Opinion ID: 2590272
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Special instruction regarding threats and menace

Text: Defendant contends the trial court erred in refusing to deliver a special instruction that threats, menace, or compulsion may vitiate the mental state required for first degree murder. The court instructed the jury pursuant to CALJIC No. 8.20, as follows: If you find that the killing was preceded and accompanied by a clear, deliberate intent on the part of the defendant to kill, which was the result of deliberation and premeditation, so that it must have been formed upon pre-existing reflection and not under a sudden heat of passion or other condition precluding the idea of deliberation, it is murder of the first degree. The trial court further instructed the jury concerning second degree murder pursuant to CALJIC No. 8.30, as follows: Murder of the second degree is also the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought when there is manifested an intention unlawfully to kill a human being but the evidence is insufficient to prove deliberation and premeditation. Defendant requested an additional instruction, which read: You may consider evidence showing the existence of threats, menaces or compulsion that played a part in inducing the unlawful killing of a human being for such bearing as it may have on the question of whether the murder was of the first or second degree. The trial court declined to give the additional instruction. (14) Defendant contends that in the absence of the requested instruction, his trial counsel was precluded from directly arguing to the jury that defendant's lack of intent was predicated on the legal theory of duress further contending that this circumstance forced counsel to argue only generally that the evidence did not support first degree murder, but instead supported a verdict of second degree murder. We find no error. It is well established that duress does not constitute a defense to murder, and does not reduce murder to manslaughter. ( People v. Anderson (2002) 28 Cal.4th 767, 781-783 [122 Cal.Rptr.2d 587, 50 P.3d 368].) Nonetheless, duress may negate the deliberation or premeditation required for first degree murder, and an instruction such as the one requested by defendant may be appropriate if warranted by the circumstances of the case. ( Id. at p. 784.) No evidence was received at defendant's trial suggesting that defendant was threatened before he shot the victim. Contrary to defendant's assertion that the evidence established he shot the victim fearing that if he did not do so, his codefendant would shoot him, defendant's statement indicates that he shot the victim rather than handing the gun back to his codefendant because he feared that if his codefendant attempted to shoot the victim, his codefendant's drunken state would cause him to mistakenly shoot defendant. Indeed, when asked by Detective Erickson why, upon hearing his codefendant's exhortations to kill the victim, defendant did not simply hand him the gun and tell him to kill the victim himself, defendant responded, `Cause ... I don't want him to shoot me by accident. Although defendant's statement also indicates that defendant's codefendant repeatedly informed him you gotta kill him, there is no evidence of any threat, menace, or compulsion accompanying these words. The requested instruction was not supported by substantial evidence indicating that any threat, menace, or compulsion motivated defendant's conduct, and the trial court did not err in refusing to so instruct the jury. ( People v. Moon, supra, 37 Cal.4th at p. 32.)