Opinion ID: 2515839
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Instruction on involuntary manslaughter as general intent crime.

Text: As noted above, the jury received a version of CALJIC No. 8.47, advising that if defendant, while unconscious as the result of voluntary intoxication, killed without intent to kill and malice, the crime is involuntary manslaughter, in that, when one voluntarily becomes intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness, he assumes the risk he will commit acts inherently dangerous to human life or safety, and the law thus implies criminal negligence. The jury was further instructed, under CALJIC No. 8.45, on a misdemeanor manslaughter theory of involuntary manslaughter, with three possible underlying misdemeanors  assault, assault with a deadly weapon or by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, and battery with serious bodily injury. Finally, upon prompting by the prosecutor, and without objection by the defense, the jury was instructed, under CALJIC No. 3.30, that involuntary manslaughter requires a union or joint operation of act or conduct and general criminal intent, such that [w]hen a person intentionally does that which the law declares to be a crime, he is acting with general criminal intent, even though he may not know that his act or conduct is unlawful. (Italics added.) [47] In an oral extrapolation, the court explained that involuntary manslaughter is no specific intent or mental state. In other words, . . . analogous to drunk driving[,] [if] you do the act, it's presumed that the particular general intent is there when you do the particular crime. (Italics added.) Defendant now urges the trial court erred, and thereby violated his rights to due process and a fair trial under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments, by instructing on involuntary manslaughter as a general intent crime where the theory of involuntary manslaughter was unconsciousness by voluntary intoxication. On the instant facts, he insists, this improper combination of instructions may have misled the jurors to conclude they could not convict him of involuntary manslaughter even if they believed he killed while unconscious due to voluntary intoxication. Thus, he claims, they were left with an unwarranted all-or-nothing choice between a murder conviction and complete acquittal. In this regard, defendant reasons as follows: Involuntary manslaughter while voluntarily unconscious is necessarily based on the assumption that the defendant killed without any awareness of his or her lethal act, and thus without intent to commit it. In such cases, the mental element is criminal negligence, not intentionality. However, the instruction that involuntary manslaughter requires general criminal intent contradicted this premise by indicating that one cannot be guilty of involuntary manslaughter unless he or she did intend the act which produced the victims' death. Taken literally, the general intent instruction advised that if defendant killed the Harbitzes, but could not intend the lethal acts because he was unconscious due to voluntary intoxication, he was not guilty of involuntary manslaughter. This left jurors only a choice between convicting him of murder or acquitting him. We are not persuaded. At the outset, we find no reasonable likelihood the instructions, fairly read, confused or misled the jury about the connection between unconsciousness due to voluntary intoxication and the appropriate homicide verdict. (See, e.g., People v. Ochoa (1998) 19 Cal.4th 353, 421, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 408, 966 P.2d 442 ( Ochoa) ; People v. Clair (1992) 2 Cal.4th 629, 663, 7 Cal.Rptr.2d 564, 828 P.2d 442 ( Clair ); cf. Estelle v. McGuire (1991) 502 U.S. 62, 72, 112 S.Ct. 475, 116 L.Ed.2d 385.) After all, the jurors had before them an instruction expressly stating that if one kills unintentionally while unconscious as a result of voluntary intoxication, the crime is involuntary manslaughter. They had also been instructed on the distinct theory of misdemeanor manslaughter, which was not dependent on unconsciousness. Under these circumstances, there seems little chance the jury would conclude that the instruction defining involuntary manslaughter as a general intent crime negated the instruction defining an unintentional homicide while unconscious from voluntary intoxication as involuntary manslaughter, and thus precluded such a conviction based on voluntarily induced unconsciousness. Any such risk was further diminished by the trial court's oral modification of the instruction defining involuntary manslaughter as a general intent crime. Though the court gave the settled explanation of general intent as involving an intent to do the act made criminal, the court further indicated that such intent was presumed insofar as the defendant simply did the criminal act. As pertinent here, this amplification reconciled the unconsciousness and general intent instructions, making clear that one who was unconscious due to voluntary intoxication satisfied any general intent element of involuntary manslaughter by simply engaging in the conduct, while in that state, that caused the victims' deaths. Even if error occurred, we find no prejudice by any applicable standard. The jury was provided with multiple opportunities to absolve defendant of crimes involving specific intent, such as robbery, and of murder in favor of lesser homicide offenses, on the basis of his impaired mental state produced by voluntary intoxication, or for other reasons. The jury rejected all such available lesser homicide verdicts, including both involuntary and voluntary manslaughter, found defendant guilty of robbery, and convicted him of two counts of first degree murder. Moreover, as we have already observed, it is illogical to assume a jury, instructed that one who kills while voluntarily intoxicated is guilty only of involuntary manslaughter, would find such intoxication, and yet convict the defendant of the greater crime of murder, add special circumstances, and sentence him to death. The only rational inference is that the jury simply discredited defendant's claim he was unconscious when he killed the Harbitzes. Under these circumstances, we are persuaded that no prejudice arose from the general intent instruction defendant challenges. No basis for reversal appears.