Opinion ID: 1311837
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Overlapping Felony-murder Special Circumstances.

Text: (26) The jury found true two felony-murder special circumstances: robbery-murder and kidnapping-for-purposes-of-robbery murder. (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(i) and (ii).) Defendant argues the two felonies necessarily overlap because they describe an indivisible course of conduct having one principal criminal purpose: the robbery of Benham. Consequently, he contends that under People v. Harris, supra, 36 Cal.3d 36, it was error to instruct the jury to consider each as a distinct aggravating factor under subdivision (a). In Harris, supra, 36 Cal.3d 36, a plurality of this court held that in cases where there have been alleged and found true multiple felony-murder special circumstances based on an indivisible course of conduct having one principal criminal purpose, the jury should be instructed that for purposes of determining penalty the multiple special circumstances should be considered as one. ( Id. at p. 66.) The Harris court reached this conclusion in the belief that to permit the jury to take into account all of such multiple felony-murder special circumstances would artificially inflate the defendant's conduct and undercut the constitutionally mandated objective of focusing on the particularized circumstances of the crime and the defendant. ( Id. at p. 62.) The plurality further suggested that separate consideration of such overlapping special circumstances at the penalty phase would violate [t]he principles underlying California's prohibition of double punishment. ( Id. at p. 64; see § 654.) In People v. Melton, supra, 44 Cal.3d 713 we reconsidered Harris. We determined there was no constitutional impediment to permitting the jury to consider multiple felonies leading to the capital murder ( id. at p. 767), so long as the various felonies are not weighed in the penalty determination  more than once for exactly the same purpose ( id. at p. 768, italics in original). [19] As we there observed, it is constitutionally legitimate for the state to determine that a death-eligible murderer is more culpable, and thus more deserving of death, if he not only robbed the victim but committed an additional and separate felonious act, burglary [or, as here, kidnapping], in order to facilitate the robbery and murder. ( Id. at p. 767; accord, People v. Bean (1988) 46 Cal.3d 919, 954-955 [760 P.2d 996].) Each of the crimes underlying the felony murder special circumstances invades a distinct interest that society seeks to protect. ( Bean, supra ; accord, People v. Poggi, supra, 45 Cal.3d at p. 340.) In the instant case the jury was properly permitted to consider both the robbery special circumstance and the kidnapping-for-robbery special circumstance as aggravating factors under section 190.3 factor (a).