Opinion ID: 1170931
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Instructions on Assault With Intent to Commit Murder.

Text: (20) Defendant claims that the jury was erroneously instructed on assault with intent to commit murder because the instructions as a whole may have led the jury to believe it could determine guilt without finding express malice. (See People v. Murtishaw (1981) 29 Cal.3d 733, 763-765 [175 Cal. Rptr. 738, 631 P.2d 446]; People v. Martinez (1980) 105 Cal. App.3d 938, 943 [165 Cal. Rptr. 11].) The contention is meritless. Following instructions on first and second degree murder and on express and implied malice, the jury was instructed that [t]he defendant is also charged ... with ... assault with intent to commit murder, a violation of 217 of the Penal Code. That section provides that every person who assaults another with the specific intent to commit murder is guilty of the crime of assault to commit murder. [¶] In order to prove the commission of the crime of assault to commit murder, each of the following elements must be proved: [¶] One, that a person was assaulted, and [¶] Two, that the assault was made with the specific intent to murder such person. [¶] Assault with intent to commit murder requires express malice and a specific intent to murder and not merely the specific intent to kill. However, the murder which defendant must intend, need only be murder of the second degree. (Italics added.) Thus, the jury was specifically instructed that it must find express malice. Defendant argues that the jurors may have inferred from the reference to second degree murder that a finding of either express or implied malice would support a conviction of assault with intent to commit murder. We disagree. The jury should have been able to clearly understand that express malice, as directed in the instruction, must be found in order for defendant's conduct to constitute assault with intent to commit murder, and that the reference to second degree murder pertained only to a determination of the fixing of the degree of the murder  i.e., that the jury need not determine whether the intended murder, with express malice, would have been fixed at first degree (being premeditated or during the commission of a robbery) or second degree.