Court Opinion

ID: 9748728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:11:14.742441+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:38.830388
License: Public Domain

SPARKS, Acting P. J., Dissenting.
The majority mistakenly concludes “the trial court erred in instructing the jury that [the aider and abettor] could *1597not be found guilty of second degree murder as an aider and abettor if the jury determined that Woods, the perpetrator of the killing, was guilty of first degree murder.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1577.) Because the majority fundamentally misapprehends the derivative nature of the “natural and probable consequence” doctrine of aider and abettor liability, I dissent.
By statute, those who aid and abet the commission of a crime are deemed “principals in any crime so committed.” (Pen. Code, § 31.) Penal Code section 31 provides in relevant part: “All persons concerned in the commission of a crime, whether it be felony or misdemeanor, and whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense, or aid and abet in its commission, or, not being present, have advised and encouraged its commission, ... are principals in any crime so committed.”1
The first question under this statute is what mental state the aider and abettor must possess in order to be liable for the criminal acts of the perpetrator. “Considerable confusion exists as to what the accomplice’s mental state must be in order to hold him accountable for an offense committed by another. In part, this may be attributable to some uncertainty as to whether the law should be concerned with the mental state relating to his own acts of assistance or encouragement, to his awareness of the principal’s mental state, to the fault requirements for the substantive offense involved, or some combination of the above.” (2 LaFave & Scott, Substantive Criminal Law (1986) Accomplice Liability, § 6.7, pp. 141-142.)
In California, any uncertainty was resolved in People v. Beeman, supra, 35 Cal.3d 547. “There is no question that an aider and abettor must have criminal intent in order to be convicted of a criminal offense.” (Id. at 556.) And what is that intent? There must be “proof that an aider and abettor act[ed] with knowledge of the criminal purpose of the perpetrator and with an intent or purpose either of committing, or of encouraging or facilitating commission of, the offense, [fl] When the definition of the offense includes the intent to do some act or achieve some consequence beyond the actus reus of the crime, the aider and abettor must share the specific intent of the perpetrator. By ‘share’ we mean neither that the aider and abettor must be prepared to commit the offense by his or her own act should the perpetrator fail to do so, nor that the aider and abettor must seek to share the fruits of the *1598crime. Rather, an aider and abettor will ‘share’ the perpetrator’s specific intent when he or she knows the full extent of the perpetrator’s criminal purpose and gives aid or encouragement with the intent or purpose of facilitating the perpetrator’s commission of the crime.” (Id. at p. 560, italics in original & citations omitted.) In short, “a person aids and abets the commission of a crime when he or she, acting with (1) knowledge of the unlawful purpose of the perpetrator; and (2) the intent or purpose of committing, encouraging, or facilitating the commission of the offense, (3) by act or advice aids, promotes, encourages or instigates, the commission of the crime.” (Id. at p. 561.)
But what about aider and abettor liability for other crimes? Unlike the statutes in some states,2 the California statute does not explicitly deal with liability for crimes other than the intended, target crime. Nevertheless, early on the California courts have engrafted the common law rule of derivative liability onto Penal Code section 31 and have imposed liability on aiders and abettors for other crimes which are the “ ‘probable and natural consequence’ ” of the aided and abetted crime. (People v. Kauffman (1907) 152 Cal. 331, 334 [92 P. 861].) “‘The general rule is well settled that where several parties conspire or combine together to commit any unlawful act, each is criminally responsible for the acts of his associates or confederates committed in furtherance of any prosecution of the common design for which they combine. In contemplation of law the act of one is the act of all. Each is responsible for everything done by his confederates, which follows incidentally in the execution of the common design as one of its probable and natural consequences, even though it was not intended as part of the *1599original design or common plan.’ ” (Id. at p. 334.)3 This expanded scope of derivative liability poses comparable problems of intentionality and mental states.4 “A somewhat similar question is whether, on an accomplice liability theory, one may be held accountable for a crime because it was a natural and probable consequence of the crime which that person intended to aid or encourage. This tests the outer limits of the mental state requirement for accomplice liability, for it asks, in effect, whether an intent with respect to one offense should suffice as to another offense which was the consequence of the one intended. []|] The established rule, as it is usually stated by courts and commentators, is that accomplice liability extends to acts of the principal in the first degree which were a ‘natural and probable consequence’ of the criminal scheme the accomplice encouraged or aided.” (2 LaFave & Scott, Substantive Criminal Law, supra, Limits of Accomplice Liability, § 6.8, p. 157.)
California follows this established rule although the doctrinal terminology of this derivative liability doctrine has often varied. Thus, it has been said that an aider and abettor is liable “ ‘for everything done by his confederates, which follows incidentally in the execution of the common design as one of its probable and natural consequences,”’ (People v. Kauffman, supra, 152 Cal. at p. 334), for the “natural and reasonable consequences of the acts he knowingly and intentionally aids and encourages” (People v. Beeman, supra, 35 Cal.3d at p. 560), and for “any reasonably foreseeable offense committed by the person he aids and abets” (People v. Croy (1985) 41 Cal.3d 1, 12, fn. 5 [221 Cal.Rptr. 592, 710 P.2d 392]; accord, People v. Cooper (1991) 53 Cal.3d 1158, 1162, fn. 3 [282 Cal.Rptr. 450, 811 P.2d 742 ]). Nevertheless, *1600“[t]he variations in the adjectives the court has used to describe ‘consequence’ have never changed the basic structure and meaning of the test.” (People v. Brigham (1989) 216 Cal.App.3d 1039, 1050 [265 Cal.Rptr. 486].)
So what intent must the accomplice harbor concerning a crime which is the natural and probable consequence of the target crime? Must he possess the requisite intent required for the ultimate, charged offense? The answer to that question is no and is found in People v. Croy, supra, 41 Cal.3d 1. “The requirement that the jury determine the intent with which a person tried as an aider and abettor has acted is not designed to ensure that his conduct constitutes the offense with which he is charged. His liability is vicarious. Like the conspirator whose liability is predicated on acts other than and short of those constituting the elements of the charged offense, if the acts are undertaken with the intent that the actual perpetrator’s purpose be facilitated thereby, he is a principal and liable for the commission of the offense. Also like a conspirator, he is guilty not only of the offense he intended to facilitate or encourage, but also of any reasonably foreseeable offense committed by the person he aids and abets. One may aid or abet in the commission of a crime without having previously entered into a conspiracy to commit it. Moreover, the aider and abettor in a proper case is not only guilty of the particular crime that to his knowledge his confederates are contemplating committing, but he is also liable for the natural and reasonable consequences of any act that he knowingly aided or encouraged. Whether the act committed was the natural and probable consequence of the act encouraged and the extent of defendant’s knowledge are questions of fact for the jury. [1J] It follows that a defendant whose liability is predicated on his status as an aider and abettor need not have intended to encourage or facilitate the particular offense ultimately committed by the perpetrator. His knowledge that an act which is criminal was intended, and his action taken with the intent that the act be encouraged or facilitated, are sufficient to impose liability on him for any reasonably foreseeable offense committed as a consequence by the perpetrator. It is the intent to encourage and bring about conduct that is criminal, not the specific intent that is an element of the target offense, which Beeman holds must be found by the jury.” (Id. at p. 12, fn. 5, internal quotation marks & citations omitted; italics deleted.)
From all of this it follows that an aider and abettor need not himself act with premeditation or even harbor express malice in order to be convicted of premeditated first degree murder. So long as the aider and abettor knowingly and intentionally aids the commission of a crime, he is liable for any other crime committed by the perpetrator that is the natural, probable and foreseeable consequence of the abetted crime, including first degree premeditated murder. “Applying these principles to the instant case, we conclude that once *1601the jury found defendant guilty as an aider and abettor of the first degree murder of Elaine Bunyard [his pregnant wife], the jury could have properly convicted him of the first degree murder of Baby Girl Bunyard even without the finding of express malice towards the fetus. The murder of Baby Girl Bunyard under the circumstances of this case—the planned killing of a pregnant woman—was a reasonably foreseeable and, indeed, inevitable offense of the first degree murder of Elaine Bunyard which defendant knowingly and intentionally encouraged and facilitated." (People v. Bunyard (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1189, 1231-1232 [249 Cal.Rptr. 71, 756 P.2d 795].)
But if the ultimate, charged crime is not a natural, probable, reasonable and foreseeable consequence of the abetted, target crime, then the aider is simply not guilty of the charged crime. An aider and abettor may be convicted of a crime which he did not specifically intend or contemplate, but “only to the extent of his knowledge or of the natural and reasonable consequences of the acts [knowingly and intentionally] aided and encouraged by him." (People v. Beltran (1949) 94 Cal.App.2d 197, 207 [210 P.2d 238].) Thus, “one is not liable who has counseled a particular criminal act, and the perpetrator has committed a different one not falling within the probable consequences of that advised.” (People v. King (1938) 30 Cal.App.2d 185, 203 [85 P.2d 928].) Consequently, the pivotal question is “whether or not the act committed was the ordinary and probable effect of the common design or whether it was a fresh and independent product of the mind of one of the conspirators, outside of, or foreign to, the common design . . . .” (People v. Durham, supra, 70 Cal.2d at pp. 182-183.)
However phrased, the extension of the doctrine of derivative criminal liability for the natural and probable consequences of an assisted crime thus entails two components of proximate cause, cause in fact and foreseeability. The crime aided and abetted must be causally linked to the charged crime and the aider and abettor must either have foreseen, or should have foreseen, that the charged crime was a natural, probable and reasonable consequence of crime abetted. Thus, a charged offense is the natural and probable consequence of the target offense if under the circumstances it is both a likely outcome of, and is causally linked to, the target crime. These components are independent of intention of the aider and abettor. As this court noted in People v. Rogers, supra, 172 Cal.App.3d at page 515, “[t]his is a question of legal causation independent of any intention that the result obtain.”
On the other hand, if the charged crime is not a likely outcome of the abetted crime or is not causally linked to the abetted crime, then the aider and abettor is not criminally liable for the charged crime. This is illustrated *1602in a case in which the high court rejected the contention that the trial court had a duty to instruct sua sponte on the principle of vicarious liability. “Defendant relies, first, on evidence that Myers [the asserted aider and abettor] assisted the AB [the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison gang] by smuggling drugs and knives into state prisons and by carrying messages. This evidence shows, at most, that Myers aided and abetted illegal drug activity and in-prison violence; the killing of an AB defector’s relative, outside of prison, is not a natural and probable consequence of such crimes. Defendant also relies on evidence that Myers knew that defendant, a convicted felon, was in possession of a revolver and sawed-off shotgun while he stayed at her house. Assuming without deciding that Myers was guilty of aiding and abetting defendant’s illegal weapons possession (see [Pen. Code,] §§ 12020-12021), there was no substantial evidence that Myers knew or should have known that defendant had agreed to commit a murder or was otherwise likely to use the illegally possessed weapons to commit a murder in the near future, and therefore the murder of Barnes was not a natural and probable consequence of permitting him to stay temporarily at her residence with the weapons. Because the evidence before the jury did not plainly support a finding that Myers was vicariously liable for Barnes’s murder, the trial court did not err in failing to instruct on the principle of vicarious criminal liability.” (People v. Price (1991) 1 Cal.4th 324, 443 [3 Cal.Rptr.2d 106, 821 P.2d 610].)5
The majority slices the foreseeability requirement too thin and needlessly superimposes another layer of complexity upon the jury and the court. Since an aider and abettor may be liable for a crime he did not intend (People v. Croy, supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 12, fn. 5), it is not necessary that he foresee the precise manner or method of the execution of the charged crime. It has been said in the context of foreseeable causes that “[t]he precise consequence need not have been foreseen; it is enough that the defendant should have foreseen the possibility of some harm of the kind which might result from his act.” (1 Witkin & Epstein, Cal. Criminal Law (2d ed. 1988) Elements of Crime, § 132, p. 150.) This same rule applies in the context of aider and abettor liability. All that is required is that defendant knew or should have *1603known that the charged crime was likely to happen in some manner as a result of the commission of the targeted crime. “If the principal’s criminal act charged to the aider and abettor is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of any criminal act of that principal, knowingly aided and abetted, the aider and abettor of such criminal act is derivatively liable for the act charged.” (People v. Brigham, supra, 216 Cal.App.3d at p. 1054, italics in original.) As applied to homicide, it is enough that an unlawful killing was a likely consequence of the target crime. Stated another way, it is not necessary that the aider and abettor precisely foresee that the killing might be a premeditated one to prevent detection rather than an unpremeditated, panicked reaction to witnesses appearing on the scene. That is precisely the situation in this case. With defendant Windham acting as a lookout and after forcibly entering an apartment to retaliate for the gang shooting of one of their members, defendant Woods and the other armed confederates assaulted two women and then shot one of them. They then stole two automobile tires and fled the apartment when someone said the police were coming. As they were loading the tires into their car in preparation to flee, two men were observed in a car a few parking stalls away. Defendant Woods fired at the nearby car, killing one of its occupants. The majority adopts the argument of the aider and abettor (defendant Windham) that “the jurors could have found it was not reasonably foreseeable Woods would commit the premeditated killing of an innocent bystander, but it was reasonably foreseeable that Woods might commit the necessarily included offense of second degree murder, i.e., kill intentionally but without premeditation and deliberation or kill as a result of an intentional act dangerous to human life performed with knowledge of the danger and with conscious disregard for human life.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1580.) This argument misses the point. What is crucial is that the aider and abettor either knew or should have known that a killing was a likely result of this abetted criminal rampage, not whether this foreseeable killing might constitute first degree murder as opposed to second degree murder or some variety of manslaughter. Aiders and abettors are not lawyers and their liability should not turn on the abstruse distinctions between the various types of criminal homicide. “A primary rationale for punishing aiders and abettors as principals—to deter them from aiding or encouraging the commission of offenses” (People v. Cooper, supra, 53 Cal.3d at p. 1168), would not be advanced by engrafting such rarefied distinctions on the derivative liability of accomplices. The majority concedes that homicide was a foreseeable consequence of this criminal enterprise and that ought to end the matter.
Since the aider and abettor’s liability is derivative, he is either responsible for the ultimate crime because it is the foreseeable consequence of the abetted crime or he not liable because it is not. His fate then is inexorably tied to the perpetrator. In this case, the real question is not whether the aider *1604may be convicted of a crime lesser than the principal (the answer is no) but is rather whether this premeditated murder was both a foreseeable consequence of the abetted crime and was causally linked to that target crime. But the jury did not ask any questions about this and no appellate contention is raised about any failure to give further instructions on the doctrine of probable and natural consequences. Rather the court, upon inquiry, simply instructed the jury that if the perpetrator was found guilty of first degree murder, the aider and abettor could not be found guilty of second degree murder. In my view, this was correct and furnishes no grounds for reversal.
The hypothetical posed by the majority does not change this analysis. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 1588) If the stabbing of the store owner in the example was not a natural and probable consequence of the abetted petty theft (and that is a jury question if the facts are disputed), then the aider is guilty only of petty theft and if that offense is not charged, he is entitled to be acquitted. Far from an absurd result, this follows settled law.
In support of its novel position, the majority cites cases in which the aider and abettor has been convicted of a lesser degree than the principal. But these cases are best understood as problems of inconsistent verdicts. And they are best explained in People v. Finch (1963) 213 Cal.App.2d 752 [29 Cal.Rptr. 420]. “The evidence showed that defendant Finch did the actual shooting, and that Tregoff aided and abetted the commission of the act. Under section 31 of the Penal Code both were equally guilty; thus, in the eyes of the law whatever crime Finch committed defendant Tregoff committed. In that sense the verdicts of first degree murder as to Finch and second degree as to defendant Tregoff do conflict, but neither defendant complains on appeal of this conflict. Even if such complaint were lodged, however, a finding by the jury of defendant Tregoff guilty of the lesser offense, murder in the second degree, would not vitiate such verdicts nor be prejudicial to defendant Tregoff. It would have no adverse effect on defendant Finch. Since the evidence warranted the jury holding Tregoff guilty of murder in the first degree she cannot complain of a finding by the jury more favorable to her than the law and the evidence warranted.” (Id. at p. 777.)
Because I agree with the remainder of the majority opinion, I would affirm all of the judgment, except for the Penal Code section 667.5, subdivision (b), enhancement as to defendant Woods.
A petition for a rehearing was denied September 22, 1992, and the petitions of both respondent and appellants for review by the Supreme Court were denied November 25, 1992. Kennard, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

 As the California Supreme Court has noted, “those persons who at common law would have been termed accessories before the fact and principals in the second degree as well as those who actually perpetrate the offense, are to be prosecuted, tried and punished as principals in California. (See Pen. Code, § 971.) The term ‘aider and abettor’ is now often used to refer to principals other than the perpetrator, whether or not they are present at the commission of the offense.” (People v. Beeman (1984) 35 Cal.3d 547, 554-555 [199 Cal.Rptr. 60, 674 P.2d 1318], fn. omitted.)

 As LaFave and Scott have noted, the statutes in some states explicitly deal with the problem of liability for other crimes. “Iowa Code Ann. § 703.2 (where persons commit offense in concert, ‘each is responsible for the acts of the other done in furtherance of the commission of the offense . . . unless the act was one which the person could not reasonably expect to be done in the furtherance of the commission of the offense’); Kan.Stat.Ann. § 21-3205(2) (person criminally responsible for crimes of another ‘is also liable for any other crime committed in pursuance of the intended crime if reasonably foreseeable by him as a probable consequence of committing or attempting to commit the crime intended’); Me.Rev.Stat.Ann. tit. 17-A, § 57 (‘person is an accomplice ... to any crime the commission of which was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of his conduct’); Minn.Stat.Ann. § 609.05 (same as Kan.); Wis.Stat.Ann. § 939.05 (person criminally responsible for crime of another on conspiracy or procuring basis ‘is also concerned in the commission of any other crime which is committed in pursuance of the intended crime and which under the circumstances is a natural and probable consequence of the intended crime.’)” (2 LaFave & Scott, Substantive Criminal Law, supra, Limits of Accomplice Liability, § 6.8, p. 157, fn. 24.) Other states, unlike California, require the aider and abettor to entertain the requisite intent for the charged crime. (See statutes collected in Carpenter, Should the Court Aid and Abet the Unintending Accomplice: The Status of Complicity in California (1984) 24 Santa Clara L.Rev. 343, 346, fn. 13.)

 In referring to the language of “combination or conspiracy” in the Kauffman case, the high court later emphasized “that the resort to language of conspiracy in cases such as that under consideration does not refer to the crime of that name but only to the fact of combination as it has relevance to the question of aiding and abetting in the commission of the charged crime.” (People v. Durham (1969) 70 Cal.2d 171, 182, fn. 9 [74 Cal.Rptr. 262, 449 P.2d 198].) Thus, where the crime of conspiracy is not charged, the defendant “ ‘is convicted as a principal or accessory or not at all; and in this connection, the fact that principals may be conspirators is immaterial.’. . . ‘The liability of a defendant for a criminal act is fixed by the provisions of section 31 of the Penal Code defining principals; and no instruction on the subject of conspiracy can add anything to that liability. . . . Liability attaches to anyone “concerned,” however slight such concern may be, for the law establishes no degree of the concern required to fix liability as a principal.’ ” (Id. at pp. 184-185, fn. 11, some internal quotation marks omitted.)

 The imposition of derivative liability under the natural and probable consequences doctrine is not without its critics. (See, e.g., Fletcher, Rethinking Criminal Law (1978) pp. 581-682; 2 LaFave & Scott, Substantive Criminal Law, supra, Limits of Accomplice Liability, § 6.8, p. 158; Kadish, Complicity, Cause and Blame: A Study in the Interpretation of Doctrine (1985) 73 Cal.L.Rev. 324; People v. Luparello (1986) 187 Cal.App.3d 410, 452-454 [231 Cal.Rptr. 832] (conc. opn. of Wiener, J.).) The doctrine, however, is firmly entrenched in California law and as we noted in People v. Rogers (1985) 172 Cal.App.3d 502, 515, footnote 17 [217 Cal.Rptr. 809], we are not free to disregard it.

 This precise point was made in the early case of People v. Keefer (1884) 65 Cal. 232 [3 P. 818]. There defendant was convicted of a murder committed by his accomplice, Chapman, while tying up the victim. The high court reversed the conviction, observing that even if defendant did encourage Chapman to bind the victim, “such encouragement would not, of itself, make him an accessory to the killing.” (Id. at p. 233.) “In the case at bar, if defendant simply encouraged the tying of the deceased—a misdemeanor which did not and probably could not cause death or any serious injury—as the killing by Chapman was neither necessarily nor probably involved in the battery or false imprisonment, nor incidental to it, but was an independent and malicious act with which the defendant had no connection, the jury was not authorized to find defendant guilty of the murder, or of manslaughter.” (Id. at pp. 233-234.)