Opinion ID: 2608844
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Sufficiency of the Evidence of Felony Murder

Text: Defendant next contends the murder conviction and the robbery-murder special-circumstance finding are defective because the robbery terminated as a matter of law before the killing. The contention is without merit. As to the murder conviction, defendant overlooks the fact that he was tried primarily on a theory of wilful, deliberate and premeditated first degree murder, and the jury specifically found, in connection with both the robbery-murder and kidnapping-murder special-circumstance allegations, that the murder was wilful, deliberate and premeditated and was personally committed by defendant. The murder conviction, therefore, is valid regardless of the merits of the felony-murder theory. (12) As to the robbery-murder special circumstance, defendant contends the murder could not have been committed during the commission or attempted commission of a robbery because he had reached a place of temporary safety ( People v. Salas (1972) 7 Cal.3d 812, 821-823 [103 Cal. Rptr. 431, 500 P.2d 7, 58 A.L.R.3d 832]) at one of at least several points prior to the killing, and therefore the robbery had necessarily terminated before the killing. More specifically, defendant argues that his flight after the kidnapping and robbery ended soon after he and his associates left the K mart parking lot and reached the freeway. Alternatively, defendant contends that the continuity between the robbery, the escape, and the killing was broken by the intervening stops at the Joy and Joy Bar and the Olympic Hotel. The contention lacks merit. So long as he held the robbery and kidnapping victim, defendant's safety was continuously in jeopardy. At any point in the journey, at any one of the several stops the group made between the K mart and the killing scene, in any unguarded moment, the victim might have managed to escape or signal for help. (See People v. Fields (1983) 35 Cal.3d 329, 367 [197 Cal. Rptr. 803, 673 P.2d 680].) There was never a moment when defendant could reasonably be said to have reached a place of temporary safety. Defendant exercised continuous control over the victim from the beginning of the episode to its tragic fatal conclusion. ( Id. at p. 368.) The crimes were also linked by the fact that defendant's motive for killing may have been to prevent the victim of the robbery and kidnapping from identifying him. ( Ibid. ) People v. Ford (1966) 65 Cal.2d 41 [52 Cal. Rptr. 228, 416 P.2d 132], which defendant cites as controlling, is clearly distinguishable. In that case, many hours had elapsed between the robbery and the killing, and the defendant had reached several havens of temporary safety during that period; furthermore, the robbery victim was not the person who was killed. ( Id. at pp. 56-57.) Here, by way of contrast, only two to three hours elapsed from the abduction and robbery to the killing, the defendant made only two brief stops, the robbery victim was also the murder victim, and the apparent motive for the killing was to prevent the victim from identifying defendant as the perpetrator of the original crimes. Thus, the evidence amply supports the special circumstance finding of murder during the commission of a robbery. Defendant also renews a contention from his first appeal concerning the trial court's refusal to give a special instruction on the duration of robbery. Inasmuch as the request was not made in the retrial, and the trial court properly instructed the jury on the law governing the duration of a robbery (CALJIC No. 9.15), the contention must be rejected.