The California Supreme Court refused this week to review the case of a man convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s ex-husband at a mobile home park in Lancaster.
James Robert Carson was convicted of first-degree murder for the March 3, 2017, slaying of Joey Jojola, who was stabbed once in the heart and once in the back outside the trailer that the 50-year-old victim had bought for his ex-wife, her daughter and the daughter’s baby.
Carson testified on his own behalf during his trial, telling jurors that Jojola had ignored his explanation that he was merely visiting to babysit and angrily demanded to know why he was living at the trailer, according to an appellate court panel’s Jan. 7 ruling that upheld the defendant’s conviction.
“Appellant’s account was that he drew and swung his knife only as a warning, without intending to strike Jojola, but accidentally struck him when appellant slipped on the trailer steps at the same time Jojola advanced on him,” the appellate court panel justices wrote in their 41-page ruling.
The appellate court panel found that there was “sufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation to support appellant’s first-degree murder conviction.”
Carson — who had a 1994 conviction for voluntary manslaughter – is serving a potential life prison term for Jojola’s slaying.
