man who had been convicted of second-degree murder for killing a man who accidentally hit him with a plate of food on July 8, 1989.

Martin Nieto-Benitez was eating his lunch near a catering truck in Anaheim when he was struck with the plate of food that had been tossed by two men having a food fight.

Nieto-Benitez became upset and demanded that one of the men clean his shirt. Both refused, and one of the men challenged Nieto-Benitez to a fight.

According to the account of the incident in the court’s 2-to-1 decision, Nieto-Benitez then went home and retrieved a gun. He returned to the scene and, when the man who wanted to fight allegedly charged, Nieto-Benitez pulled out the gun and fatally shot the man in the neck, the decision said.

The appeals court said the district attorney can refile murder charges against Nieto-Benitez, or have the conviction changed to a charge of involuntary manslaughter.

In the other case, an attempted-murder conviction against Donald Ewing was overturned in a 3-to-0 decision. Ewing had been convicted of second-degree attempted murder for shooting the owner of a Placentia automobile repair shop over a disputed repair bill on June 16, 1989.

The court said that if the district attorney fails to retry Ewing within 30 days, the conviction will be modified to attempted voluntary manslaughter.