Opinion ID: 1291295
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Erroneous Answer to Jury's Question Regarding Duration of Burglary

Text: Defendant contends the trial court, by its answer to a question the jury posed during deliberations, erroneously removed a factual issue from the jury's consideration, in violation of state and federal due process and jury trial principles requiring all elements of the charged offenses to be proven to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. (See United States v. Gaudin (1995) 515 U.S. 506, 510, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444; Sullivan v. Louisiana (1993) 508 U.S. 275, 277-278, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 124 L.Ed.2d 182; People v. Flood (1998) 18 Cal.4th 470, 479-482, 76 Cal. Rptr.2d 180, 957 P.2d 869.) We agree, but conclude the error was harmless as to both the conviction of first degree murder and the burglary-murder special circumstance. During guilt phase deliberations, the jury sent out a note with the following two related questions: Does burglary begin when a structure is entered and continue until the structure is left? If during the process of a burglary, a robbery begins, does the crime of burglary continue until the structure is left? Over defense objection, the court answered as follows: Although it is alleged that the killing in the present case occurred sometime after it is alleged the defendant entered the house, if the jury finds that the defendant committed burglary by entering the house with the intent to steal, the homicide and the burglary are parts of one continuous transaction. The court drew its answer from language in People v. Mason (1960) 54 Cal.2d 164, 169, 4 Cal.Rptr. 841, 351 P.2d 1025. In that case, the evidence showed the defendant had entered the house of a woman whom he had previously harassed and threatened, remaining there for almost a full day before she came home with her mother and son. The defendant then emerged from a closet and shot at the woman, injuring her and killing her mother. ( Id. at pp. 165-167, 4 Cal.Rptr. 841, 351 P.2d 1025.) On appeal from his murder conviction, Mason contended the jury should not have been instructed on a felony-murder theory of first degree murder because of the long period between the entry and the killing. We rejected that contention, observing that our law of felony murder does not require a `strict causal relationship' between the felony and the murder, that it requires no `technical inquiry concerning whether there has been a completion, abandonment, or desistence of the felony before the homicide was completed,' and that the homicide is considered to be committed in the perpetration of the felony if the two were parts of `one continuous transaction.' ( Id. at pp. 168-169, 4 Cal.Rptr. 841, 351 P.2d 1025.) In the passage the trial court here adapted for its answer to the jury question, we continued: Although the killing in the present case occurred about 20 hours after defendant entered the house, if the jury found that defendant committed burglary by entering the house with the intent to commit a felonious assault, the homicide and the burglary were parts of one continuous transaction. [Citations.] Accordingly, the trial court did not err in instructing the jury that murder committed in the perpetration of burglary is murder of the first degree. ( People v. Mason, supra, 54 Cal.2d at p. 169, 4 Cal.Rptr. 841, 351 P.2d 1025.) We have repeatedly, both before and after People v. Mason, invoked the one continuous transaction analysis as a standard for sufficiency of evidence to support a felony-murder instruction or conviction. (See, e.g., People v. Welch (1972) 8 Cal.3d 106, 118-119,104 Cal.Rptr. 217, 501 P.2d 225; People v. Chavez (1951) 37 Cal.2d 656, 669-670, 234 P.2d 632; see also People v. Hernandez (1988) 47 Cal.3d 315, 348, 253 Cal.Rptr. 199, 763 P.2d 1289 [rejecting strict construction of the temporal relationship between felony and killing as to both first degree murder and felony-murder special circumstance].) But to hold, as we did in these cases and in People v. Mason, that evidence sufficient to show a single continuous transaction justifies an instruction or conviction on felony murder, is not to hold that the judge, rather than the jury, decides whether the existence of such a single transaction and, hence, a murder in the perpetration of the felony, was proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Even where substantial evidence supports such a finding, it is for the jury to decide whether or not the murder was committed in the perpetration of (§ 189), or while the defendant was engaged in ... the commission of (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)), the specified felony. By its answer to the jury's question, the trial court in this case effectively removed that factual issue from the jury's consideration. This was error of constitutional dimension, as the court thereby relieved the jury of its obligation to determine whether all the elements of first degree murder and the burglary-murder special circumstance were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Omission or removal of a single element from the jury is not, however, a structural defect in the trial mechanism that defies harmless error review and automatically requires reversal.... ( People v. Flood supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 503, 76 Cal.Rptr.2d 180, 957 P.2d 869; see also Neder v. United States (1999) 527 U.S. 1, 8-15, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 1833-1837, 144 L.Ed.2d 35, 46-51; People v. Marshall (1996) 13 Cal.4th 799, 851-852, 55 Cal.Rptr.2d 347, 919 P.2d 1280.) We may affirm the jury's verdicts despite the error if, but only if, it appears beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the particular verdict at issue. ( People v. Flood, supra, at p. 504, 76 Cal.Rptr.2d 180, 957 P.2d 869; Chapman v. California, supra, 386 U.S. at p. 24, 87 S.Ct. 824.) In particular, we may affirm despite the error if the jury that rendered the verdict at issue could not rationally have found the omitted element unproven; the error is harmless, that is, if the record contains no substantial evidence supporting a factual theory under which the elements submitted to the jury were proven but the omitted element was not. ( Neder v. United States, supra, 527 U.S. at pp. 18-20, 119 S.Ct. at p. 1838, 144 L.Ed.2d at p. 53.) That the erroneous answer did not contribute to defendant's conviction of first degree murder is plain. In addition to the theory of killing in the perpetration of burglary, the jury was instructed on three additional theories of first degree murder: killing in the perpetration of robbery, deliberate and premeditated murder, and murder by lying in wait. As the jury found true the robbery-murder special-circumstance allegation, necessarily finding the murder was committed in the commission of robbery, we can determine that [the first degree murder] verdict rested on at least one correct theory, and the court's answer on duration of burglary was thus of no consequence to the murder charge. ( People v. Kelly (1992) 1 Cal.4th 495, 531, 3 Cal.Rptr.2d 677, 822 P.2d 385, italics omitted.) The error's harmlessness as to the burglary-murder special-circumstance finding is also clear. Under some circumstances, perhaps, the burglarious transaction that begins with entry into the building might be found to have ended even though the burglar has not leftif, for example, he abandons his original larcenous intent but resolves to stay for a nonfelonious purpose. The evidence before the jury here, however, did not include any such abandonment of intent or any similar interruption. Although there was evidence that after entering and stealing, defendant and his coperpetrator formed the additional intent to attack the victim, there was no substantial evidence they at any point before the killing discarded or abandoned their intent to steal from her. (See pt. IV, ante, 94 Cal.Rptr.2d at pp. 32-34, 995 P.2d at pp. 165-168.) Nor was there evidence of any other arguably significant interruption of events between the entry and the homicide; the evidence was simply that after gathering some personal property, the burglars waited for Viivi to come home, then assaulted and killed her as she entered the house. The erroneous instruction was harmless, therefore, under the standard articulated in Neder v. United States, supra, 527 U.S. at pages 18-20, 119 S.Ct. at page 1838, 144 L.Ed.2d at page 53: on this record, no rational jury could find that burglary was committed but fail to find that the burglary and homicide were parts of a single continuous transaction. In this case, to be sure, the erroneous instruction was given in response to an inquiry from the deliberating jury, an inquiry suggesting that one or more jurors were in doubt whether the murder of Viivi Piirisild was committed while defendant was engaged in the commission of burglary. The jurors' concern, however, was apparently not with the factual issue of whether the burglary and homicide were parts of a single continuous transaction an issue on which they had not yet been instructedbut rather with possible legal standards for duration of burglary. There is thus no reason to doubt the jury would have reached the same verdict had the trial court correctly instructed that the jurors must themselves decide whether the homicide and burglary were part of a single continuous transaction.