Opinion ID: 1194691
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: issues arising at the guilt phase of the trial.

Text: The court instructed the jury on alternative theories of murder: felony murder, and first degree murder involving malice and premeditation. Defendant takes issue here with both theories. Defendant's attack on the felony-murder instruction (he asserts that the California felony-murder rule is judge-made law which should now be repudiated) has already been rejected in People v. Dillon (1983) 34 Cal.3d 441 [194 Cal. Rptr. 390, 668 P.2d 697]. As we shall explain, on the facts of this case, defendant's lack of any viable objection to the felony-murder instruction renders his attack on the premeditated murder instruction inconsequential. (1) Defendant argues that the evidence was insufficient to justify an instruction on premeditated murder. He points to the absence of evidence of planning preceding the encounter (see People v. Anderson (1968) 70 Cal.2d 15, 26-27 [73 Cal. Rptr. 550, 447 P.2d 942]) and seeks to analogize the case to People v. Velasquez (1980) 26 Cal.3d 425 [162 Cal. Rptr. 306, 606 P.2d 341], where we said that proof of a sudden killing in the course of an argument and struggle between the defendant and his victim would not prove a deliberate and premeditated murder. (26 Cal.3d at p. 435.) Defendant's analogy is imperfect. The only evidence of an argument and struggle between defendant and Edsill is that Edsill pushed the gun away when defendant pointed it at Edsill's head. Moreover, the deliberate manner in which defendant acted, especially in firing five additional shots at the fleeing and wounded victim, should be sufficient to justify an instruction on premeditation. The greater weakness in defendant's position, however, is that substantial evidence clearly supports an instruction on first degree felony murder. In People v. Green (1980) 27 Cal.3d 1, 69 [164 Cal. Rptr. 1, 609 P.2d 468], we noted that the governing rule on appeal is both settled and clear: when the prosecution presents its case to the jury on alternate theories, some of which are legally correct and others legally incorrect, and the reviewing court cannot determine from the record on which theory the ensuing general verdict of guilt rested, the conviction cannot stand. (Italics added.) In the present case, the jury which found defendant guilty of first degree murder simultaneously returned a verdict finding as a special circumstance that defendant committed that murder during the commission of an attempted robbery. It also found defendant guilty of the crime of attempted robbery. Those findings make it clear that whatever the jurors thought about premeditation, they agreed upon all of the elements necessary for a verdict of first degree murder based on a felony-murder theory. Consequently, any error in instructing on premeditation could not have prejudiced defendant.
(2) Carlos v. Superior Court (1983) 35 Cal.3d 131 [197 Cal. Rptr. 79, 672 P.2d 862], held that proof of intent to kill or to aid a killing was essential to a finding of felony-murder special circumstances under the 1978 death penalty initiative. The holding in Carlos applies retroactively to all cases not final. ( People v. Garcia (1984) 36 Cal.3d 539, 550 [205 Cal. Rptr. 265, 684 P.2d 826].) (3) In the present case, tried before Carlos was filed, the court erred in not instructing the jury that intent to kill was an essential element of a finding of special circumstances based on a murder during an attempted robbery. [4] Following federal precedent, People v. Garcia held that failure to instruct on intent to kill was reversible error per se. (36 Cal.3d 539, 554.) Garcia recognized four exceptions in which failure to instruct might not require retrial of the special circumstances, two of which have arguable relevance to the case at hand: (1) that the factual question was necessarily resolved adversely to the defendant under other, properly given instructions (pp. 554-555); and (2) that the parties recognized that intent to kill was in issue, presented all evidence at their command on that issue, and ... the record not only establishes the necessary intent as a matter of law but shows the contrary evidence not worthy of consideration. (P. 556.) Neither exception, however, justifies affirmance of the finding in the present case. The way in which defendant killed Edsill suggests that defendant intended the killing. Defendant shot Edsill in the heart from a distance of a few feet, then fired five more shots when Edsill tried to escape. Nothing in defendant's conduct at the time of the killing or afterwards suggests that defendant pulled the trigger accidentally, that he intended only to frighten or to wound the victim, or had any intent except to kill. Defense counsel, however, set out to prove a diminished capacity defense. He called witnesses to show that users of PCP often engage in impulsive and irrational violent behavior, that defendant regularly used PCP and may have used it on the day of the crime, and that defendant became unpredictably violent under the influence of that chemical. On the basis of this evidence, counsel argued that the prosecution had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant intended either to rob or to kill. The jury verdict did not necessarily establish that defendant intended to kill. Under the instructions given, defendant would have been guilty of first degree murder with felony-murder special circumstances if he intended to rob Edsill and the killing occurred during the commission of the attempted robbery, even if the killing itself was an unintentional, impulsive, druginduced act. And although the evidence suggests that defendant was not strongly under the influence of PCP at the time of the shooting, and did intend to kill Edsill, we cannot legitimately describe the contrary showing as unworthy of consideration. We conclude that the court's failure to instruct on intent to kill as an essential element of felony-murder special circumstances is reversible error.