Opinion ID: 1175478
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: sufficiency of evidence for special circumstance of murder to avoid arrest

Text: (14) Defendant claims there is not sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding of the special circumstance that he killed Ms. Neidig for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest (ง 190.2, subd. (a)(5)). In People v. Bigelow (1984) 37 Cal.3d 731 [209 Cal. Rptr. 328, 691 P.2d 994, 64 A.L.R.4th 723], defendant and his companion, who had recently escaped from prison and were on a crime spree, decided to hitchhike so as to steal the driver's car and money. They forced the driver who picked them up to drive a mile through farmland and get out of the car and into a cornfield, where they shot him. ( Id. at pp. 738-739.) This court held: We find no evidence in the record that Cherry was murdered to avoid or prevent a lawful arrest. At the time of the killing Bigelow and Ramandonovic were not under arrest and were not threatened with imminent arrest. Although the prosecutor surmised that Cherry was killed so that he would not report the robbery and kidnapping โ a report which might eventually lead to the men's arrest โ this argument is totally speculative. It is also an unreasonably expansive reading of the special circumstance of avoiding arrest, a reading which would cause that circumstance to overlap extensively with felony murder. We believe the special circumstance of avoiding arrest should be limited to cases in which the arrest is imminent. ( Id. at p. 752.) In a footnote to the quoted passage, the Bigelow opinion pointed out that the practical effect of allowing the special circumstance to be found in that case would be to undermine the exception to the special circumstance of intentionally killing a witness to prevent his testimony, which applies only if the killing was not committed during the commission, or attempted commission of the crime to which he was a witness (ง 190.2, subd. (a)(10)). [A]ll the prosecutor would have to do is to claim that the victim was killed ... to prevent him from reporting the crime to the police, and the result would be to extend the avoiding arrest circumstance to virtually all felony murders. (37 Cal.3d at p. 752, fn. 13.) Here, defendant had seen Ms. Neidig talking with her neighbor, Mr. Giannavola, at the far end of her driveway just before she entered her house. After she entered, he raised the shotgun, threatening her. She screamed and tried to escape, but defendant blocked the door with his shoulder. Through the partially opened door, she yelled to the neighbor to call the police but there was no evidence he could or did hear her. Defendant immediately killed her with a single blast of the gun. The Attorney General urges the present case is distinguishable from Bigelow, supra, 37 Cal.3d 731, because it is clear that Ms. Neidig was seeking to report the crime and had set the wheels in motion by yelling to her neighbor. However, there was no evidence that any imminent arrest was possible under the circumstances. It is suggested that Mr. Giannavola might have made a citizen's arrest, but there is no evidence of facts apparent to defendant that Giannavola had the intention or capability of doing so. We conclude the finding of the special circumstance of a killing to avoid lawful arrest (ง 190.2, subd. (a)(5)) must be set aside as contrary to the holding in Bigelow.