C.A. 2nd;
B278902

The Second Appellate District granted a petition for writ of habeas corpus. The court held that the record of a 2002 robbery-murder was insufficient to support a finding that an aider and abettor acted with the reckless indifference to human life needed to support a special circumstance finding.

In 2000, then 17-year old Tyrone Miller organized the “follow-home” robbery with two fellow gang members, also 17 years of age. Miller decided that he would stake out a bank, waiting for a customer to make a large cash withdrawal, Derrick Patton would follow the customer in his car with Melvin Tate, and Tate would commit the robbery. At the bank, Miller identified a female customer withdrawing a large amount of cash. Patton followed her to her destination. When the victim, Ana Savaria, and her companion, Rene Franco, got out of their car, Patton handed Tate a gun and told him to get Savaria's purse. Tate got out of his car and, as Savaria and Franco walked past him, Tate grabbed Savaria's purse, Saravia fell to the ground, and Tate told her not to get up. When Franco moved towards Tate, Tate shot him in the chest. Franco died from the gunshot wound. Miller was convicted of the robbery of Savaria and the first degree murder of Franco, with the special circumstance that the murder was committed during the commission of a robbery. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.