Opinion ID: 2508525
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Refusal of Duress Instruction

Text: Defense counsel requested the following instruction, which the trial court refused to give: If the defendant agreed and participated in the plan [to commit murder] in the honest belief that his life or physical safety was in danger if he did not agree and participate, he would not act with malice and could not be guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. Defendant contended, and contends now, that the evidence supported such an instruction and that the trial court therefore erred in refusing to give it. We consider in turn each of the two parts of the instruction, i.e., whether in the present case the defense of duress can negate malice and whether it can be a defense to conspiracy to commit murder.
Penal Code section 26 declares duress to be a perfect defense against criminal charges when the person charged committed the act or made the omission charged under threats or menaces sufficient to show that they had reasonable cause to and did believe their lives would be endangered if they refused. That section also provides that this defense does not apply to crimes punishable with death. We recently rejected the argument that duress could negate the elements of malice or premeditation, thereby reducing a first degree murder to manslaughter or second degree murder. ( People v. Anderson (2002) 28 Cal.4th 767, 781-784, 122 Cal.Rptr.2d 587, 50 P.3d 368.) We decline defendant's invitation to reconsider the holding in Anderson. Moreover, because duress cannot, as a matter of law, negate the intent, malice or premeditation elements of a first degree murder, we further reject defendant's argument that duress could negate the requisite intent for one charged with aiding and abetting a first degree murder. (See Anderson, supra, 28 Cal.4th at p. 784, 122 Cal.Rptr.2d 587, 50 P.3d 368.)
Defendant contends that although duress may not be a defense to murder, it is a defense to a conspiracy to commit murder. Even assuming he is correct, the trial court committed no error, because the facts did not support a duress instruction. ( People v. Flannel (1979) 25 Cal.3d 668, 684-685, 160 Cal.Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d 1 [trial court obliged to instruct on a defense theory only when there is substantial evidence to support].) The common characteristic of all the decisions upholding [a duress defense] lies in the immediacy and imminency of the threatened action: each represents the situation of a present and active aggressor threatening immediate danger; none depict a phantasmagoria of future harm. ( People v. Otis (1959) 174 Cal.App.2d 119, 125, 344 P.2d 342; see also People v. Bacigalupo (1991) 1 Cal.4th 103, 125, 2 Cal. Rptr.2d 335, 820 P.2d 559.) In arguing that the evidence supports a duress instruction, defendant points to testimony of Michelle Evans that Cruz had told defendant and the others in the group, in their meeting just before they went off to commit the murders, that if any one of them messed up during the attack on Raper, that person would join the intended murder victims. Evans testified that Cruz looked directly at defendant when he made that threat. Evans also testified, as recounted above, that Cruz had ordered defendant beaten and tortured on several occasions. We disagree that substantial evidence supports a duress instruction in the present case. Rather, the evidence points strongly to the fact that defendant's participation in the murders was not principally motivated by a fear for his life, but rather stemmed from his belief in Cruz as a figure of authority. Defendant's behavior immediately after the murder plan had been formulated (swinging a bat and dancing around to rock music), his energetic participation in carrying out the murder plan, and his subsequent statements to Detective Deckard and Mary Gardner that he condoned the murders and that the victims deserved to die, are not consistent with a defense that he was compelled to commit the murders by an immediate and imminent threat to his life. Nor did defendant hint in his conversations with Deckard, Gardner or Evans in the immediate aftermath of the murders that fear for his life was a primary motive. While the fact that defendant was dominated by Cruz is, as discussed below, a factor the jury could consider at the penalty phase of the trial, it did not constitute duress within the meaning of section 26. The defense of duress was therefore not available to defendant as to any crime. [8] Defendant also claims that a sentence of death for someone who committed a murder under duress would constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the United States and California Constitutions (U.S. Const., 8th Amend. 8; Cal. Const., art. I, § 17) because such an outcome would impose a penalty `... so disproportionate to the crime for which it is inflicted that it shocks the conscience and offends fundamental notions of human dignity.' ( People v. Frierson (1979) 25 Cal.3d 142, 183, 158 Cal.Rptr. 281, 599 P.2d 587.) We need not decide whether an individual who kills because he faces the imminent choice between taking a life or likely forfeiting his own can be constitutionally sentenced to death. As explained immediately above, that is not this case.