Opinion ID: 1345760
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Failure to instruct on theft as lesser included offense.

Text: (4a) Defendant argues the court erred prejudicially by failing to instruct sua sponte on theft as a lesser included offense of the robbery charge, and by failing to provide the jury with verdict forms permitting findings and convictions based on theft rather than robbery. Under the particular circumstances, we find no basis for reversal. (5) The principles are well established. Theft is a lesser included offense of robbery, which [latter offense] includes the element of force or fear. [Citation.] (6a) The court must instruct on a lesser included offense, even if not requested to do so, `when the evidence raises a question as to whether all of the elements of the charged offense are present and there is evidence that would justify a conviction of such a lesser offense.' [Citations.] ( People v. Melton (1988) 44 Cal.3d 713, 746 [244 Cal. Rptr. 867, 750 P.2d 741].) (4b) Though less than convincing, defendant's testimony that he killed in response to Savage's advances, and only thereafter decided to take property, is substantial evidence that defendant did not steal by means of force or fear. ( Ibid. ; see also Ramkeesoon, supra, 39 Cal.3d at p. 351; Green, supra, 27 Cal.3d at p. 54.) The court therefore erred in failing to provide instructions and verdict forms which would permit convictions and findings based on theft rather than robbery. Defendant claims we must therefore reverse the robbery-murder special circumstance, the robbery conviction, and the conviction of first degree murder insofar as based on a theory of felony murder. We disagree. (6b) We have long held that erroneous failure to instruct on a lesser included offense is not prejudicial if it is possible to determine that ... the factual question posed by the omitted instruction was necessarily resolved adversely to the defendant under other, properly given instructions.... ( People v. Sedeno (1974) 10 Cal.3d 703, 721 [112 Cal. Rptr. 1, 518 P.2d 913]; see also People v. Wickersham (1982) 32 Cal.3d 307, 335 [185 Cal. Rptr. 436, 650 P.2d 311].) (4c) Here, the instructions actually given and the verdicts actually rendered persuade us beyond doubt that the jury considered the question of after-formed intent and rejected this mere theft theory on its merits. Accordingly, we conclude defendant suffered no prejudice. At defense counsel's request, the jury was given special instructions highlighting the issue of after-formed intent. After reciting the elements of robbery, including the element that the taking be accomplished by force or fear, the court admonished: An act of force accompanied by a theft does not constitute robbery unless the act of force was motivated by an intent to steal. If the intent to steal does not arise until after force has been used against the victim, no robbery has taken place. [ถ] If an individual kills for reasons unrelated to theft, for example, because of anger, fear, or revenge, and then decides to take advantage of the situation by stealing some object from the person of the decedent, the taking will constitute at most a theft and not a robbery. (Italics added.) Thus, the jury was told explicitly that it could not find a robbery if it accepted defendant's claim of after-formed intent. Next, the felony-murder instructions advised that the killing must have occurred  as a result of the commission of or attempt to commit the crime of robbery, and where there was in the mind of the perpetrator the specific intent to commit such crime.... The specific intent to commit robbery and the commission or attempt to commit such crime must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. (Italics added.) Finally, in defining the special circumstance of robbery-murder, the court told the jury it must find, among other things, that the murder was committed in order to carry out or advance the commission of the crime of robbery or to facilitate the escape therefrom or to avoid detection. [ถ] In other words, the special circumstance ... is not established if the attempted robbery was merely incidental to the commission of the murder. (Italics added.) These instructions made clear beyond doubt that defendant was not guilty of robbery, first degree felony murder, or the sole special circumstance charged, if his intent to steal arose only after the fatal assault. In finding for the prosecution on all robbery issues, the jury thus necessarily concluded that he decided to steal before assaulting Savage. Defendant argues, however, that the court did not eliminate prejudice simply by defining the greater, charged offense with precision. By failing to allow a conviction of the lesser, uncharged offense of theft, defendant urges, the court left the jury with an unwarranted all-or-nothing choice on robbery, murder, and death eligibility. Defendant relies heavily on a similar analysis in Ramkeesoon, supra, 39 Cal.3d at page 352. (See also Wickersham, supra, 32 Cal.3d at p. 324.) However, application of Ramkeesoon's reasoning to the facts of this case would extend Ramkeesoon beyond its logical limits. Ramkeesoon befriended one Mullins in a gay bar and accepted an invitation to stay the night in Mullins's apartment. Ramkeesoon was stopped by police while walking in Mullins's neighborhood early the next morning, carrying property belonging to Mullins. Mullins's body, riddled with stab wounds, was soon discovered in the apartment. Ramkeesoon was charged with robbery and murder. At trial, he claimed he had killed Mullins in response to violent, unwanted sexual advances, and only then decided to take Mullins's watch, wallet, clock radio, and car. The jury received instructions generally defining robbery, and was also instructed on all degrees of homicide, including both premeditation and felony-murder theories of first degree murder. Ramkeesoon sought to exploit his claim of after-formed intent by proffering instructions allowing his conviction of theft as a lesser included offense of robbery. These instructions were erroneously refused. The jury returned general verdicts of robbery and first degree murder. We found the error prejudicial, since we concluded the jury had never been expressly confronted with the disputed factual issue โ the time at which the intent to steal arose โ which was posed by the omitted theft instructions. The jury, we noted, was left with an `unwarranted all or nothing choice' [citation] on both the robbery and murder counts [fn. omitted] ... since [Ramkeesoon] had admitted taking Mullins' property and robbery was the only available theft offense. The findings of robbery and murder did not necessarily resolve the factual question whether the intent to steal was formulated after [Ramkeesoon] had inflicted the fatal blows because the jury was never required to decide specifically whether [Ramkeesoon] had formed the intent to steal after the assault. [Fn. omitted.] (39 Cal.3d at p. 352.) Here, however, there appears no chance the jury was misled by an all or nothing choice on the robbery/theft issue. In contrast with Ramkeesoon, supra, 39 Cal.3d 346, the special instructions in this case did require the jury to confront and decide the issue of after-formed intent. The jurors were told emphatically not to convict defendant of robbery or first degree felony murder, or to find the robbery-murder special circumstance true, if they believed it reasonably possible that he killed for reasons unrelated to theft and stole only as an incidental afterthought. We cannot lightly assume the jury disobeyed such clear instructions on so many separate occasions. Moreover, even if the jurors were willing to convict defendant of robbery despite their belief he was guilty only of theft, we cannot imagine they would employ this reluctant verdict to support findings of first degree murder and death eligibility under a robbery-murder special circumstance. [8] In this capital case, moreover, the jurors gave one last conclusive indication of their views. Knowing that a murder in the commission of robbery was the sole basis of defendant's eligibility for the death penalty, they nonetheless actually returned a death verdict. Such a normative result seems inconceivable from jurors who believed defendant guilty only of mere incidental theft, but nonetheless felt forced by an all or nothing choice to convict him of robbery. Under these circumstances, we conclude the jury necessarily resolved the issue of after-formed intent adversely to defendant and found, on the ample strength of the evidence, that he killed Savage in the perpetration of a robbery. His claim of reversible error must therefore be rejected.