Opinion ID: 2584939
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Refusal to Instruct on Voluntary Manslaughter

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred in refusing his request for voluntary manslaughter instructions based on provocation/heat of passion, and further, that the court had a sua sponte duty to instruct on imperfect self-defense as another theory of voluntary manslaughter. We find no such instructional error on this factual record. (5) Manslaughter, a lesser included offense of murder, is an unlawful killing without malice. (§ 192; People v. Ochoa (1998) 19 Cal.4th 353, 422 [79 Cal.Rptr.2d 408, 966 P.2d 442].) Malice is presumptively absent when a defendant kills upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion (§ 192, subd. (a)), provided that the provocation is sufficient to cause an ordinarily reasonable person to act rashly and without deliberation, and from passion rather than judgment. ( People v. Berry (1976) 18 Cal.3d 509, 515 [134 Cal.Rptr. 415, 556 P.2d 777].) Similarly, when a defendant kills in the actual but unreasonable belief that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily injury, the doctrine of imperfect self-defense applies to reduce the killing from murder to voluntary manslaughter. ( People v. Michaels (2002) 28 Cal.4th 486, 529 [122 Cal.Rptr.2d 285, 49 P.3d 1032]; In re Christian S. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 768, 771, 773 [30 Cal.Rptr.2d 33, 872 P.2d 574].) (6) In a criminal case, a trial court must instruct on general principles of law relevant to the issues raised by the evidence, even absent a request for such instruction from the parties. ( People v. Breverman (1998) 19 Cal.4th 142, 154 [77 Cal.Rptr.2d 870, 960 P.2d 1094].) The obligation extends to instruction on lesser included offenses when the evidence raises a question as to whether all the elements of the charged offense were present, but not when there is no evidence that the offense committed was less than that charged. ( Ibid. ) (7) As explained in People v. Barton (1995) 12 Cal.4th 186 [47 Cal.Rptr.2d 569, 906 P.2d 531], a trial court must instruct on provocation/heat of passion as a theory of manslaughter, if supported by substantial evidence, even when the defendant objects on the basis that the instructions would conflict with his theory of the defense. ( Id. at pp. 194, 196, 201.) The same sua sponte instructional obligation applies to unreasonable/imperfect selfdefense, for such is not an affirmative defense, but rather a description of one type or theory of voluntary manslaughter. ( Id. at pp. 194, 201.) However, the substantial evidence required to trigger the duty to instruct on such lesser offenses is not merely  any evidence ... no matter how weak ( People v. Flannel (1979) 25 Cal.3d 668, 684, fn. 12 [160 Cal.Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d 1]), but rather `evidence from which a jury composed of reasonable [persons] could ... conclude[]' that the lesser offense, but not the greater, was committed. ( Id. at p. 684, quoting People v. Carr (1972) 8 Cal.3d 287, 294 [104 Cal.Rptr. 705, 502 P.2d 513]; see Barton, supra, 12 Cal.4th at p. 201, fn. 8; People v. Breverman, supra, 19 Cal.4th. at pp. 162-163.) In discussing the viability of a voluntary manslaughter instruction, the trial court commented on the fact that several hours had passed between the time defendant was arrested by Deputy Perrigo in front of the Sanchez house in McArthur shortly after midnight, and the time he murdered Deputy Perrigo at approximately 3:00 a.m. The testimony of various witnesses in this case belies defendant's claims that his nose was broken upon his arrest, or that he was otherwise physically injured in the course of the events that led up to his murder of Deputy Perrigo. Although, as he was being brought into the Burney substation, defendant commented, What are you guys going to do now, shoot me?, he immediately thereafter began dancing, singing, laughing, and acting cocky. Indeed, shortly after Deputy Perrigo responded to defendant, I'm not going to shoot you, defendant turned his attention to the deputy and stated, prophetically, [A]ll it would take is one bullet in your head. Defendant urges us to infer that from the time of his arrest for public intoxication four months earlier, in July 1991 (in connection with the prowling incident, during which he tried to gain entry into a mobilehome occupied by minors, kicked the father who managed to subdue him, and threatened to kill arresting Deputy Dikes with a bullet in the back of the head), until his arrest in this case, the Shasta County sheriff's deputies had harassed, mishandled, and humiliated him to the point where he acted out of the heat of passion and unreasonable self-defense in shooting Deputy Perrigo on the morning of October 21, 1991. The law, however, does not support defendant's claim. There is no evidence that defendant was physically injured, much less in imminent danger of great bodily injury or death at the hands of Deputy Perrigo or the other deputies with whom he came into contact from the time of his arrest sometime around midnight until he murdered Deputy Perrigo three hours later. Indeed, the exact opposite was true. Moreover, the jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant intentionally murdered Deputy Perrigo for the purpose of perfecting his escape from the deputy's lawful custody, and further, that defendant was lying in wait for a period of up to 15 or more minutes before selecting the most opportune time to retrieve the weapon he had concealed and shoot the defenseless deputy from behind in the back of the head. These special circumstance findings themselves negate any possibility that defendant was prejudiced from the failure to instruct on provocation/heat of passion or unreasonable self-defense theories of manslaughter.