Court Opinion

ID: 9796831
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:06:10.013548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:49.609216
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Concurring.
I agree with the analysis in Justice Kennard’s concurring opinion, but write separately to explain the chief differences, as I understand them, between her analysis and that employed by the majority.
*858Justice Kennard correctly begins her discussion by noting that, because the evidence was insufficient to show who fired the fatal bullet, “a reviewing court must examine both possibilities—that defendant fired the fatal shot, and that codefendant Gonzalez did so—to determine whether the evidence supports defendant’s conviction.” (Conc. opn. of Kennard, J., ante, at p. 854.) Although this seems an elementary premise, one clearly articulated by the Court of Appeal, it has been lost on the majority in this court, which simply assumes what should be its conclusion, i.e., that defendant’s criminal liability, on these facts, does not depend on whether his role in causing the bystander’s death was direct or indirect.
The opinions continue to diverge from this point. Justice Kennard’s discussion squarely addresses the problem of superseding cause, upon which the Court of Appeal believed the conviction foundered. (Conc. opn. of Kennard, J., ante, at pp. 855-856.) The majority sidesteps this question by characterizing the fatal acts of defendant and Gonzalez as “concurrent” causes of Estrada’s death. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 845-849.)
Elegant as it may appear, the majority’s solution is wrong. The undisputed fact is that this victim was hit by only one bullet. Whoever shot that bullet directly caused the victim’s death. Whoever did not shoot that bullet could have caused his death only indirectly, i.e., by causing the actual perpetrator to shoot the bullet. That chain of causation may be compact enough in time, foreseeable enough, and close enough to the intended course of events to call the result proximate, but it remains a causal sequence rather than a concurrence of causes: one event happened, causing another to happen, in turn causing the death. Thus, whatever label we use, we cannot avoid the question that troubled the Court of Appeal: was the second event (the fatal shooting) so independent as to cut off the chain of proximate causation running from the first event (the malicious conduct that provoked the fatal shooting)? Was the fatal shooting, in other words, a superseding cause? As noted, Justice Kennard addresses this question; the majority does not.
Justice Kennard’s discussion also recognizes that, if defendant did not directly shoot Estrada, his liability for Estrada’s death must rest on conduct that “induced” or “prompted” Gonzalez to fire the fatal shot. (Conc. opn. of Kennard, J., ante, at p. 855.) While Justice Kennard avoids using the label, this is clearly “provocative act” liability. The majority, confusingly, suggests provocative act murder was an “unsupported theory of liability” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 852), though the majority does not explain in what respect the theory is unsupported by the evidence. Justice Kennard is thus better able to explain in what critical respects this case differs from the companion case, People v. Cervantes (2001) 26 Cal.4th 860 [111 Cal.Rptr.2d 148, 29 P.3d *859225], in which the defendant’s conviction was undisputedly based on a provocative act theory. (Conc. opn. of Kennard, J., ante, at pp. 856-857.)
Finding her analysis more logical and complete, I join Justice Kennard’s concurrence rather than the majority opinion.