Opinion ID: 1122777
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant's Lack of Standing

Text: It seems apparent to me that defendant lacks standing to raise any constitutional challenge which is based on the impropriety of exacting the death penalty for an unintentional felony murder. Defendant does not face the death penalty, and no one contends that he does. As an accomplice who neither personally killed nor intended to kill the victim, he is exempt from the death penalty under Enmund v. Florida (1982) 458 U.S. 782 [73 L.Ed.2d 1140, 102 S.Ct. 3368]. Nevertheless, the majority opinion contains an extended discussion of various theoretical constitutional objections to imposing the death penalty for an unintentional killing. Such discussion, in my view, is unnecessary and inappropriate. Because defendant herein does not face the death penalty, we have no occasion to discuss the constitutional propriety of that penalty. Moreover, by reason of the majority's misapplication of the holding in People v. Spears (1983) 33 Cal.3d 279 [188 Cal. Rptr. 454, 655 P.2d 1289], discussed in part 2 hereof, this defendant no longer faces even a lesser sentence of life imprisonment without parole. ( Ante , pp. 153-154.) It is my view that the Enmund rule, plus Spears , make it entirely inappropriate to discuss, as the majority does at length, whether death or life imprisonment without parole properly may be imposed in the absence of proof of an intent to kill. Enmund forbids imposing death for persons who neither kill nor intend to kill, and Spears precludes imposing life imprisonment without parole in any case where the death penalty is not an available sanction. The remaining discussion is dictum.