California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Deletto, 147 Cal.App.3d 458, 195 Cal.Rptr. 233 (Cal. App. 1983):
[147 Cal.App.3d 474] We acknowledge that the result we arrive at is different from the result in our earlier decision, People v. McNeill, supra, 112 Cal.App.3d 330, 169 Cal.Rptr. 313. There, defendant was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury in violation of Penal Code section 245, subdivision (a). Although defendant was charged with the crime in a single count, evidence at trial indicated that he fired a series of rapid shots in the direction of four friends of a shooting victim. This court held the failure to give an instruction such as CALJIC No. 17.01 to be reversible error because "the jurors could have differed in their individual verdicts as to the identity of the victim of the assault." (People v. McNeill, supra, 112 Cal.App.3d at p. 335, 169 Cal.Rptr. 313.)
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