Opinion ID: 2571564
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: The lying-in-wait special circumstance requires proof of `an intentional murder, committed under circumstances which include (1) a concealment of purpose, (2) a substantial period of watching and waiting for an opportune time to act, and (3) immediately thereafter, a surprise attack on an unsuspecting victim from a position of advantage.' ( People v. Hillhouse (2002) 27 Cal.4th 469, 500, 117 Cal. Rptr.2d 45, 40 P.3d 754.) Bonilla contends the evidence at trial was insufficient in three regards: it failed to show (1) he personally killed Harris; (2) there was a substantial period of watching and waiting; and (3) the killing occurred during or immediately after the period of watching and waiting. The first argument rests on a misapprehension, of the law. While it is true the prosecution failed to adduce any evidence that Bonilla, as opposed to coconspirators Nichols and Keyes, personally killed Harris, it was not required to do so. At the time of Harris's murder, section 190.2, former subdivision (b) extended death eligibility to those who aid and abet a lying-in-wait special circumstance murder: Every person whether or not the actual killer found guilty of intentionally aiding, abetting, counseling, commanding, inducing, soliciting, requesting, or assisting any actor in the commission of murder in the first degree shall suffer death or confinement in state prison for a term of life without the possibility of parole, in any case in which one or more of the special circumstances enumerated in paragraph[ ] ... (15) [the lying-in-wait special circumstance] ... of subdivision (a) of this section has been charged and specially found ... true. (ง 190.2, former subd. (b), added by Prop. 7, ง 6, as approved by voters, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 7, 1978), italics added.) [5] Bonilla argues that even so, the lying-in-wait special circumstance specifically requires that the defendant kill the victim (ง 190.2, former subd. (a)(15)); thus, it can be found true for a given defendant only when he is the actual killer; and therefore, the liability-expanding provisions of section 190.2, former subdivision (b), which require a special circumstance to be found true, can never apply. This interpretation would render the express inclusion of lying in wait among the special circumstances covered by former subdivision (b) a nullity. We decline to attach special significance to the choice of the words the defendant, as opposed to the killer or the murderer, where to do so would negate in whole or in part another statutory provision. Had murder by lying in wait been intended to be omitted from the list of special circumstances that could extend to aiders and abettors, former subdivision (a)(15) would have been excluded from the list in former subdivision (b), just as the prior-murder-conviction special circumstance (ง 190.2, subd. (a)(2)) was. Bonilla's second and third arguments build on this same misapprehension of the law. Bonilla argues that he did not engage in a substantial period of watchful waiting and that Harris was not killed during or immediately after any period in which Bonilla was concealing his purpose and watchfully waiting. But the issue is not whether Bonilla killed Harris while lying in wait; rather, the issue is whether Bonilla aided and abetted Harris's killing, and whether the actual killers killed Harris while (or immediately after) lying in wait. Bonilla does not suggest there was insufficient evidence he aided and abetted Harris's death, and he expressly concedes that based on the evidence at trial one can make[ ] a plausible case that Nichols and Keyes killed Harris while lying-in-wait. Given this concessionโone overwhelmingly supported by the evidence at trial [6] โhis claims fail. The jury could conclude that Bonilla aided and abetted Harris's killing, with the intent that Harris die, and thus that he too was guilty of the lying-in-wait special circumstance.