Opinion ID: 2600070
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Adequacy of special circumstance instruction

Text: In connection with the charge of murder in count 1, the information alleged that defendant committed the murder while committing rape, forcible oral copulation, and/or burglary. In instructing on the rape-murder specialcircumstance allegation, the trial court informed the jury that to find that allegation true, it must be proved: [¶] 1. The murder was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission or attempted commission of a rape. [¶] The crime of rape is defined elsewhere in these instructions. (CALJIC No. 8.81.17 (1991 rev.) (5th ed. 1988).) The trial court gave the same instruction, with appropriate revisions, in connection with the forcible-oral-copulation-murder and burglary-murder special-circumstance allegations. Defendant points out that when the trial court instructed the jury with CALJIC No. 8.81.17, it did not give the standard instruction's second paragraph. The omitted portion of the instruction would have informed the jury that to find the special circumstance allegation true, the prosecution must prove that [t]he murder was committed in order to carry out or advance the commission of the [target crime] or to facilitate the escape therefrom or to avoid detection. In other words, the special circumstance referred to in these instructions is not established if the [target crime] was merely incidental to the commission of the murder. (CALJIC No. 8.81.17.) Defendant claims the trial court's failure to instruct the jury sua sponte with the second paragraph of CALJIC No. 8.81.17 constituted the omission of a necessary element of the special circumstance allegations, in violation of his constitutional right to a jury determination of any fact on which the Legislature conditions an increase in [his] maximum punishment, within the meaning of Ring v. Arizona (2002) 536 U.S. 584 [153 L.Ed.2d 556, 122 S.Ct. 2428]. Although defense counsel did not object to the truncated version of CALJIC No. 8.81.17 at issue here, he did request, though unsuccessfully, an instruction stating that to prove the special circumstance allegations, the prosecutor had the burden to show that [t]he murder was committed in order to carry out or advance the commission of the crimes of burglary/rape/oral copulation . . . . Defendant, therefore, has preserved his claim on appeal. ( People v. Valdez (2004) 32 Cal.4th 73, 113 [8 Cal.Rptr.3d 271, 82 P.3d 296].) (21) However, the claim fails on its merits. As defendant acknowledges, we have previously rejected the assertion that the second paragraph of CALJIC No. 8.81.17 states an element of the special circumstance that must be presented to the jury for determination, regardless of whether the evidence warrants such an instruction. ( People v. Kimble (1988) 44 Cal.3d 480, 501 [244 Cal.Rptr. 148, 749 P.2d 803]; People v. Monterroso (2004) 34 Cal.4th 743, 767 [22 Cal.Rptr.3d 1, 101 P.3d 956]; see also People v. Valdez, supra, 32 Cal.4th at pp. 113-114 [rejecting the claim that omission of the second paragraph allowed the jury to find the special circumstance allegation true based merely on a finding the murder took place during a robbery].) Defendant presents no persuasive grounds for reconsidering our prior holdings on the issue. For the same reason, we reject defendant's related claim that we must reverse the special circumstance findings because the verdict forms did not require a finding that defendant committed the murder in order to carry out or advance the commission of the crime of robbery, rape, or oral copulation. As we observed in People v. Navarette (2003) 30 Cal.4th 458, 505 [133 Cal.Rptr.2d 89, 66 P.3d 1182], instructing with the second paragraph of CALJIC No. 8.81.17 is proper only where the evidence suggests the defendant may have intended to murder his victim without having an independent intent to commit the felony that forms the basis of the special circumstance allegation. We there held that the trial court did not err in failing to read the instruction's second paragraph because the record lacked any significant evidence that anything other than burglary and/or robbery motivated the murders. ( Navarette, at p. 505; see also People v. Wilson, supra, 43 Cal.4th at p. 18.) Likewise, because there was no evidence here reasonably suggesting that defendant intended to kill the victim without also having an independent intent to assault her sexually, the trial court did not err in omitting the second paragraph of CALJIC No. 8.81.17. Indeed, in this case, there was no evidence suggesting defendant harbored any intent to kill the victim, concurrently or otherwise. Rather, the evidence showed that defendant entered the victim's home unarmed. Within minutes of the entry, he pushed both the victim and her sister into the back bedroom, where he sexually assaulted the victim until ejaculating, and then ran from the house after pausing briefly on his way out to take money from an open purse belonging to the victim's sister. The evidence showed, moreover, that the victim's death was attributable to cardiac arrest resulting from fear, stress, and pain, and that a younger woman likely would have survived such an attack. On this record, there was no evidence from which the jury could have inferred that defendant entered the victim's home to murder her, and that the sexual assaults were merely incidental to the commission of that offense. The trial court thus did not err in omitting the second paragraph of CALJIC No. 8.81.17 when instructing the jury on the special circumstance allegations.