Opinion ID: 2623595
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Instruction on Forcible Sodomy as Supporting First Degree Felony Murder; Failure to Instruct on Second Degree Murder

Text: Coffman contends, and respondent concedes, that the trial court erred in instructing the jury in this case that forcible sodomy could support a finding of first degree murder. Under California law as it existed in 1986 when Novis was killed, and until the approval of Proposition 115 by the voters in the general election of June 1990, forcible sodomy was not included in section 189's enumeration of felonies supporting a first degree felony-murder conviction. The error, however, was harmless, because the jury's verdicts on the robbery and burglary charges and related special circumstance allegations reflect that the first degree murder conviction was grounded upon other, valid legal theories of felony murder. ( People v. Hughes (2002) 27 Cal.4th 287, 368, 116 Cal.Rptr.2d 401, 39 P.3d 432.) Coffman argues, to the contrary, that the submission to the jury of the natural and probable consequences theory of aider and abettor liability meant the jury did not necessarily find she had the requisite specific intent to commit robbery, burglary and sodomy. Given, however, that the jury was instructed that aider and abettor liability required knowledge of the perpetrator's criminal purpose and acting with the intent or purpose of committing, encouraging or facilitating the commission of the crime (see CALJIC No. 3.01), her argument lacks merit. Coffman further argues the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on second degree felony murder based on sodomy. Any error in this regard clearly was harmless in light of the jury's findings on the robbery and burglary charges and related special circumstances, including its findings of intent to kill as to each special circumstance allegation. (See People v. Sedeno (1974) 10 Cal.3d 703, 721, 112 Cal.Rptr. 1, 518 P.2d 913, overruled in part on other grounds in People v. Breverman (1998) 19 Cal.4th 142, 149, 77 Cal.Rptr.2d 870, 960 P.2d 1094, and disapproved on other grounds in People v. Flannel, supra, 25 Cal.3d at p. 684, fn. 12, 160 Cal.Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d 1 [error in omitting instruction harmless when factual question posed by that instruction was necessarily resolved adversely to the defendant under other, properly given instructions].) Coffman also contends the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury, sua sponte, on second degree murder as a lesser included offense of either premeditated and deliberate first degree murder or first degree felony murder. She theorizes that defendants completed their robbery of Novis when they arrived at the Drinkhouse residence, at which point the kidnapping became one for extortion (of Novis's PIN) rather than robbery. Coffman further suggests that when she and Koppers took Novis's purse and drove her car to a 7-Eleven store, while Marlow remained at the Drinkhouse residence with Novis, Coffman had reached a place of temporary safety definitively terminating the prior robbery as to her, even though Novis remained captive under Marlow's control. She contends that, had she been the actual perpetrator of the robbery, once away from the victim, she would at that point have reached a place of temporary safety and that, as an aider-abettor, her liability for robbery could not exceed what it would have been had she been the perpetrator. She contends further that the sodomy, assuming it occurred, was solely for Marlow's sexual gratification, not as part of a conditional threat to extract information. She asserts that the prosecutor's theory of the crimes â that, from the moment they accosted Novis, defendants must have had a plan to take all of her property â is at variance with the way in which common criminals happen to commit crimes. We disagree with Coffman's premise that the robbery terminated at the point when defendants brought Novis to the Drinkhouse residence; far from being a place of safety, the residence was the home of another person whom the evidence showed defendants felt the necessity of monitoring and impliedly threatening, lest he reveal their criminal activity, during the period of their occupation while they maintained control over the captive Novis. Nor did the robbery terminate as to Coffman during her temporary absence from the house. Rather, the evidence shows all of defendants' offenses against Novis to have been part of a continuous transaction for purposes of felony-murder liability. Because no evidence supported the theory that defendants murdered Novis in the course of some lesser included felony rather than robbery, the trial court had no obligation to instruct on second degree felony murder. ( People v. Waidla (2000) 22 Cal.4th 690, 733, 94 Cal.Rptr.2d 396, 996 P.2d 46.) And any error in failing to instruct on second degree implied-malice murder as a lesser included offense of premeditated and deliberate first degree murder was harmless, because the factual question posed by the omitted instruction necessarily was resolved unfavorably to Coffman under the instructions on the special circumstance allegations, which required a finding of intent to kill. ( People v. Sedeno, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 721, 112 Cal.Rptr. 1, 518 P.2d 913.) Finally, to the extent Coffman argues that evidence of her use of drugs around the time of the offenses supported an instruction on second degree murder on the theory that intoxication precluded formation of the specific intent to kill as necessary for first degree murder, we observe the jury was instructed that if it found defendants were intoxicated at the time of the offenses, it should consider that fact in determining whether they had the intent or mental state required for the crimes of murder, kidnapping, kidnapping for robbery, robbery and residential burglary. That the jury convicted Coffman of all of the charged offenses and found true the special circumstance allegations, which required it to find intent to kill, indicates it found she was not so intoxicated as to be unable to form the required mental states; consequently, a more favorable outcome had a second degree murder instruction been given was not reasonably probable. ( People v. Watson, supra, 46 Cal.2d at p. 836, 299 P.2d 243.) [29]