Opinion ID: 844221
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claims of Instructional Error Regarding Kidnapping Special Circumstance

Text: Defendant argues that the jury was not properly instructed regarding the need to find an independent felonious purpose to kidnap Gordon, and therefore the kidnapping special circumstance finding should be set aside. We agree. The trial court instructed the jury using CALJIC No. 8.81.17, and the court included this standard instruction's second paragraph because of evidence from which the jury could infer that defendant's only purpose was to kill Gordon and that he lacked an independent felonious purpose to kidnap her. (See People v. Navarette, supra, 30 Cal.4th at p. 505.) The standard instruction does not specifically mention kidnapping, but it has several blank spaces, with a use note providing: This instruction is designed to be adapted to any one or more of the . . . crimes in Penal Code, § 190.2(a)(17) by inserting in the blank spaces the names of the crime. (Use Note to CALJIC No. 8.81.17 (5th ed. 1988) p. 396.) Here, the trial court properly inserted kidnapping as the relevant crime in most places in the instruction at issue, but in the first blank space of paragraph No. 2 the court inserted not kidnapping but assault by force likely to produce great bodily injury. [5] For reasons that are not clear, the trial court insisted on deviating from the instruction's use note in this way, and neither the defense nor the prosecution objected. [6] The effect of this alteration was to tell the jury that it could find the kidnapping special circumstance allegation true only if it found that defendant committed the murder to carry out or advance the commission of the crime of assault by force . . . or to facilitate the escape therefrom or to avoid detection. During deliberations, the jury asked: (1) Does the phrase `facilitate escape therefrom' refer to the crime of assault by force, or the crime of kidnapping, or something other than that? [¶] (2) Does the phrase `avoid detection' refer to the crime of assault by force, or the crime of kidnapping, or something other than that? The court sent the jury's note back to the jury with this answer written on the bottom: 1 & 2 both refer to the crime of assault by force. The trial court erred in altering CALJIC No. 8.81.17 to require a finding that the murder was committed to carry out or advance the commission of the assault on Gordon or to facilitate the escape therefrom or to avoid detection. Under our holding in People v. Green, supra, 27 Cal.3d at pages 61 to 62, the prosecution here had to prove (for purposes of establishing the kidnapping special circumstance) that defendant kidnapped Gordon for an independent felonious purpose and therefore that the kidnapping was not merely incidental to the murder. Under Green, however, the jury did not need to find that the murder was motivated in some way by defendant's initial assault on Gordon. Accordingly, we agree with defendant that the trial court erred in its alteration of the instruction regarding the kidnapping special circumstance. We also agree that the error was prejudicial. An instructional error regarding an element of a special circumstance requires reversal unless the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. ( People v. Bolden, supra, 29 Cal.4th at p. 560.) In this case, as explained below, we cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury verdict would have been the same absent the error. Therefore, we must set aside the true finding on the kidnapping special circumstance allegation. As given by the trial court, paragraph No. 2 of the instruction provided: [A] The murder was committed in order to carry out or advance the commission of the crime of assault by force likely to produce great bodily injury or to facilitate the escape therefrom or to avoid detection. [B] In other words, the special circumstance referred to in these instructions is not established if the kidnapping was merely incidental to the commission of the murder. (Italics & bracketed capital letters added.) The instruction is supposed to refer to the same target crime throughout (here, kidnapping). When it does so, sentence [B] of the instruction's second paragraph merely elaborates or clarifies the idea expressed in sentence [A] of the paragraph, and sentence [A] (which is only illustrative) is not even necessary to the instruction. (See People v. Dement (2011) 53 Cal.4th 1, 47, fn. 25 [133 Cal.Rptr.3d 496, 264 P.3d 292].) For this reason, sentence [B] of the instruction's second paragraph begins with the phrase In other words. But here the trial court erroneously inserted one target offense (assault by force) in sentence [A], and a different target offense (kidnapping) in sentence [B]. Because each sentence discussed a different target offense, sentence [B] did not elaborate upon or clarify the idea discussed in sentence [A], so the phrase In other words at the beginning of sentence [B] was likely to have confused the jury. The phrase In other words is often understood as the verbal equivalent of an equals sign in mathematics; what comes before the phrase is substantively the same as what comes after the phrase. Therefore, if the jury here was confused about the meaning of sentence [B] of the instruction's second paragraph, it may have decided simply to ignore that sentence, concluding from the introductory phrase (In other words) that the sentence merely restated the idea expressed in sentence [A] of the same paragraph (which the trial court had erroneously modified). Significantly, the jury's question to the trial court indicates that sentence [A] was the primary focus of the jury's attention, and the court's response to the jury compounded the court's previous error by wrongly telling the jury that sentence [A] was correct as written. The jury's question suggests that it may have found the requirements of the special circumstance satisfied by finding that defendant committed the murder to facilitate his escape from the assault or to avoid detection of that crime. In sum, we cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury gave proper weight to sentence [B] of the instruction's paragraph No. 2. Because the sentence began with the phrase In other words but expressed a new idea, entirely distinct from the idea expressed in sentence [A] of the same paragraph (which the court had erroneously modified), we cannot know beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury read sentence [B], understood it, and applied it. Sentence [B], however, is critical to paragraph No. 2 of the instruction in a case like this one, in which the evidence could support an inference that defendant's only purpose was to kill and that he lacked an independent purpose to kidnap. (See People v. Navarette, supra, 30 Cal.4th at p. 505.) Indeed, the evidence here of an independent purpose to kidnap was weak although for the reasons previously stated (see pt. II.A., ante ), it was minimally sufficient. Given the weakness of that evidence, sentence [B] which told the jury of the need to find that the kidnapping was not merely incidental to the murderwas of particular importance here. That critical idea was not presented to the jury in any other sentence of the instruction. Instead, sentence [A] of the same paragraph (which the trial court had erroneously modified) inaccurately suggested to the jury that the only thing the prosecution needed to prove (for purposes of satisfying paragraph No. 2 of the instruction) was that the murder was motivated in some way by defendant's initial assault on Gordon, a matter that was very easily proved on this record. Hence, we cannot be sure that the jury ever found that the kidnapping was not merely incidental to the murder, as is required by People v. Green, supra, 27 Cal.3d at pages 61 to 62. (2) Therefore, we must set aside the jury's true finding with respect to the kidnapping special circumstance. Because the jury failed to reach a verdict on the torture special circumstance, we must also reverse the judgment of death. We will nevertheless address defendant's additional arguments to the extent they challenge the validity of his first degree murder, kidnapping, and assault convictions.