Opinion ID: 1225502
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Duty to Instruct Sua Sponte, in Felony-murder Prosecution, on Simultaneity of Killing and Specific Intent to Commit Underlying Felony

Text: (10) Defendant contends that under the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution, the trial court was under a sua sponte duty to instruct the jury that in a capital prosecution based on the felony-murder doctrine, the People are required to prove that the killing and defendant's intent to commit the underlying felony occurred concurrently. As counsel formulates the requirement, even without a request, the jury should have been instructed that the specific intent required for felony murder (to commit a burglary or robbery) had to exist concurrently with the act (the killing) for [defendant] to be found guilty on that theory. Defendant points out that the trial court gave the jury a similar instruction with respect to the other counts charged. Because the felony-murder doctrine incorporates the specific intent required for the underlying felony, the argument runs, a concurrent event instruction was required here. We conclude that the instructions given the jury taken as a whole adequately covered defendant's point. As read to the jury, CALJIC No. 8.21 required that the killing occur during the commission or attempted commission of the crime of burglary or robbery, a requirement that in its turn required proof that defendant had the specific intent to commit burglary or robbery. In addition, CALJIC No. 3.31 as read to the jury stated that the crimes of burglary and robbery required that the specific intent to commit those crimes exist during the burglary or robbery. In combination, these instructions, by requiring that the specific intent to burglarize or rob exist during the burglary or robbery, effectively told the jury that the specific intent to burglarize or rob must exist at the time of the killing. There was no instructional error on this score.