Opinion ID: 1801755
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The prosecutor's arguments related to felony murder based upon rape, and to the special circumstance allegation of rape

Text: Asserting that the People relied upon the theory that defendant killed the victim in order to have sexual intercourse with her corpse, defendant contends the trial court erred in declining to instruct the jury that the prosecution was required to prove that he harbored the intent to rape her while she was alive. Defendant claims the alleged error violated his rights to trial by jury and to a fair trial under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and article I, sections 15 and 16 of the California Constitution. During his closing argument, the prosecutor stated that the special circumstance allegation required a finding that the murder was committed to further the rape, and he described three possible scenarios related to this allegation: First, defendant killed the victim to carry out or advance the commission of the crime of rape. He killed Pat Miller so he could accomplish a sexual act on her body. . . . Killed her to have sex with the body, to advance the commission of the crime of rape, to carry it out. Second, he killed her to facilitate his escape. [32] Third, his primary purpose was murder, and he raped her as an afterthought. The prosecutor explained that the special circumstance allegation would not be established in the third scenario, and argued that defendant went to the victim's apartment for sexual gratification, and killed her either to obtain what he wanted or to escape detection. In response, defense counsel requested an instruction to the jury that the prosecutor's third theorythat defendant killed Miller before raping herwould not support the special circumstance allegation that the victim was killed in the course of the rape. The trial court declined to give the requested instruction. (7) Rape requires a live victim, because the crime must be accomplished against a person's will. ( People v. Kelly (1992) 1 Cal.4th 495, 524 [3 Cal.Rptr.2d 677, 822 P.2d 385] ( Kelly I ).) This does not, however, mean that intercourse after death negates the felony-murder rule, [or] the rape special circumstance . . . . Felony murder includes a killing `committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, . . . rape . . . .' (§ 189, italics added.) . . . [T]he rape special circumstance applies to a murder `committed while the defendant was engaged in or was an accomplice in the commission of, [or] attempted commission of ' rape. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(iii), italics added.) ( Ibid. ) [33] As we explained in People v. Rundle (2008) 43 Cal.4th 76 [74 Cal.Rptr.3d 454, 180 P.3d 224], disapproved on another ground in People v. Doolin (2009) 45 Cal.4th 390, 421, footnote 22 [87 Cal.Rptr.3d 209, 198 P.3d 11] ( Doolin ), the felony-murder special-circumstance finding must be based upon proof that the defendant intended to commit the underlying felony separately from forming an intent to kill the victim; that is, the felony was not merely an afterthought to the murder, as when, for example, the defendant intends to murder the victim and after doing so takes his or her wallet for the purpose of making identification of the body more difficult. [Citation.] ( Rundle, at p. 156.) Therefore, although intentionally killing the victim during an attempted rape ultimately might thwart, in the legal sense, the perpetrator's goal of committing a rape, this circumstance does not mean the murder was not `committed while the defendant was engaged in . . . the . . . attempted commission of . . . [¶] . . . [¶] . . . Rape,' which is what [section 190.2, subdivision (a)(17)(C)] requires. ( Ibid. ) Under these principles, the prosecutor's statement that defendant may have killed his victim to have sexual intercourse with her body was not inconsistent with the felony-murder theory and the special circumstance allegation. Contrary to defendant's contention, the prosecutor did not argue that defendant's intent at all times was to have intercourse with a dead body. In addition to the prosecutor's statement, quoted above, that defendant killed Miller to have sex with her body, the prosecutor asserted that [defendant] didn't care if the victim was alive or dead. He wanted to have sex. The prosecutor argued that defendant's attitude regarding sex established the special circumstance allegation: I'll just take it, and I'll kill you if I have to. I'll kill you so you can't tell anyone about it. That's when the special circumstance is proven true, and that's what this case [involves], because that's what his intent was. All of his behavior, all of his statements, all of his prior conduct tell us that [defendant] had a one-track mind that night. He wanted it, and he was going to take it, and you couldn't tell him no. In discussing the relevance of the rape of Christa B., the prosecutor reiterated this theory: And he was going to get what he wanted, and you couldn't tell him no. And if he had to use deadly force, he would. He showed that from before. Finally, in his rebuttal, the prosecutor stated that the victim couldn't say no to [defendant] that night and live because [defendant] wanted something that night. (8) Because there was no evidence or argument that defendant's intent was only to have sexual relations with a corpse, the trial court did not err in declining to instruct the jury that defendant must have harbored the intent to rape the victim while she was alive in order to find that the killing was committed during the commission or attempted commission of the crime of rape, and to find the special circumstance allegation true. The court's instructions adequately conveyed that the offense of rape requires an intent to engage in nonconsensual sexual relations with a live person. As in People v. Carpenter (1997) 15 Cal.4th 312 [63 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 935 P.2d 708], [t]he court instructed that rape requires intercourse `against the will' of the victim `accomplished by means of fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury to such person.' It is not reasonably likely the jury would misconstrue these instructions as allowing rape of a dead body. [Citation.] A dead body can neither have a `will' nor `fear ... bodily injury.' ( Id. at p. 391; see People v. San Nicolas (2004) 34 Cal.4th 614, 675 [21 Cal.Rptr.3d 612, 101 P.3d 509] [a judge need not include a legally correct jury instruction when it is duplicative of other instructions provided to the jury].)