Opinion ID: 1170008
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Other contentions relating to the guilt trial

Text: Defendant raises a number of other contentions which lack merit. We shall deal briefly with each. [23] (a) Sufficiency of the evidence. Defendant contends that the evidence was insufficient, as a matter of law, to support a conviction of first degree murder. Yet the evidence sufficiently sustained the conviction upon any one of three theories: (i) that defendant killed Officer McKnight deliberately and with premeditation; (ii) that the killing occurred during the robbery in which defendant participated as an accomplice pursuant to a previously agreed-upon plan; and (iii) that defendant became an aider and abettor in the robbery after he became aware of its existence and killed the officer while effectuating his escape. As to the first theory, eyewitnesses to the struggle between defendant and the victim testified that for several seconds before he fired the fatal shot defendant had succeeded in gaining the advantage against the officer by moving around behind him as defendant drew his pistol. Defendant testified that he cocked his pistol as he brought it up to the officer's neck. This evidence permitted the jury to infer that defendant formed the necessary premeditation during the moments of the struggle. ( People v. Quicke (1964) 61 Cal.2d 155, 158 [37 Cal. Rptr. 617, 390 P.2d 393]; People v. Cartier (1960) 54 Cal.2d 300, 305-306 [5 Cal. Rptr. 573, 353 P.2d 53].) As to the second and third theories, the employees of the market testified that defendant moved to within several feet of the area of the checkstands at the time codefendant Turner was perpetrating the robbery, and left a few seconds after Turner fled with the loot. Defendant had participated in a prior robbery with his uncle in which the uncle's role was to cover defendant in a manner similar to that of defendant in the instant offense. The jury might properly have inferred from such evidence either that defendant acted simply as an accomplice executing a common plan [15] or that he became an aider and abettor when he learned that the robbery was in progress. Nothing compelled the jury to believe defendant's story that he learned of the perpetration of the robbery only after the killing, even in the absence of direct contradictory evidence. (b) Illegal arrest. Defendant contends that his arrest was illegal, as based upon less than probable cause, and that all evidence obtained subsequent to the arrest should be suppressed as its poisonous fruit. We upheld the legality of the arrest in People v. Schader, supra, 62 Cal.2d 716, 722-726, saying, Under such circumstances as faced this officer, society must risk the arrest of suspects who are innocent rather than subject officers to needless hazards in effecting the arrest of suspected armed murderers. ( Id. at p. 725.) We noted the pertinence of the view of Mr. Justice Jackson in his dissenting opinion in Brinegar v. United States (1949) 338 U.S. 160, 183 [93 L.Ed. 1879, 1894, 69 S.Ct. 1302], that standards of probable cause should depend somewhat upon the gravity of the offense. Defendant contends that new evidence, adduced for the first time at the instant trial, showed that the arresting officer arrested on suspicion only, and permits us to reexamine our earlier holding. (See People v. Hillery, supra, 65 Cal.2d 795, 803.) We do not find, however, that such new evidence falls without the rationale of our previous determination, and conclude once again that defendant's arrest was proper.