Opinion ID: 2600070
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Refusal to instruct on trespass and second degree murder

Text: Count 1 of the information charged that defendant did willfully and unlawfully murder [Dixon] . . . in violation of Penal Code section 187(a) and further alleged as special circumstances that defendant committed the murder while committing or attempting to commit rape, burglary, and oral copulation within the meaning of section 190.2, subdivision (a)(17). Counts 2, 3, and 4 charged, respectively, the substantive crimes of forcible rape, residential burglary, and forcible oral copulation. (§§ 261, subd. (a)(2), 459, 460, 288a, subd. (c).) At trial, the prosecution's theory of liability for count 1 was first degree felony murder based on the three felonies named in the special circumstance allegation. Following the prosecution's case-in-chief, but before defendant presented his case, the trial court conferred with the parties on the jury instructions for the guilt phase. Defense counsel requested instructions on trespass as a lesser related offense of the charge of burglary in count 3, and second degree murder as a lesser included offense of first degree murder as charged in count 1. According to defense counsel, the instructions were necessary to the defense's twofold theory of the case: first, that no burglary occurred when defendant entered the victim's home because he lacked the intent to steal or commit any other felony at that time; and second, that the victim's extreme stress and fear upon first encountering defendant in her living room, not the sexual assaults that occurred later in the back bedroom, caused the victim's fatal heart attack. Under these circumstances, defense counsel argued, the victim's death was a homicide caused by a life-threatening act that did not constitute a felony. After hearing the prosecutor's opposition to instructing on both trespass and second degree murder, the trial court denied the request. It indicated it would revisit the issue if warranted by evidence adduced during the defense case or on rebuttal, but found that the facts of the case did not in any way, shape or form support giving the instructions the defense proposed. After the close of evidence, trial counsel renewed the request for instruction on trespass and second degree murder. The trial court denied the request, repeating its earlier observation that [t]his is a felony murder case.
Defendant contends the trial court erred in refusing to instruct on trespass because without such a charge, defendant could not argue his theory to the jury. We find no error. (14) Trespass is a lesser related crime of burglary. ( People v. Birks (1998) 19 Cal.4th 108, 118, fn. 8 [77 Cal.Rptr.2d 848, 960 P.2d 1073] ( Birks ).) (15) In Birks, we held that instruction on a lesser related offense is proper only upon the mutual assent of the parties. ( Id. at pp. 112-113, 136; see id. at p. 134 [allowing instruction on lesser related offenses over the prosecutor's objection interferes with prosecutorial charging discretion].) Here, because the prosecutor objected to instruction on the crime of trespass, the trial court correctly denied defendant's request. We decline defendant's request that we reconsider our holding in Birks. As we recently explained in denying a similar request, refusing to grant a defendant's unilateral request for instructions on a lesser related offense does not violate any constitutional due process right to present the `theory of the defense case . . .' . ( People v. Rundle (2008) 43 Cal.4th 76, 148 [74 Cal.Rptr.3d 454, 180 P.3d 224].) Defendant errs in basing his contrary argument on the Ninth Circuit's decision in Conde v. Henry (9th Cir. 1999) 198 F.3d 734, as that case involved a trial court's failure to instruct on a lesser included, not a lesser related, offense. As we observed in Birks, the United States Supreme Court has never suggested that the federal Constitution requires instruction on offenses other than lesser included offenses of the charged crime when the evidence warrants. ( Birks, supra, 19 Cal.4th at p. 124.) Defendant cites no decision or other authority issued since we decided Birks that warrants reconsideration of that decision. Thus, the trial court did not err in refusing to instruct on trespass.
As to count 1, the trial court instructed the jury solely on the theory that a person who unlawfully kills a human being during the commission or attempted commission of the felony crime of rape, and/or burglary, and/or forcible oral copulation is guilty of the crime of murder, in violation of section 187 of the Penal Code. (CALJIC No. 8.21.) Defendant contends the trial court reversibly erred by failing also to instruct on second degree impliedmalice murder as a lesser included offense of first degree felony murder. We disagree. Although it is settled that [s]econd degree murder is a lesser included offense of first degree murder ( People v. Blair, supra, 36 Cal.4th at p. 745), we have yet to decide whether second degree murder is a lesser included offense of first degree murder where, as here, the prosecution proceeds only on a theory of first degree felony murder. ( People v. Romero (2008) 44 Cal.4th 386, 402 [79 Cal.Rptr.3d 334, 187 P.3d 56]; People v. Wilson (2008) 43 Cal.4th 1, 16 [73 Cal.Rptr.3d 620, 178 P.3d 1113]; but see People v. Anderson (2006) 141 Cal.App.4th 430, 445 [45 Cal.Rptr.3d 910] [the trial court erred in failing to instruct on second degree murder when the prosecutor argued only felony murder liability but the information charged murder with malice aforethought].) We need not decide that question here because, as explained below, there was no substantial evidence of second degree implied-malice murder. (16) In criminal cases, even absent a request, a trial court must instruct on the general principles of law relevant to the issues the evidence raises. ( People v. Breverman (1998) 19 Cal.4th 142, 154 [77 Cal.Rptr.2d 870, 960 P.2d 1094].)  `That obligation has been held to include giving instructions on lesser included offenses when the evidence raises a question as to whether all of the elements of the charged offense were present [citation], but not when there is no evidence that the offense was less than that charged. [Citations.]' ( Ibid. ) [T]he existence of ` any evidence, no matter how weak' will not justify instructions on a lesser included offense, but such instructions are required whenever evidence that the defendant is guilty only of the lesser offense is `substantial enough to merit consideration' by the jury. [Citations.] ( Id. at p. 162.) (17) Second degree murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice, but without the additional elements . . . that would support a conviction of first degree murder. [Citations.] ( People v. Hansen (1994) 9 Cal.4th 300, 307 [36 Cal.Rptr.2d 609, 885 P.2d 1022].) Malice may be express or implied. ( People v. Lasko (2000) 23 Cal.4th 101, 107 [96 Cal.Rptr.2d 441, 999 P.2d 666].) Malice will be implied when the killing results from an intentional act, the natural consequences of which are dangerous to life, which act was deliberately performed by a person who knows that his conduct endangers the life of another and who acts with conscious disregard for life. [Citations.] ( People v. Dellinger (1989) 49 Cal.3d 1212, 1215 [264 Cal.Rptr. 841, 783 P.2d 200]; see also People v. Knoller (2007) 41 Cal.4th 139, 152 [59 Cal.Rptr.3d 157, 158 P.3d 731] [reaffirming Dellinger 's articulation of the standard].) Defendant contends he was entitled to an instruction on second degree implied-malice murder because ample evidence supported the theory that the initial shock and fear the victim experienced when she first encountered him in her living room caused her fatal cardiac arrest. As defendant points out, Hayes testified that she and the victim were scared to death when defendant suddenly appeared. Furthermore, Dr. Wolf testified that the victim had preexisting heart disease and that diabetes, clogged arteries, and high blood pressure had compromised her lungs and heart. He also opined that the victim's fright at first seeing defendant played a large part in the cardiac arrest that caused her death. Contrary to defendant's argument, no reasonable jury could have concluded from the above described evidence that defendant committed second degree implied-malice murder instead of first degree felony murder. Even were we to accept that the jury could have found defendant entered the victim's home with no felonious intent, there is no evidence from which it could have inferred that his conduct in the living room amounted to a dangerous act that he undertook knowingly and in conscious disregard of Dixon's life. ( People v. Dellinger, supra, 49 Cal.3d at p. 1221.) The undisputed evidence showed that defendant, who was unarmed, stood silently in the victim's living room until the victim and her sister noticed him, then introduced himself, closed the front door, and sat down between the two women. Although defendant's unauthorized presence may have been startling and stressful, his conduct was not dangerous to human life. Defendant cites no decision, and we find none, holding that such evidence warranted instruction on second degree implied-malice murder. Because there was no substantial evidence supporting instruction on second degree murder, the trial court properly refused defendant's requested instruction. Defendant errs in asserting that the trial court's ruling violated his federal constitutional due process and Sixth Amendment rights to adequate instruction on the defense theory of the case. As earlier explained in connection with defendant's challenge to the trial court's refusal to instruct on trespass, defendant was free to argue, and did advance, to the jury his theory of the homicide, i.e., that the victim's stress and fright from his sudden appearance in her living room set in motion the fatal cardiac arrest. The absence of an instruction on second degree murder did not result in a trial that was fundamentally unfair. Nor, contrary to defendant's assertion, did the trial court's failure to instruct on second degree implied-malice murder implicate defendant's federal constitutional rights within the meaning of Beck v. Alabama (1980) 447 U.S. 625 [65 L.Ed.2d 392, 100 S.Ct. 2382]. Neither Beck nor any of the subsequent cases defendant cites requires instruction on a lesser included offense that substantial evidence does not support. ( People v. Wilson, supra, 43 Cal.4th 1, 17.) Furthermore, and also contrary to defendant's argument, this is not a case in which the jury was impermissibly forced into an all-or-nothing choice between capital murder and innocence. (See Beck v. Alabama, supra, at p. 629.) Here, the trial court gave the jury the noncapital third option of convicting defendant of first degree felony murder but finding not true the special circumstance allegations that made him death eligible. ( People v. Horning (2004) 34 Cal.4th 871, 906 [22 Cal.Rptr.3d 305, 102 P.3d 228].)