Opinion ID: 1144098
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: instructions on specific intent required under penal code section 288

Text: As Cantrell concedes, the trial court, in the course of its instructions, correctly informed the jury of the specific intent required to violate Penal Code section 288. (9a) CALJIC Instructions Nos. 521, 523, 524 and 526 [now CALJIC Nos. 10.30-10.34] were given substantially verbatim. [1] Cantrell's quarrel with the instructions in this area is that other instructions involving felony murder and intent generally used the terminology with the specific intent to commit a lewd and lascivious act on the body of a child. (10) The court's instructions to the jury must be considered as a whole, and each instruction must be regarded in the light of the others (CALJIC No. 5  now CALJIC No. 1.01), and the jury in this case was so instructed. The instructions complained of concerning the specific intent to commit a lewd and lascivious act must be read in the light of the other instructions which defined a lewd and lascivious act and which included the requirement of the specific intent to arouse, appeal to, or gratify the lust, passions or sexual desires of the minor or the accused. (9b) Since these instructions correctly and adequately advised the jury of the specific intent required to violate Penal Code section 288, the court was not required to repeat the entire definition each time it referred to that specific intent. Taken as a whole, the instructions were not misleading or erroneous, and nothing before us indicates the jury was in fact misled ( People v. Kearney [(1942)] 20 Cal.2d 435, 439 [126 P.2d 612]).