## Facts

- After an evening in Tijuana, Eglen Coss drove home on Interstate 805 with Moraima Coss and Noah Johnson.
- Occupants of a silver Ford F-150 believed Coss had cut them off; the drivers exchanged yelling and offensive hand gestures.
- While the vehicles traveled side by side with a lane between them, the Ford’s front passenger (wearing a red shirt) extended an arm out the window and fired a handgun.
- The bullet passed through Eglen Coss’s arm and struck Moraima Coss in the head, killing her; the Ford fled.
- During the investigation, Eglen Coss first selected another person in a photo lineup, then later selected Oropeza’s photo as looking most like the shooter.
- A jury convicted Jorge Diego Oropeza of first degree murder, attempted murder, shooting at an inhabited vehicle, and discharging a firearm from a vehicle, and found true firearm enhancements.
- The trial court imposed an aggregate sentence of 80 years to life.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court was required to instruct on voluntary manslaughter based on sudden quarrel/heat of passion where the asserted provocation was being cut off in traffic followed by mutual insults and gestures.
2. Whether the evidence supported legally adequate provocation under an objective “reasonable person” standard sufficient to reduce murder to voluntary manslaughter.
3. Whether other claimed trial errors (instructional, evidentiary, enhancements, and alleged prosecutorial misconduct) required reversal or resentencing.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment and sentence.
- The court held there was no substantial evidence of objectively adequate provocation to support heat-of-passion voluntary manslaughter.
- Because the provocation was legally insufficient, the trial court did not err in refusing (and had no duty to give) a sudden quarrel/heat-of-passion manslaughter instruction.
- The court rejected Oropeza’s remaining claims of error, including challenges to rulings at trial, enhancements, and argument.

## Legal Principles

- Voluntary manslaughter based on sudden quarrel/heat of passion requires provocation that would cause an ordinarily reasonable person of average disposition to act rashly and without due deliberation.
- Anger from being cut off in traffic, even combined with mutual yelling and offensive gestures, is not adequate provocation as a matter of law to justify escalation to aggressive pursuit and a shooting.
- A trial court must instruct on lesser included offenses only when substantial evidence supports the lesser theory; absent such evidence, refusal to instruct is proper.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Oropeza’s murder conviction and sentence, concluding that routine road-rage provocation—being cut off and exchanging insults and gestures—cannot reasonably support a heat-of-passion theory and therefore does not warrant a voluntary manslaughter instruction.


People v. Oropeza, 59 Cal. Rptr. 3d 653 (Cal. Ct. App. 2007)