Opinion ID: 2623595
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: Asserted Error in Instructions Concerning Battered Woman Syndrome and Related Defenses

Text: Coffman contends the trial court erred in refusing her request for certain instructions pertaining to her defense based on battered woman syndrome. She further contends the instructions the court actually gave on battered woman syndrome and its relation to the mental states required to prove the charged offenses were prejudicially deficient. For the reasons that follow, we disagree. Consistent with her defense that she participated in the offenses against Novis because she feared Marlow would harm her or her son, Coffman asked the trial court to instruct the jury that battered woman syndrome evidence, if believed, might negate any intent to kill; that battered woman syndrome evidence might be sufficient, by itself, to raise a reasonable doubt whether Coffman had the intent to kill Novis; that battered woman syndrome evidence could support a reasonable doubt whether Coffman had the intent required to encourage or facilitate Marlow in killing Novis; that a defense of duress may be based on threats of harm to persons other than the accused; and that a defendant is not an accomplice if he acted under threats or menaces sufficient to give him cause to believe his life would be endangered if he refused to help. The trial court refused the requested instructions. Instead, the court instructed the jury that it could consider evidence of battered woman syndrome solely for the purpose of determining whether Coffman had actually formed the mental state required for the charged offenses of murder, kidnapping, kidnapping for robbery, robbery, residential burglary and sodomy by the use of force, and for the special circumstance allegations. The court further instructed that a person is not guilty of a crime when he or she engages in conduct that is otherwise criminal, when the person is acting under threats or menaces that would cause a reasonable person to fear that his or her life would be in immediate danger if he or she did not engage in the conduct charged, and the person then believed that his or her life would be so endangered. The court instructed that this rule does not apply to threats, menaces and fear of future danger to the person's life, or when the person commits a crime punishable with death. [30] The court also instructed, however, that such evidence, if believed by the jury, might still be relevant in determining whether or not the defendant had formed the intent or mental state required for the crimes charged. The court also instructed that an act committed by a person who is in a state of voluntary intoxication is no less criminal by virtue of the person's having been in such a condition, that voluntary intoxication was no defense to the charge of sodomy by force, and that evidence of intoxication could be considered in determining whether defendants had the mental state or specific intent required for the crimes of murder, kidnapping, kidnapping for robbery, robbery and residential burglary. Coffman complains the instructions given were incomplete, inaccurate and erroneous with respect to (1) the relationship between battered woman syndrome and coercion; (2) the crimes to which the defense of coercion applies and the applicability of coercion to aider-abettor liability; (3) the principle that coercion, as shown by battered woman syndrome, can negate intent to kill, which was an element of first degree murder and the special circumstances; (4) the defense of necessity; and (5) the relationship between battered woman syndrome and Coffman's credibility. More specifically, she complains the instructions failed to inform the jury that it could consider evidence of battered woman syndrome in evaluating the defense of coercion, in determining whether Coffman perceived herself or any of her family members to be in imminent peril from Marlow, and in assessing her credibility and conduct pertaining to her jailhouse exchange of letters with Marlow. Under appropriate circumstances, a trial court may be required to give a requested jury instruction that pinpoints a defense theory of the case by, among other things, relating the reasonable doubt standard of proof to particular elements of the crime charged. [Citations.] But a trial court need not give a pinpoint instruction if it is argumentative [citation], merely duplicates other instructions [citation], or is not supported by substantial evidence [citation]. ( People v. Bolden, supra, 29 Cal.4th at p. 558, 127 Cal.Rptr.2d 802, 58 P.3d 931.) We conclude the instructions given here correctly and (with one exception) [31] adequately informed the jury that it could consider the evidence of battered woman syndrome in determining whether Coffman had formed the mental state or specific intent required for the charged offenses, and the trial court therefore did not err in refusing Coffman's proposed instructions. At least one of the requested instructions properly could have been refused as argumentative because it would have directed the jury to draw inferences favorable to Coffman from specific evidence on a disputed question of fact. [32] ( People v. Wright (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1126, 1135, 248 Cal.Rptr. 600, 755 P.2d 1049.) The instruction on threats of harm to a third person was also properly refused under the evidence presented. Because the defense of duress requires a reasonable belief that threats to the defendant's life (or that of another) are both imminent and immediate at the time the crime is committed ( People v. Lo Cicero (1969) 71 Cal.2d 1186, 1191, 80 Cal.Rptr. 913, 459 P.2d 241, disapproved on another point in Curl v. Superior Court (1990) 51 Cal.3d 1292, 1301, fn. 6, 276 Cal.Rptr. 49, 801 P.2d 292; People v. Condley (1977) 69 Cal.App.3d 999, 1012, 138 Cal.Rptr. 515), threats of future danger are inadequate to support the defense. Because any danger to Coffman's child (who was living in Missouri) was not shown to be immediate, the trial court correctly rejected Coffman's proposed instruction on this point. Contrary to Coffman's argument, the trial court did not err in failing to instruct on the defense of necessity, which Coffman never raised at trial and which finds no support in the evidence in this case. The defense of necessity generally recognizes that the harm or evil sought to be avoided by [the defendant's] conduct is greater than that sought to be prevented by the law defining the offense charged. ( People v. Richards (1969) 269 Cal.App.2d 768, 777, 75 Cal.Rptr. 597.) The defendant, who must have possessed a reasonable belief that his or her action was justified, bears the burden of proffering evidence of the existence of an emergency situation involving the imminence of greater harm that the illegal act seeks to prevent. ( People v. Patrick (1981) 126 Cal.App.3d 952, 960, 179 Cal.Rptr. 276; People v. Condley, supra, 69 Cal.App.3d at pp. 1011-1013, 138 Cal.Rptr. 515.) As respondent rightly points out, [i]t is not acceptable for a defendant to decide that it is necessary to kill an innocent person in order that he [or she] may live, particularly where, as here, Coffman's alleged fear related to some future danger. Our observations in People v. Anderson, supra, 28 Cal.4th at pages 777-778, 122 Cal.Rptr.2d 587, 50 P.3d 368, although referring specifically to the duress defense in the context of gang-related killings, are pertinent here. A person can always choose to resist rather than kill an innocent person. The law must encourage, even require, everyone to seek an alternative to killing. Crimes are often committed by more than one person; the criminal law must also, perhaps especially, deter those crimes. California today is tormented by gang violence. If duress is recognized as a defense to the killing of innocents, then a street or prison gang need only create an internal reign of terror and murder can be justified, at least by the actual killer. Persons who know they can claim duress will be more likely to follow a gang order to kill instead of resisting than would those who know they must face the consequences of their acts. Accepting the duress defense for any form of murder would thus encourage killing. ( Ibid. ) Finally, with respect to Coffman's contention that the instructions given were deficient because they failed to inform the jury that it could consider the evidence of battered woman syndrome in assessing her credibility or her conduct in sending letters to Marlow while in jail or in determining whether she perceived imminent peril to herself from Marlow, we note her proffered instructions failed to convey these concepts, which are not shown to fall in the category of general principles of law so closely and openly connected with the facts before the court as to come within the court's sua sponte instructional obligations. (See People v. St. Martin (1970) 1 Cal.3d 524, 531, 83 Cal.Rptr. 166, 463 P.2d 390.) Accordingly, the contention must fail.