Opinion ID: 844223
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Objective Test

Text: As the majority correctly notes,  `if the blows causing death are inflicted with the fist, and there are no aggravating circumstances, the law will not raise the implication of malice ....'  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 508, quoting People v. Munn (1884) 65 Cal. 211, 213 [3 P. 650].) Here, according to the majority, aggravating circumstances surrounded defendant's single blow with the fist to Kauanui's head (maj. opn., ante, at p. 511), a topic I discuss below. The majority points out that defendant delivered the punch while he was standing on the curb and Kauanui was standing in the street. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 509.) Defendant did so, the majority states, to ensure that he could inflict the greatest possible injury by gaining extra inches of height for his punch. ( Ibid. ) But even if defendant so intended, that intent is, in determining implied malice for murder, irrelevant to the objective question whether defendant's single blow involved  `a high degree of probability'  of death. ( Knoller, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 152.) At trial the prosecution presented no evidence that defendant's position on the curb increased the probability that his punch would kill Kauanui. The majority also views as an aggravating circumstance defendant's prior conduct of hitting four other people with sudden, unexpected blows. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 509-511.) But these past assaults, none of which led to a fatal injury, do not tend to establish that in this case the blow involved a high probability of death. The majority further observes that defendant's past use of sudden, unexpected punches corroborated that he used a sucker punch here, which, the majority asserts, shows that defendant intended to catch Kauanui at his most vulnerable. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 509.) That undisputed fact has no bearing, however, on whether defendant's single blow involved a high probability of killing Kauanui. As noted earlier, the objective test for implied malice requires `an act, the natural consequences of which are dangerous to life.' ( Knoller, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 152.) Here, the prosecution presented no evidence at trial that Kauanui's death by falling and hitting his head on the pavement was a natural consequence of the single unexpected blow, meaning that the blow had a high probability of resulting in death, a requirement of the objective test for implied malice.