Opinion ID: 2607620
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 20

Heading: Sufficiency of Evidence of Intent to Kill.

Text: (22) In supplementary briefing, defendant contends that the killing was accidental and directs our attention to the ballistics evidence which, he urges, shows that defendant did not aim at the officer and therefore could not have intended to kill. We treat this contention as a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence of express malice, i.e., the intent to kill. Defendant claims that the ballistics evidence, i.e., the presence of shotgun pellets in the lightbar of the patrol car, and the autopsy report, which reveals that only one pellet entered the police officer, support a finding that defendant aimed at the lightbar, not the officer, and that the injury to the officer resulted from a ricocheting shotgun pellet. [9] The evidence, which defendant now describes as exculpatory, was before the jury. Also before the jury was the testimony of prosecution and defense witnesses who stated that defendant aimed at the officer or pointed the gun directly at the officer. Not only did the eyewitnesses specifically testify that defendant aimed at the officer before firing, but the very act of firing a shotgun toward the officer at that distance would permit an inference of intent to kill from the manner of killing. (See People v. Cruz (1980) 26 Cal.3d 233, 245 [162 Cal. Rptr. 1, 605 P.2d 830].) As noted in the discussion of the sufficiency of the evidence of premeditation and deliberation ( ante, p. 1200), defendant's activity prior to the shooting also supports a finding of intent to kill  ripping the gun from the patrol car, attempting to cock the shotgun before pointing it at the officer, pointing and pulling the trigger, cocking the gun and pointing it again, then pretending to comply with the officer's directions in laying the gun down, but watching the officer's movements and finally picking up the gun and pointing it a final time at the officer. Defendant's conduct and threats to kill other officers following the killing of Officer Wrede also support the finding of an intent to kill.