California Supreme Court Rules that Conduct Alone is Insufficient to Support Finding of Ties between Subsets of Criminal Street Gang

Sep 9, 2015

The California Supreme Court held last month in People v. Prunty, S210234, that when the prosecution seeks to prove the street gang enhancement (Pen. Code, sec. 186.22(b)) by showing a defendant committed a felony to benefit a given gang, but establishes the commission of the required predicate offenses with evidence of crimes committed by members of the gang’s alleged subsets, it must prove a connection between the gang and the subsets. This is a good decision when dealing with gang subsets and the STEP Act and sets forth what the prosecution must show to establish a defendant acted for the benefit of a gang.
The case is at:  http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S210234.PDF