Opinion ID: 1447881
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Jury Instructions on Intent to Kill

Text: (11) Defendant argues that the trial court committed reversible error in failing to instruct the jury that it must find intent to kill before it could find the robbery-murder special circumstance to be true. As explained earlier, when the trial of this case began, Carlos, supra, 35 Cal.3d 131, which required proof of intent to kill as a prerequisite for a felony-murder special circumstance, was the law. While the trial was in progress, this court overruled Carlos in Anderson, supra, 43 Cal.3d 1104. As we later made clear, the rule of Carlos applied to cases in which the crime occurred when Carlos was in effect. ( People v. Duncan, supra, 53 Cal.3d at p. 973, fn. 4; People v. Fauber, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 835.) Under Carlos, the standard jury instruction specified, in pertinent part: To find that the special circumstance, referred to in these instructions as murder in the commission of a robbery, is true, it must be proved: ... [ถ] 2. That the defendant intended to kill a human being. (CALJIC No. 8.81.17 (1984 rev.) (4th ed. Jan. 1987 pocket pt. pp. 130-131).) In this case, the trial court instructed the jury in terms of the special circumstance without reference to intent to kill. The court then added to the special circumstance instruction the following: If you find the special circumstance true, you must make a separate finding as to whether the defendant intended to kill a human being at the time of the murder. A special form will be provided for that purpose. The jury was given a special finding form that read: We find the defendant Michael Joseph Wader intended to kill Maxine Brown. True. Not True. The jury circled True. Instructional error, even with regard to an element of an offense, is measured under the harmless beyond a reasonable doubt standard of Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 710, 87 S.Ct. 824, 24 A.L.R.3d 1065]. ( People v. Odle (1988) 45 Cal.3d 386, 414 [247 Cal. Rptr. 137, 754 P.2d 184]; People v. Garrison (1989) 47 Cal.3d 746, 789 [254 Cal. Rptr. 257, 765 P.2d 419]; see generally Carella v. California (1989) 491 U.S. 263 [105 L.Ed.2d 218, 109 S.Ct. 2419].) But with respect to a failure to instruct on intent to kill under Carlos, supra, 35 Cal.3d 131, we have stated that no reversible error exists where the jury necessarily found the requisite intent to kill as a result of other properly given instructions (the so-called Sedeno exception).... ( People v. Leach, supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 108, referring to People v. Sedeno (1974) 10 Cal.3d 703 [112 Cal. Rptr. 1, 518 P.2d 913]; see generally People v. Mincey, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 438.) This case comes within the Sedeno exception. Here, the jury explicitly found that defendant intended to kill the victim when he shot her. Because of that express finding, the trial court's failure to adhere to the precise terms of former CALJIC No. 8.81.17 did not prejudice defendant.