Opinion ID: 1122777
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Misinterpretation of Section 190.2

Text: The majority, in rewriting section 190.2, subdivision (a)(17), to avoid constitutional problems, concludes that application of the felony murder special circumstances is limited to those persons who intend to kill or aid in a killing. ( Ante , p. 145.) Again, with respect, this interpretation is patently incorrect, adding, as it does, an element of intent which the sovereign people specifically deleted from prior law by adopting the 1978 initiative measure. The now repealed 1977 death penalty statute expressly required proof that the defendant, with intent to cause death, committed a willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder during the commission or attempted commission of various enumerated felonies. (Former § 190.2, subd. (c)(3).) The 1978 law, however, contains no such qualification, requiring only that the defendant be found guilty of a first degree murder committed while the defendant was engaged in or was an accomplice in the commission of, attempted commission of, or the immediate flight after committing or attempting to commit nine enumerated dangerous felonies (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)). It is elementary that when existing law is amended by deleting an express provision of the previous statute, we must presume that a change in the law was intended. (E.g., People v. Schmel (1975) 54 Cal. App.3d 46, 51 [126 Cal. Rptr. 317].) Conclusive evidence of such an intent is contained in the language setting forth the remaining special circumstances under section 190.2, subdivision (a): Ten of these provisions expressly require that the killing be an intentional one, a word conspicuously absent from the felony murder special circumstance. Thus, it seems inescapable to me that neither the drafters of the 1978 initiative measure nor the voters who adopted it intended that subdivision (a)(17) of section 190.2 would be limited to persons who intend to kill or aid in a killing. The majority, however, rejects an interpretation of the statute which would permit imposition of the death penalty for accidental killings, stressing that such a law would be a momentous step, raising grave moral questions. ( Ante, p. 145.) There are at least four difficulties with such a generalized observation: First, as previously noted, the death penalty is not sought in this case. Second, the record discloses that the victim was probably shot during a gunfight between defendant's accomplice and a deputy sheriff. At this pretrial stage of the case, we cannot simply assume that the killing was either accidental or unintentional. Third, we have no power whatever to rewrite unambiguous penal statutes which fail to comport with our own personal views of morality. These judgments are to be made by the people, not this court. Fourth, there is nothing momentous about a statute which permits imposition of the death penalty for accidental killings occurring in the course of the commission of a dangerous felony. Prior to 1973, when the Legislature first added the now deleted requirement of a willful, deliberate, and premeditated felony murder, the California statutes authorized routine imposition of the death penalty for any first degree murder (former § 190, enacted 1872), which included an accidental felony murder under section 189. The majority points to certain supposed anomalies which conceivably might arise if we interpreted and applied section 190.2, subdivision (a)(17), as it is presently written. As I explain in a subsequent portion of this opinion, we cannot and should not demand absolute perfection or equality of treatment in an area as inherently dependent upon subjective value judgments as criminal punishment. But even assuming that injustices conceivably might occur, that fact does not afford a sound basis for rewriting an unambiguous statute. As previously explained, unlike many of the other statutory special circumstances, and unlike the 1977 predecessor law, the present provision does not require proof of an intentional or willful or premeditated or deliberate murder. Thus, no purpose is served by the majority's protracted attempts at finding possible anomalies in the law we are sworn to uphold and apply as written. The majority relies on the ballot arguments regarding the initiative measure (Prop. 7, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 7, 1978)) which contained the provision at issue herein. Those arguments seem wholly inconclusive. As the majority acknowledges, the opponents of the measure construed it as permitting imposition of the death penalty for an unintended killing. ( Ante, p. 144.) Contrary to the majority, however, the proponents' rebuttal argument did not dispute this interpretation as applied to the actual killer, but only as applied to the accomplice (the poor lender of a screwdriver used by someone else in a murder). Nowhere do the proponents suggest that the murderer himself must have intended to kill his victim in order to justify imposition of the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole. It is unnecessary to discuss the majority's interpretation of the accomplice provisions of the 1978 law (§ 190.2, subd. (b)), because the Enmund case, supra , 458 U.S. 782 [73 L.Ed.2d 1140, 102 S.Ct. 3368] mandates the existence of an intent to kill or assist in a killing before the death penalty constitutionally may be imposed upon an accomplice. And under both the majority's misapplication of People v. Spears, supra, 33 Cal.3d 279, and its editing of section 190.2, subdivision (a)(17), the lesser penalty of life imprisonment without parole likewise becomes unavailable notwithstanding proof of special circumstances.