Opinion ID: 2369367
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Lack of jury instruction on necessity of a live victim

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury, on its own motion, that the commission of a rape or lewd act by force required a live victim. Although defendant did not request a jury instruction on this precise point, he contends there was sufficient evidence that Corina was dead before he sexually assaulted her, and the trial court therefore was required to instruct the jury it was not legally possible for him to commit rape or a lewd act by force if she already was dead, he knew she was dead, and he formed the intent to commit the sex act only after she had died. The crime of rape requires a live victim; the intent to have sexual intercourse with a dead body is neither rape nor attempted rape. (E.g., Lewis, supra, 46 Cal.4th at pp. 1299-1301.) The same is true for committing a lewd act. (See, e.g., San Nicolas, supra, 34 Cal.4th at pp. 660-661.) This contention lacks merit. Defendant's contrary assertions on appeal notwithstanding, his statements to police implied Corina was alive when he helped her remove her shorts. Defendant admitted Corina was bleeding at the time, but he specifically told the police that [s]he wasn't stabbed all the way, I only cut [her] a little bit. Although defendant stated Corina was lying down at the time and did not say anything, that is not evidence that she was dead, especially in light of defendant's specific statement that her injuries were not serious at that time. And, as noted, defendant also initially told the police that he ordered Corina to remove her shorts; defendant does not explain why he would give orders to someone who was already dead. (16) Even were we to agree with defendant that the evidence suggested Corina already might have been dead, the trial court did not err in failing to instruct on its own motion as to this particular theory. In criminal cases, even absent a request, a trial court is obligated to instruct the jury on all general principles of law relevant to the issues raised by the evidence. (E.g., People v. Martinez (2010) 47 Cal.4th 911, 953 [105 Cal.Rptr.3d 131, 224 P.3d 877] ( Martinez ).) A trial court, however, has a duty to instruct on its own initiative on a particular defense only if it appears the defendant is relying on such a defense, or substantial evidence supports the defense and it is consistent with the defendant's theory of the case. ( Ibid. ) At trial, defendant did not rely upon the theory that Corina was already dead; rather, defense counsel suggested that Maddox was partially (or totally) responsible for the crimes, or, alternatively, that defendant's own actions did not rise to the level of first degree murder. Although this claim that Corina was already dead, raised for the first time on appeal, is not entirely inconsistent with the theory defendant presented at trial, as we have explained, no substantial evidence was presented at trial that would have compelled the trial court to instruct the jury on this particular defense. Defendant relies heavily on People v. Sellers (1988) 203 Cal.App.3d 1042 [250 Cal.Rptr. 345] ( Sellers ), in which the Court of Appeal reversed the defendant's conviction of rape and first degree murder, as well as a rape-murder special-circumstance finding, due to the trial court's failure to instruct the jury that rape requires a live victim. Sellers is readily distinguishable, however, because in that case substantial evidence was presented at trial that the victim was dead when the defendant had sexual intercourse with her body. Under the defendant's theory of the case in Sellers, he killed the victim, left and returned to the crime scene an hour or two later, and then performed the sex act. This substantial passage of time bolstered the defendant's theory the victim was dead, that he formed the intent to commit the sex act only after her death, and that the rape and murder were not part of a continuous course of conduct. Moreover, the lack of a live victim was a key theory of the defendant's case, and the trial court there refused to use the defendant's proffered jury instructions that highlighted this theory. Similarly, in People v. Kelly (1992) 1 Cal.4th 495 [3 Cal.Rptr.2d 677, 822 P.2d 385] ( Kelly ), due to instructional error we reduced a rape conviction to attempted rape because there was some evidence that the defendant, despite his admission to the contrary, killed a victim at one location and had sexual intercourse with her body in another. This reduction, however, had no effect on the accompanying murder and special circumstance findings. ( Id. at p. 528.) In contrast to Sellers and Kelly, the evidence presented at defendant's trial of any purported postmortem sexual activity (or intent) consisted solely of a highly charitable interpretation of defendant's statements to the police, as he never specifically told them he sexually assaulted Corina (or formed the intent to do so) only after her death. Even if Corina was dead when defendant removed her shorts, the evidence at trial still supported a theory that defendant's acts constituted a continuous course of conduct following from an intent that defendant formed while Corina was still alive. As we have explained, ante, the evidence was sufficient to support the conviction for first degree murder based on a felony-murder theory, as well as the related felony-murder special-circumstance findings. In addition, there was no evidence the killing and sexual assault took place at different locations. Moreover, defendant at trial did not advance, let alone rely on, this theory of the case. Consequently, the trial court did not err in failing to instruct the jury on a theory of the case that was neither substantially supported by the evidence nor relied on by defendant at trial. (17) To the extent defendant contends the trial court failed to instruct the jury that an antemortem-formed intent to commit rape or a lewd act by force is required for a first degree felony-murder conviction, we repeatedly have held that CALJIC No. 8.21, [20] which the trial court read to the jury here, adequately conveys that the required intent must be formed before the murder occurred. (E.g., People v. Jones (2003) 29 Cal.4th 1229, 1258-1259 [131 Cal.Rptr.2d 468, 64 P.3d 762].)