Opinion ID: 1179773
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Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Meaning of Great Bodily Injury

Text: The question we address is whether the evidence as set forth above is sufficient to sustain the jury's finding that defendant inflicted great bodily injury within the meaning of section 12022.7. In resolving this question, we do not write on a clean slate. The Legislature has specifically defined the term great bodily injury, and case law  particularly this court's decision in People v. Caudillo, supra, 21 Cal.3d 562  has superimposed substantial judicially created baggage on that definition. Our analysis begins, therefore, with a review of the pertinent authorities. Subject to certain exceptions and conditions not here relevant, section 12022.7 imposes a three-year sentence enhancement for any person who intentionally and personally inflicts great bodily injury in the commission or attempted commission of a felony. The statute expressly defines great bodily injury as constituting a significant or substantial physical injury. [2] Section 12022.7 was originally enacted in 1976 as part of the comprehensive Uniform Determinate Sentencing Act. Shortly thereafter, we had occasion to examine the scope and purposes of the statute, in light of its recent history, in People v. Caudillo, supra, 21 Cal.3d 562. Section 12022.7 itself was not actually at issue. The question was whether the evidence supported a finding of great bodily injury under section 461, which at the time of the offenses prescribed an enhanced punishment for intentional infliction of such injury during the commission of a burglary. Section 461 was one of a trio of statutes (the others were §§ 213 [robbery] and 264 [rape]) which escalated the penalty when the victim of those crimes suffered great bodily injury. Although none of the sections defined the term great bodily injury, the jury in Caudillo was given the then standard CALJIC instruction, which read as follows: The term `great bodily injury,' as used in this instruction, refers to significant or substantial bodily injury or damage; it does not refer to trivial or insignificant injury or moderate harm. (21 Cal.3d at p. 581, fn. 12; CALJIC No. 17.20 (1973 rev.) (3d rev. ed. pocket pt.).) After a review of the legislative history and decisional law, the Caudillo court determined that the enhancement provisions of sections 461, 213 and 264 were designed to deter the infliction of gratuitous injury over and above that necessarily present in the commission of the offenses themselves. [T]he Legislature indicated an intent that rape by force or violence was not synonymous with rape by means of great and immediate bodily harm. (21 Cal.3d at p. 583, original italics.) Thus, although the victim in Caudillo, supra, was raped, sodomized and forced to orally copulate the defendant, the court concluded that the resulting physical effects  gagging, vomiting, defecation and superficial cuts  did not constitute substantial or significant injury `in addition to that which must be present in every case of rape.' ( Id. at p. 585, quoting from People v. Richardson (1972) 23 Cal. App.3d 403, 412 [100 Cal. Rptr. 251].) To this point, the court's reasoning was unremarkable. That the Legislature had intended a substantial injury beyond that inherent in the offense itself was fairly apparent, and several Court of Appeal decisions, notably People v. Richardson, supra, 23 Cal. App.3d 403, and People v. Wells (1971) 14 Cal. App.3d 348 [92 Cal. Rptr. 191], had so held. However, the Caudillo court went on to observe that the Legislature had recently enacted section 12022.7, which supplant[ed] the specific great-bodily-injury provisions of Penal Code sections 213, 264, and 461 with their [separate] great-bodily-injury enhancement provisions, and [was] made applicable to all felonies which do not necessarily involve such injury. (21 Cal.3d at pp. 580-581.) It was here, in construing section 12022.7 for whatever light it might shed on section 461, that the court encountered difficulty. The analysis began by noting, correctly, that the original version of section 12022.7 spelled out in some detail the level of injury necessary to trigger the three-year enhancement: `As used in this section, great bodily injury means a serious impairment of physical condition, which includes any of the following: [¶] (a) Prolonged loss of consciousness. [¶] (b) Severe concussion. [¶] (c) Protracted loss of any bodily member or organ. [¶] (d) Protracted impairment of function of any bodily member or organ or bone. [¶] (e) A wound or wounds requiring extensive suturing. [¶] (f) Serious disfigurement. [¶] (g) Severe physical pain inflicted by torture.' ( People v. Caudillo, supra, 21 Cal.3d at p. 581; Stats. 1976, ch. 1139, § 306, pp. 5162-5163.) This version of the statute, however, never became law. The effective date of the Determinate Sentencing Act was July 1, 1977. Prior to that date, urgency legislation was introduced to make changes in the act. Among these changes were a number of significant alterations to the definition of great bodily injury in section 12022.7. On April 12, 1977, the amending legislation was itself amended in the Assembly by deleting the detailed enumeration of injuries which defined great bodily injury. (Assem. Amend. to Assem. Bill No. 476 (1977-1978 Reg. Sess.) Apr. 12, 1977.) One week later, the bill was further amended in the Assembly by changing the remaining definition of great bodily injury from a serious impairment of physical condition to a significant or substantial physical injury. (Assem. Amend. to Assem. Bill No. 476 (1977-1978 Reg. Sess.) Apr. 19, 1977.) This was the version ultimately enacted into law. (Stats. 1977, ch. 165, § 94, p. 679.) Although the legislative history sheds little light on the purpose underlying the first Assembly amendment removing the detailed definition of great bodily injury, it appears that the intent was to preclude the possibility that the specific examples set forth therein would be construed as exclusive of other types of injury not expressly enumerated. As to the second amendment, the evidence of legislative intent is somewhat more enlightening. The analysis of the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice explained that great bodily injury was redefined as a `significant or substantial physical injury' as provided in the CALJIC instruction. (Assem. Com. on Criminal Justice, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 476 (1977-1978 Reg. Sess.) as amended Apr. 19, 1977.) Indeed, the second amendment to section 12022.7 adopted the exact language found in the then current CALJIC instruction, which defined great bodily injury as significant or substantial bodily injury or damage. (CALJIC No. 17.20 (1973 rev.) (3d rev. ed. pocket pt.).) Additional evidence that the Legislature intended to replace the detailed and exacting definition of great bodily injury set forth in the original version of the statute with the more general standard then in use, may be found in a subsequent report of the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice. In a summary of the major changes enacted by the Assembly, the report stated: A.B. 476 repeals the specific definition of GBI [great bodily injury] and substitutes for it a `significant or substantial physical injury.' This codifies the current law. (Assem. Com. on Criminal Justice, Summary of Major Changes in Sen. Bill No. 42 (Stats. 1976, ch. 1139, § 306, p. 5162) Through Assem. Bill No. 476 (1977-1978 Reg. Sess.) as enacted June 27, 1977 (Stats. 1977, ch. 165, § 94, p. 679), italics added.) Thus, the legislative history of section 12022.7 reveals a clear legislative intent to discard the original, detailed definition of great bodily injury and substitute the more general standard then currently in use. Inexplicably, however, the Caudillo court ( supra, 21 Cal.3d 562) failed to consider that the original version of section 12022.7 was altered by two separate amendments to the urgency legislation introduced to amend the Determinate Sentencing Act. It simply noted that the statute was amended in 1977 but took no account of the legislative history relating to the second amendment to Assembly Bill No. 476 and, tellingly, attributed no significance to the subsequent alteration in the definitional standards required to trigger the three-year enhancement. Instead, the court concluded that the 1977 amendment to Penal Code section 12022.7 was not intended to lessen the magnitude of bodily injury required by the 1976 detailed definition of great bodily injury. ( People v. Caudillo, supra, 21 Cal.3d at pp. 581-582.) Accordingly, the court proceeded to borrow a number of themes from the legislatively abandoned criteria and incorporated them into a working translation or gloss on the statutory definition of great bodily injury. Thus, in holding that the evidence did not sustain the jury's finding of great bodily injury, the Caudillo court characterized the victim's injuries as transitory and short-lived rather than severe or protracted in nature. (21 Cal.3d at p. 588.) The court also observed that there was no evidence of any permanent, protracted or visible disfigurement, nor any protracted impairment of function of any portion of her body. ( Id. at pp. 588-589.) In effect, the court reinstated the very criteria that the Legislature itself had seen fit to renounce. The judicial reformation of the statute was thus complete. Not surprisingly, Caudillo, supra, 21 Cal.3d 562, soon became the standard litmus test for determining great bodily injury. In People v. Johnson (1980) 104 Cal. App.3d 598 [164 Cal. Rptr. 69], for example, the Court of Appeal concluded that the victim's injury, a bone fracture, is not merely a transitory bodily distress, but a severe and protracted injury which causes significant pain and requires considerable time to heal. In other words, in case of a bone fracture the double criteria set out in Caudillo are present. This type of injury is of both sufficient severity and permanence and hence constitutes a substantial and significant physical injury within the delineation of both Caudillo and the statute. ( Id. at p. 609.) Additional examples of the influence of Caudillo abound. In People v. Muniz (1989) 213 Cal. App.3d 1508 [262 Cal. Rptr. 743], the assailant beat the victim about the face with such force that she lost consciousness and later recalled that the blows `felt like splinters going through my skull.' ( Id. at p. 1520.) The Court of Appeal sustained the finding of great bodily injury, but only on the ground that the injuries, while not permanent, were more than merely transitory. Her bruises lasted four months. ( Ibid. ) In People v. Brown (1985) 174 Cal. App.3d 762 [220 Cal. Rptr. 264], the victim of a rape suffered a lacerated hymen requiring sutures to mend, and a vaginal area described as `bloody, bludgeoned [and] smashed.' ( Id. at p. 765) Still, the court was compelled to determine whether the injuries were protracted or merely transitory or short lived. ( Ibid. ) The test for great bodily injury articulated in Caudillo, supra, 21 Cal.3d 562, also proved to be dispositive in the case at bar. Here, however, it persuaded the Court of Appeal to reverse the jury's finding of great bodily injury. While acknowledging that Maria suffered injuries not routinely associated with rape, the Court of Appeal nevertheless concluded that her bruises, scrapes, stiff neck and sore vagina constituted only transitory bodily distress. They do not amount, the court stated, to the `severe and protracted' type of harm which meets the definition of `significant or substantial physical injury' specified by the Legislature and defined in Caudillo. We cannot fault the Court of Appeal for deferring to Caudillo, supra, 21 Cal.3d 562. As explained above, however, Caudillo erred in concluding that the Legislature intended no change in the definition of great bodily injury when it discarded the specific criteria set forth in the original version of section 12022.7 and substituted the more general significant or substantial physical injury test then in use. Clearly, the latter standard contains no specific requirement that the victim suffer permanent, prolonged or protracted disfigurement, impairment, or loss of bodily function. Indeed, nothing in the statutory definition precludes a jury from finding great bodily injury based on precisely the quantum of evidence presented here: extensive bruises and abrasions over the victim's legs, knees and elbows, injury to her neck and soreness in her vaginal area of such severity that it significantly impaired her ability to walk. As the Court of Appeal correctly concluded, these are not the type of injuries routinely associated with rape, but reflect a degree of brutality and violence substantially beyond that necessarily present in the offense. (1) It is well settled that the determination of great bodily injury is essentially a question of fact, not of law. `Whether the harm resulting to the victim ... constitutes great bodily injury is a question of fact for the jury. [Citation.] If there is sufficient evidence to sustain the jury's finding of great bodily injury, we are bound to accept it, even though the circumstances might reasonably be reconciled with a contrary finding.' ( People v. Wolcott (1983) 34 Cal.3d 92, 107 [192 Cal. Rptr. 748, 665 P.2d 520], quoting People v. Salas (1976) 77 Cal. App.3d 600, 606 [143 Cal. Rptr. 755].) [3] (2a) Analyzed in light of the controlling principles set forth above, we conclude the evidence was sufficient to sustain the jury's finding of great bodily injury.