Opinion ID: 2586281
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: First Degree Murder by Torture

Text: Defendant contends the court should have instructed the jury on the legal elements of torture. But because defendant was not charged with the separate crime of torture under section 206, or torture as a special circumstance under section 190.2, subdivision (a)(18), the trial court had no duty to instruct on either. Murder by torture is a specified statutory basis for first degree murder. (ง 189.) The information charging defendant with murder did not specify first degree murder by torture, but the accusatory pleading need not specify the theory of first degree murder on which the prosecution intends to rely. (See People v. Diaz (1992) 3 Cal.4th 495, 556-57, 11 Cal.Rptr.2d 353, 834 P.2d 1171 [information need not specify first degree murder by poison].) Of course, even though the prosecutor did not charge first degree murder by torture, he still might have presented the elements of murder by torture to the jury in the course of presenting his case. But even assuming the prosecutor in effect developed a murder by torture theory at trial and even assuming the trial court had a duty to instruct on first degree murder by torture, defendant can show no possible prejudice from the absence of the instruction. The jury was instructed on two theories supporting a guilty verdict for first degree murder: premeditation and felony murder. The jury found defendant guilty of first degree murder as to Mary Magoon based on either or both of those theories. There was no possible prejudice to defendant by the trial court's failure to provide the jury with a third theory for returning a verdict of first degree murder. Whether the jury accepted or rejected this third theory would not have changed the verdict of first degree murder it returned based on the other two theories.