A state appeals court panel on Thursday reversed a man’s felony conviction for attacking a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy while he was awaiting trial in the murder of an Irvine research scientist who was camping with his two young daughters in Malibu Creek State Park.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal found that a reasonable jury could conclude that the male deputy’s injuries were “not serious enough to require professional medical treatment.” The panel found it is “reasonably probable” that Anthony Rauda could have obtained a more favorable result in his trial if jurors had been allowed to consider the lesser offense of misdemeanor battery on an officer.
In their 17-page ruling, the appellate court justices noted that the prosecution will have the opportunity to retry Rauda on the felony battery charge. Otherwise, the conviction on that charge will be deemed a misdemeanor and Rauda will be re-sentenced, according to the ruling.
Superior Court Judge David R. Fields sentenced Rauda in 2022 to three years and eight months in jail following the defendant’s conviction on two felony counts of battery with injury on a peace officer involving the March 20, 2020, attack on a male sheriff’s deputy after a hearing in his murder case, and a separate attack on a female sheriff’s deputy at Men’s Central Jail with a shaved-down pencil after a contentious court hearing in March 2022. That sentence amounted to time he had already served behind bars.
Rauda was subsequently convicted in May 2023 of second-degree murder for the June 22, 2018, shooting death of Tristan Beaudette as the victim camped with his daughters in Malibu Creek State Park.
Rauda was also found guilty of three counts of attempted murder, including two involving Beaudette’s daughters, who were not struck by the gunfire, along with five counts of second-degree commercial burglary.
Jurors acquitted him of seven other attempted murder charges involving a series of other early morning shootings in the same area.
Rauda was sentenced in June 2023 to 119 years to life in state prison in that case, with Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter calling the case “chilling,” “violent” and “cold-blooded.”
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“There’s absolutely no remorse. It’s like somebody’s worst nightmare,” the judge said then.
Rauda was brought into the downtown Los Angeles courtroom that day in a restraint chair and wearing a spit-hood over his head — the result of the two earlier attacks on sheriff’s deputies.
Rauda has also appealed his conviction in the murder case. That appeal is still pending.