Opinion ID: 2567349
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Residential burglary as aggravating evidence

Text: During the penalty phase, the prosecution presented evidence that defendant committed burglary on April 4, 1985. On that date, defendant and Officer Lisa Thomas, who was working undercover and posing as defendant's friend, spent several hours at the Wit's End bar. Defendant talked at length about breaking into houses, telling Thomas that, among other things, it was better to do it at night, that one should stake out the house in order to learn the residents' patterns, that if a child lived in the house one was burglarizing, he or she could be tied up and made to tell where items were and the police would not consider the child a reliable witness. Defendant discussed alarm systems and methods of getting away from the scene of a burglary. He told Thomas they should not smoke marijuana for at least two days before committing any burglaries. After four or five hours at the Wit's End, defendant and Thomas went to Goethe Park and walked for about an hour and a half on a trail that ran along the river. Defendant seemed to sober up during this time. Returning to the park entrance, defendant saw a house on the corner with a bug zapper with bright blue lights in the yard. Defendant went into the yard and called to Thomas, saying he had found an unlocked door and wanted to go in and take a stereo. He instructed her to act as a lookout and left her to enter the house. Sergeant Goulart, meanwhile, was conducting electronic surveillance, and Thomas, using a wireless transmitter, told him of defendant's plan. Thomas ran to a neighboring house, woke the residents and used their telephone to call the sheriff's office. Sergeant Goulart testified that he had followed defendant and Thomas since 3:00 p.m. that day, listening to their conversation over the wireless transmitter. When he saw defendant enter the house through a sliding door around 11:00 p.m., he told Thomas to go down the block and call the sheriff's office. After four or five minutes, Goulart saw defendant run out of the house. Goulart shined a flashlight on defendant's face, identified himself as a police officer, and ordered defendant to the ground. He then physically forced defendant down, dragged him back to the house, and yelled to the residents for assistance. The house defendant had entered belonged to Richard Rennie, who lived there with his family. When the Rennies went to bed around 11:00 p.m., Mr. Rennie checked on his daughter and made sure her comforter was atop her bed. Ten to 15 minutes later, Rennie heard a commotion and went downstairs to investigate, stepping on something in the hallway on the way. Turning on the light, he saw Sergeant Goulart trying to handcuff defendant. Rennie noticed a pair of scissors lying in the middle of the family room floor, out of its customary place in the dining room. Going upstairs later, Rennie noticed his daughter's quilt, on which he had stepped, lying in the hall halfway out of her room. As relevant to the evidence of the Rennie incident, the trial court instructed the jury with language adapted from CALJIC No. 14.50 on burglary for theft. The trial court also instructed the jury with the language of section 190.3, factor (b), which, as noted, directs the jury to consider the presence or absence of criminal activity by the defendant, other than the crimes for which he was tried in the present proceedings, that involved the use or attempted use of force or violence or the express or implied threat to use force or violence. Defendant makes two related claims of error: (1) the instruction on burglary for theft improperly permitted the jury to find an aggravating factor based on an offense not involving the use or threat of force or violence against a person, in violation of section 190.3, factor (b), an error he asserts was compounded by the trial court's failure to define the term express or implied threat to use force or violence; and (2) any instruction on burglary was improper because the evidence failed to show that any force or violence was used or threatened in the course of the incident. These errors, he contends, violated state law and deprived him of a reliable verdict as guaranteed by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution. We find no error. To the extent defendant is arguing that burglary for theft categorically is an offense not involving force or violence, and therefore can never be the subject of a section 190.3, factor (b) instruction, he is mistaken. (See People v. Montiel (1993) 5 Cal.4th 877, 936, 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 705, 855 P.2d 1277 [residential burglary in which the defendant displayed a knife to the resident involved actual or threatened violence, and evidence thereof was admissible under factor (b)].) Whether such a burglary involves force or violence, and thus qualifies as an aggravating factor under factor (b), depends on the circumstances of its commission. Defendant's contention that the trial court erred in failing to define express or implied threat to use force or violence in the context of a section 190.3, factor (b) burglary likewise lacks merit. He cites no decision, and we have found none, holding that the phrase must be defined for the jury. It is self-explanatory. In rejecting a claim that factor (b) is unconstitutionally vague, the high court in Tuilaepa v. California (1994) 512 U.S. 967, 114 S.Ct. 2630, 129 L.Ed.2d 750, noted it is phrased in conventional and understandable terms ( id. at pp. 976, 977, 114 S.Ct. 2630) and affirmed that it possesses a `common-sense core of meaning ... that criminal juries should be capable of understanding.' ( Id. at p. 975, 114 S.Ct. 2630.) Furthermore, we agree with the Attorney General that, although the portion of the instructions defining burglary, in isolation, did not refer to the force or violence requirement, nevertheless, when read together, the burglary instruction, the general section 190.3, factor (b) instruction, and CALJIC No. 8.87 adequately conveyed to the jury that, before it could consider the Rennie incident in aggravation it had to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, all of the elements of the offense of burglary and that the offense involved the use or attempted use of force or violence, or the express or implied threat to use force or violence. Defendant's remaining contention, that the evidence failed to show any force or violence was used or threatened in the course of the Rennie burglary, fails. Richard Rennie testified that, after defendant was apprehended, Rennie found a pair of scissors lying on the floor, away from its usual place in the dining room, and his daughter's quilt lay on the floor, halfway out of her bedroom. Officer Thomas testified that, while she was working undercover before the Rennie incident, defendant spoke with her about the possibility of committing burglaries, telling her, in effect, that the police do not take 12-year-old children seriously as witnesses, and that if a child were present at a burglary he or she could be tied up or handcuffed and questioned about the location of items in the house. Seen in the context of defendant's musings about restraining a child to facilitate stealing a family's valuables, Rennie's testimony supported an inference that defendant armed himself with the scissors, entered the sleeping girl's bedroom and disturbed her quilt before being interrupted and attempting to leave the house. That other inferences could, as defendant suggests, be drawn from these facts does not mean the instruction was improper. In sum, there was evidence sufficient to support a jury finding that defendant attempted to use force or violence in committing the burglary, and the jury was properly instructed under section 190.3, factor (b).