Opinion ID: 1111213
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Manslaughter Issues

Text: Defendant presents two arguments for his claim that the trial court should have instructed the jury on manslaughter for the death of the fetus as was done for Doreen's death. First, he contends that trial testimony created a factual issue as to whether the fetus was born alive and thus was a human being under the manslaughter statutes. If so, he asserts the jury should have had the option of returning a manslaughter verdict for that death also. Second, defendant claims his rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated because California law does not include manslaughter as a crime in the death of a fetus. We discuss each argument in turn and conclude that neither has merit.
(7a) Under the Penal Code, as was true under common law, a fetus is not a human being within section 187's definition of murder as the unlawful killing of a human being.... ( Keeler v. Superior Court (1970) 2 Cal.3d 619, 628, 631 [87 Cal. Rptr. 481, 470 P.2d 617, 40 A.L.R.3d 420].) After Keeler, the Legislature amended section 187 specifically to include as murder the unlawful killing of ... a fetus.... (Stats. 1970, ch. 1311, § 1, p. 2440.) The Legislature made no similar amendment to section 192's definition of manslaughter as the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. As a result, the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought is murder, but only the unlawful killing of a human being can constitute manslaughter. ( People v. Carlson (1974) 37 Cal. App.3d 349, 355 [112 Cal. Rptr. 321].) There is no crime in California of manslaughter of a fetus. ( People v. Brown (1995) 35 Cal. App.4th 1585, 1592 [42 Cal. Rptr.2d 155]; People v. Apodaca, supra, 76 Cal. App.3d at pp. 491-492; People v. Carlson, supra, 37 Cal. App.3d at p. 355.) Under Keeler, the dispositive question is whether the fetus was born alive, and so became a human being within the meaning of the homicide statutes. ( Keeler v. Superior Court, supra, 2 Cal.3d at p. 628.) Keeler did not address the indicia that could determine when a fetus is born alive. The fetus in Keeler, though developed to the stage of viability, had suffered a fractured skull in utero that caused its immediate death; the fetus was delivered stillborn with no air in its lungs. ( Id. at pp. 623-624.) Therefore, Keeler considered the defendant's act to be the killing of an unborn, though viable, fetus and not the killing a human being for purposes of the homicide statutes. ( Id. at p. 631.) More recently, People v. Flores (1992) 3 Cal. App.4th 200 [4 Cal. Rptr.2d 120] discussed this issue in the context of a defendant charged with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in violation of section 191.5, subdivision (a). There, after the defendant's car collided with a pregnant woman's car, doctors attempted to deliver her eight-and-one-half-month-old fetus by emergency cesarean section. ( People v. Flores, supra, 3 Cal. App.4th at pp. 203-204.) The fetus had a faint, weak heartbeat that lasted for a few minutes, but the evidence failed to show it ever had breathed independently. ( Id. at p. 204.) The medical examiner testified that death occurred during the perinatal period, defined as the time immediately before, during, and after birth. ( Id. at p. 205.) Flores reviewed the common law antecedents that Keeler noted, which suggested that one of the tests for a live birth was an independent circulation and that evidence of breathing alone may not be conclusive. ( People v. Flores, supra, 3 Cal. App.4th at pp. 206-207.) Flores also analyzed the earlier decision in People v. Chavez (1947) 77 Cal. App.2d 621 [176 P.2d 92]. From that case Flores drew the rule that a killing during the birth of a demonstrably alive and viable fetus is the killing of a human being, if the birth would in the natural course of events be completed successfully. ( People v. Flores, supra, 3 Cal. App.4th at pp. 208-209; see also Keeler v. Superior Court, supra, 2 Cal.3d at pp. 637-638.) Flores read Chavez as establishing that evidence of independent heart and lung action is sufficient evidence the infant was born alive. ( People v. Flores, supra, 3 Cal. App.4th at p. 209.) From these and other authorities, Flores attempted to distill the criteria that can establish a live birth under common law standards. The court stated: Heart action, or circulation, is not enough in itself to sustain life; there also must be respiration. Consequently, a faint heartbeat lasting only briefly generally is insufficient in the absence of other signs of life. [Citation.] [¶] Conversely, if there is evidence of independent respiration, this generally establishes an independent circulation and existence. [Citation.] However, that a fetus/infant takes but a few spontaneous breaths and then immediately ceases breathing will not establish a live birth, i.e., an independent existence, for such evidence supports only the possibility and that is insufficient. [Citation.] ( People v. Flores, supra, 3 Cal. App.4th at p. 209.) Flores found a more authoritative and appropriate test, however, by looking to the statutory definition of death stated in Health and Safety Code section 7180, subdivision (a). [8] Reasoning that life is the obverse of death, and that common law definitions should be used only when there is no statutory definition, the Flores court held that for life to be present, both of the statute's disjunctive prongs must be absent. ( People v. Flores, supra, 3 Cal. App.4th at p. 210.) Flores concluded that evidence of an independent heartbeat alone could be sufficient to show circulation and respiration had not irreversibly ceased. ( Ibid. ) However, the court also said a conclusion that life exists requires more. At least, there must be evidence of brain stem activity, such as an attempt to breathe independently. ( Id. at pp. 210-211.) Defendant contends substantial evidence shows the fetus was born alive and thus died as a human being. Therefore, he asserts the trial court should have instructed the jury on manslaughter as a lesser included offense to murder for that death, as the trial court did for Doreen's killing. However, we need not decide in this case what evidence is sufficient to establish a fetus was born alive so as to be a human being as the term is used in the homicide statutes. We therefore also have no occasion to discuss what circumstances could have required a manslaughter instruction in this case. The record here lacks substantial evidence of any indicia that the fetus was born alive. (8) `[D]ue process requires that a lesser included offense instruction be given only when the evidence warrants such an instruction.' [Citations.] ( People v. Kaurish (1990) 52 Cal.3d 648, 696 [276 Cal. Rptr. 788, 802 P.2d 278], quoting Hopper v. Evans (1982) 456 U.S. 605, 611 [102 S.Ct. 2049, 2052-2053, 72 L.Ed.2d 367], italics in Hopper. ) Substantial evidence in this context is evidence from which a rational trier of fact could find beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of the lesser offense. ( People v. Berryman (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1048, 1081 [25 Cal. Rptr.2d 867, 864 P.2d 40].) [S]peculation is not evidence, less still substantial evidence. [Citation.] ( Ibid. ) (7b) The expulsion of the fetus from Doreen's womb in no way resembled the live birth of a human being. The chief medical examiner and coroner testified in detail concerning the objective findings made during the autopsy of Doreen and her fetus. Defendant's attack on Doreen inflicted many deep wounds, including a gaping, nine-inch-long wound to her abdomen and a parallel five-and-one-half-inch-long chopping wound. Multiple cuts penetrated her abdomen and uterus while the fetus was inside. The cuts passed through or around the fetus and into the placenta, which remained inside Doreen's abdomen. There were four cuts in the umbilical cord, which was still attached to the placenta; one cut severed the umbilical cord close to the fetus's body. The fetus was expelled through the large abdominal wound. The fetus too sustained many cutting wounds. A cut to the head penetrated into the bone. The left leg was severed below the knee. A large, five-inch wound cut through half of the fetus's body. The wound extended from the upper right abdomen through the left chest and to the left armpit, cutting through the shoulder blade, the second thoracic vertebra, the liver, and one lung, and transecting the heart. This wound stopped the heart and circulation. Examination of the lungs demonstrated they had never been expanded, and there was no air in them. The fetus never breathed or lived independently of Doreen. The injuries to Doreen and her fetus prevented the fetus from ever breathing. Against this physical evidence and expert opinion, defendant offers one ambiguous piece of testimony to establish his position. As Charles Erbert testified about what he did when he came home and found his wife and the fetus lying in a blood-covered hallway, the prosecutor asked if his daughter Deanna had tried to come to him. Charles answered: I remember I turned around and I saw her standing there. I went over and grabbed her, and I took her around the kitchen area so she would  couldn't see. I guess  she said she saw the whole  she came out, she heard the baby crying. [9] Defendant construes this passage as meaning Deanna told her father that she heard the fetus crying during the attack. Defendant characterizes this as evidence of independent breathing such that the court should have had the jury decide whether the fetus was born alive. To the contrary, no rational finder of fact could have reached that conclusion based on this fragment of Charles Erbert's testimony. There simply was not substantial evidence that the fetus was born alive under any recognized criteria.
(9) Defendant argues his rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated because California's statutory scheme contains no provision for the crime of manslaughter in the killing of a fetus. He contends the statutory scheme is unconstitutional because it requires a finding of death eligibility whenever a defendant is found guilty of the first degree murder of a pregnant woman and any degree of murder of her fetus. Defendant suggests there is an inherent bias whenever the jury finds first degree murder of the mother. In these cases, defendant argues, the jury must then find the multiple-murder special circumstance to be true if it finds either degree of murder as to the fetus. The jury's only other choice at that point would be to find no crime for the fetus's death, because it does not have the option of a manslaughter verdict. This procedure, defendant contends, results in the unreliable, arbitrary, and capricious application of the death penalty in cases of feticide, particularly where the fetal killing is not first degree murder. Defendant further argues this scheme also violates equal protection because these double killings are treated differently from other multiple murders solely because the second killing was a feticide. All other defendants charged with multiple-murder special circumstances are entitled to manslaughter instructions for any killing if the evidence of malice is sufficiently doubtful to support instruction on the lesser included offense. As the Attorney General observes, these arguments simply recast defendant's assertions of a constitutional entitlement to jury instructions on the section 12022.9 enhancement as a lesser included or lesser related offense. That California law does not provide for the crime of manslaughter of a fetus does not result in an unreliable death eligibility determination if a defendant is charged with a multiple-murder special circumstance for the deaths of a pregnant woman and her fetus. The due process concern for a reliable factfinding process in capital cases that underlies Beck, supra, 447 U.S. 625, is not implicated solely because a defendant does not have a full panoply of lesser charges made available to the jury. ( Schad v. Arizona (1991) 501 U.S. 624, 645-646 [111 S.Ct. 2491, 2504-2505, 115 L.Ed.2d 555].) Our fundamental concern in Beck was that a jury convinced that the defendant had committed some violent crime but not convinced that he was guilty of a capital crime might nonetheless vote for a capital conviction if the only alternative was to set the defendant free with no punishment at all. ( Schad v. Arizona, supra, 501 U.S. at p. 646 [111 S.Ct. at p. 2504].) These concerns do not arise when the jury, as here, is not faced with that all-or-nothing choice between capital murder and acquittal. ( Id. at p. 647 [111 S.Ct. at p. 2505].) As we have already discussed, defendant's jury had several choices other than acquittal and capital murder in assessing his culpability for killing Doreen and her fetus. The trial court's instructions allowed the jury to return verdicts of second degree murder for both deaths and gave the jury the additional option of a verdict of voluntary manslaughter with respect to Doreen's killing. We do not find arbitrary, capricious, or irrational the distinction between a defendant whose jury may consider several manslaughter verdicts because of the state of the evidence and the victims' status, and a defendant whose jury may consider only one manslaughter verdict because the victims were a pregnant woman and her unborn fetus. The Legislature could reasonably and rationally conclude the unlawful killing of a fetus should be punished when committed with express or implied malice, but that when such a killing occurs upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion (§ 192, subd. (a)), the punishment for the crime against the mother is sufficient. In any event, it appears that a manslaughter instruction even as to Doreen's death was not called for in this case. The killings could not have occurred in a sudden quarrel or heat of passion. (§ 192, subd. (a).) They took place four years after the death of defendant's son and two years after the verdict in his wrongful death case. There was no claim of imperfect self-defense. The trial court gave no instructions on these theories. Instead, the court instructed the jury that mental disease or disorder could negate malice so that defendant's killing of Doreen could be the offense of manslaughter. This instruction was improper after the abolition of the diminished capacity defense, which occurred before defendant killed Doreen and her fetus. (See People v. Saille (1991) 54 Cal.3d 1103, 1115-1117 [2 Cal. Rptr.2d 364, 820 P.2d 588].) Of course, any error in giving a manslaughter instruction was harmless given the jury's verdict of murder.