Court Opinion

ID: 9795335
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:26:26.164011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:28:07.799075
License: Public Domain

MORENO, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I agree that defendant Charles Stevens’s death judgment should be affirmed. I would, however, reverse the lying-in-wait special circumstance because the imposition on defendant of that circumstance, as interpreted by this court and applied in this case, violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Unfortunately, the meaning and significance of this circumstance has not been interpreted with sufficient intellectual rigor, notwithstanding the fact that its application in a given case may mean the difference between life and death.
I.
The jury found true the lying-in-wait special circumstance in connection with the Raymond August murder. As recounted in the majority opinion, defendant, driving a white Mazda on Interstate 580 in Oakland, first pulled alongside Rodney Stokes, prompting Stokes to slow down and lower his window to see if he knew the driver. Defendant motioned as though trying to get Stokes’s attention, and smiled at him. Defendant then shot at Stokes several times, but missed him. After that, Stokes saw defendant catch up to another car on the freeway and appear to essentially repeat the same modus operand!: “Stokes testified defendant ‘g[o]t the attention of the other driver’ because both sets of brake lights came on. Stokes lost sight of the cars for a brief moment, which he characterized as ‘the snap of a finger.’ After rounding a slight turn, Stokes saw the cars again, and heard at least two gunshots. Defendant rapidly drove to the 35th Avenue off-ramp, left the freeway, and drove onto another on-ramp that entered the freeway going the opposite direction.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 188.)
*217In denying defendant’s claim that there was insufficient evidence of the lying-in-wait special circumstance, the majority first clarified its conception of the requirement for proving such a crime. “At the time of the capital crimes, the elements of the lying-in-wait special circumstance required an intentional killing, committed under circumstances that included a physical concealment or concealment of purpose; a substantial period of watching and waiting for an opportune time to act; and, immediately thereafter, a surprise attack on an unsuspecting victim from a position of advantage. (§ 190.2, former subd. (a)(15);[1] People v. Morales (1989) 48 Cal.3d 527, 554-555, 557 [257 Cal.Rptr. 64, 770 P.2d 244] (Morales.) The purpose of the watching and waiting element is to distinguish those cases in which a defendant acts insidiously from those in which he acts out of rash impulse. (See People v. Moon (2005) 37 Cal.4th 1, 24 [32 Cal.Rptr.3d 894, 117 P.3d 591] (Moon).)” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 201-202, fn. omitted.)
Applying this, definition of the lying-in-wait special circumstance to the present case, the majority states: “The facts of this case and the jury’s conclusion that defendant acted with deliberation and premeditation dispel any inference that he killed as a result of rash impulse. Even a short period of watching and waiting can negate such an inference. (Moon, supra, 37 Cal.4th at p. 24).) The facts here are more than sufficient to establish that after the assault on Stokes, defendant turned his attention to a new target. He selected August, the driver of the only other nearby car on the road ahead of him, as his next victim. He approached and concealed his deadly purpose by pulling up alongside of August and induced him to slow down. August did so, just as Stokes had. This process may not have taken an extended period, because defendant did not have to wait long until his next target became available. But there is no indication of rash impulse. To the contrary, it was reasonable for the jury to conclude that defendant acted to implement his plan of luring a victim of opportunity into a vulnerable position by creating or exploiting a false sense of security. The jury could also reasonably conclude that August was taken by surprise. He did not flee, but slowed down and drove side-by-side with defendant, just as Stokes had done. Once the intended victim slowed down, the time to act became opportune. Defendant stopped watching and started shooting. Such behavior is completely consistent with, and provides substantial evidence for, the watching and waiting element of the lying-in-wait special circumstance.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 203.)
II.
Lying in wait, as a principle in criminal law, began as a 14th-century statute denying to the Crown the right to pardon any person who killed *218“while lying in wait” for his victim. This statute apparently arose as a reaction by the Norman conquerors of England against the subjugated Anglo-Saxons’ practice of killing the Normans by ambush. (Note, Criminal Law: Homicide: Murder Committed by Lying in Wait (1954) 42 Cal. L.Rev. 337.) It evolved into a form of first degree murder, incorporated into section 189, and, as explained below, was used as an alternative means of proving that the defendant premeditated or deliberated before the murder. (Note, supra, at pp. 340-341; see People v. Thomas (1953) 41 Cal.2d 470, 481 [261 P.2d 1] (conc. opn. of Traynor, J.).)
Lying in wait took on a different use when it was incorporated as a special circumstance into the 1978 death penalty statute together with other forms of first degree murder in existence at the time, such as murder by torture or by a destructive device. This death penalty statute provided that a defendant must be sentenced to death or life imprisonment without possibility of parole if the “defendant intentionally killed the victim while lying in wait.” (§ 190.2, former subd. (a)(15), as added by Prop. 7, approved by voters, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 7, 1978).) “In this setting, lying in wait is not a means of proving premeditation in order to show the murder is one of the first degree. To the contrary, the murder must already have been found to be first degree before the jury reaches the question of special circumstance. HQ Instead, the special circumstance of lying in wait serves—and to be constitutional, must serve—a different purpose: it must provide a ‘ “ ‘meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the death penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it is not.’ ” ’ (Godfrey v. Georgia (1980) 446 U.S. 420, 427 [64 L.Ed.2d 398, 100 S.Ct. 1759].)” (People v. Webster (1991) 54 Cal.3d 411, 465 [285 Cal.Rptr. 31, 814 P.2d 1273] (conc. & dis. opn. of Broussard, J.).)
This court has failed to interpret the lying-in-wait special circumstance to serve that narrowing function. In People v. Morales, supra, 48 Cal.3d 527, 555 {Morales), we made clear that lying in wait within the meaning of the special circumstance statute did not require actual physical concealment, but only concealment of purpose. At the same time, the Morales court rejected a constitutional challenge to this interpretation of the lying-in-wait special-circumstance statute. “[W]e do not mean to suggest that a mere concealment of purpose is sufficient to establish lying in wait—many ‘routine’ murders are accomplished by such means, and the constitutional considerations raised by defendant might well prevent treating the commission of such murders as a special circumstance justifying the death penalty. But we believe that an intentional murder, committed under circumstances which include (1) a concealment of purpose, (2) a substantial period of watching and waiting for an opportune time to act, and (3) immediately thereafter, a surprise attack on an unsuspecting victim from a position of advantage, presents a factual matrix sufficiently distinct from ‘ordinary’ premeditated murder to justify treating it as a special circumstance.” (Morales, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 557.)
*219Although the court acknowledged that concealment of purpose alone would not distinguish lying-in-wait murder from ordinary murder, it quickly became clear that the second requirement of the lying-in-wait special circumstance, the substantial period of watching and waiting, also did not distinguish it from “ordinary” premeditated murder. We subsequently approved the lying-in-wait special-circumstance instruction that included the following, taken from the lying-in-wait murder instruction: “ ‘The lying in wait need not continue for any particular period of time provided that its duration is such as to show a state of mind equivalent to premeditation or deliberation. . . .’ ” (People v. Sims (1993) 5 Cal.4th 405, 433-434 [20 Cal.Rptr.2d 537, 853 P.2d 992].) As the majority affirms in the present case, “[t]he purpose of the watching and waiting element is to distinguish those cases in which a defendant acts insidiously from those in which he acts out of rash impulse.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 202.)
This dictum that the lying-in-wait period be equivalent to premeditation and deliberation apparently entered the jury instruction on lying-in-wait murder via Justice Traynor’s concurring opinion in People v. Thomas, supra, 41 Cal.2d 470, 475. Justice Traynor viewed as erroneous the then current lying-in-wait murder instruction, which stated that “ ‘Where the killing is by “lying in wait”, and the act causing death was intentional, it is murder of the first degree, whether the killing was intentional or unintentional, as in such case it is not necessary that there exist in the mind of the perpetrator an intent to kill.’ ” (Id., at p. 476.) His concern was that a jury receiving the above instruction could convict someone who had unintentionally killed a person after a period of lying in wait, even though the person’s actions would not rise to the level of murder, as in the case of the person who lies in wait merely intending to surprise a person who then has a heart attack. (Thomas, supra, 41 Cal.2d at pp. 478-479.) Because section 189 provides that first degree murder will be found for murder perpetuated by various means, including lying in wait “ ‘or any other kind of willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing’ ” (41 Cal.2d at p. 477), Justice Traynor concluded: “There must ... be substantial evidence of a long enough period of waiting and watching in concealment to show a state of mind equivalent to premeditation and deliberation before the court can properly give an instruction on lying in wait. . . . Otherwise a killing that was the result of a rash impulse would be converted into first degree murder.” (Id. at p. 481 (conc. opn. of Traynor, J.).)
Thus, the language in the lying-in-wait special-circumstance jury instruction equating the period of lying in wait with a period of premeditation and deliberation was designed to ensure that the person lying in wait was guilty of murder. Morales’s dictum that there must be a “substantial period of watching and waiting” was intended to differentiate lying-in-wait special-circumstance murder from “ ‘ordinary’ ” premeditated murder. (Morales, *220supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 557.) The two instructions thus pull in different directions, with the former modifying and cancelling out the latter, so that the “substantial period of watching and waiting” as interpreted in Morales has become no more than the watching and waiting needed to establish the premeditation and deliberation required in “ordinary” premeditated murder.2
What then is left of lying in wait if neither Morales’ s factor (1), concealment of purpose, nor factor (2), a substantial period of watching and waiting, actually distinguishes lying in wait from ordinary first degree murder? The third factor is to initiate, immediately after the watching and waiting, “a surprise attack on an unsuspecting victim from a position of advantage.” (Morales, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 557.) But concealing murderous intent and launching a surprise attack from a position of advantage are not two distinct factors distinguishing lying-in-wait murder, but one circumstance—almost invariably, one conceals a murderous intent in order to gain advantage over the victim. According to this court’s jurisprudence, then, the lying-in-wait special circumstance, which requires neither lying nor waiting, is nothing more than murder by surprise, and I will refer to it as such for the duration of the discussion.
Is murder by surprise a constitutionally valid special circumstance? Since Morales, this court has routinely rejected the notion that the lying-in-wait special circumstance is unconstitutional, relying on cases that ultimately can be traced back to Morales (see, e.g., Moon, supra, 37 Cal.4th at p. 44), not acknowledging that Morales’ s constitutional justification for that special circumstance is built on sand. The single most comprehensive judicial effort to constitutionally defend the lying-in-wait special circumstance is to be found in Morales v. Woodford (9th Cir. 2004) 388 F.3d 1159. In that case, the Ninth Circuit panel, over a vigorous dissent, upheld a facial challenge to the special circumstance. The majority opinion in that case proceeded with the following syllogism. Its major premise was that “a circumstance that makes one eligible for the death penalty must meet two requirements to satisfy the Eighth Amendment” (id. at p. 1174) and then quoted the United States Supreme Court in Tuilaepa v. California (1994) 512 U.S. 967, 972 [129 L.Ed.2d 750, 114 S.Ct. 2630] (Tuilaepa): “ ‘First, the circumstance may not apply to every defendant convicted of a murder; it must apply only to a sub-class of defendants convicted of murder. Second, the aggravating circumstance may not be unconstitutionally vague.’ ” (Morales, at p. 1174.)
Next, in establishing its minor premise, the Ninth Circuit majority reasoned that lying in wait applies only to a subclass of defendants convicted of *221murder and that it is not unconstitutionally vague. As to the former point, it stated: “To illustrate a non-lying-in-wait murder: a sadistic person who wants the victim to know what is coming, and who has no doubt of his ability to accomplish the crime, may confront the victim face to face, say ‘I’m going to kill you,’ and do so. Or a person intending to kill another may threaten the victim, travel armed, and when he spots his intended victim by chance, approach him and shoot him face to face. Or, not uncommonly, the loser óf a bar fight may say ‘I’m going to kill you,’ go to his car or his home and get a gun, come back to the bar, confront the victim saying ‘now I’m going to kill you,’ and do so. Even under the California Supreme Court’s liberal interpretations of lying in wait, these hypothetical first-degree murders would not merit the special circumstance.” (Morales v. Woodford, supra, 388 F.3d at p. 1175.) Moreover, relying on a previous case, Houston v. Roe (9th Cir. 1999) 177 F.3d 901, 907-908, the court held that the special circumstance was not unconstitutionally vague because it “ ‘created a thin but meaningfully distinguishable line between first degree murder lying in wait and special circumstances lying in wait.’ ” (Morales v. Woodford, supra, 388 F.3d at p. 1174.)
Having thus proceeded from major premise to minor premise, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the lying-in-wait circumstance does not violate the Eighth Amendment. (Morales v. Woodford, supra, 388 F.3d at p. 1176.)
I disagree with the Ninth Circuit’s major premise that, in order to establish the constitutionality of a special circumstance, one need only determine that the special circumstance applies to a subclass of first degree murderers and is not unconstitutionally vague. Although the Ninth Circuit relies on Tuilaepa, supra, 512 U.S. 967, for this proposition, I do not understand Tuilaepa to have repudiated the basic tenets of the United States Supreme Court’s modem Eighth Amendment jurisprudence that, as the court reiterated in the same term and the same month as Tuilaepa, “ ‘to pass constitutional muster, a capital sentencing scheme must “genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and must reasonably justify the imposition of a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to others found guilty of murder.” ’ ” (Romano v. Oklahoma (1994) 512 U.S. 1, 7 [129 L.Ed.2d 1, 114 S.Ct. 2004], italics added.) Nor was it repudiating its often quoted formulation in Godfrey v. Georgia, supra, 446 U.S. at page 427, that death penalty eligibility criteria must provide “ ‘ “a meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which [the penalty] is imposed from the many cases in which it is not.” ’ ”
*222Moreover, Tuilaepa did not consider the validity of any special circumstance, but rather addressed the constitutionality of California’s penalty phase provisions under section 190.3. To support its dictum that an aggravating circumstance that would make a defendant eligible for death “must apply only to a sub-class of defendants convicted of murder,” the Tuilaepa court cited Arave v. Creech (1993) 507 U.S. 463 [123 L.Ed.2d 188, 113 S.Ct. 1534]. Arave concerned a challenge to an Idaho death penalty statute that had as one of its aggravating or special circumstances that “ ‘[bjy the murder, or circumstances surrounding its commission, the defendant exhibited utter disregard for human life.’ ” (Id. at p. 465.) The court stated: “When the purpose of a statutory aggravating circumstance is to enable the sentencer to distinguish those who deserve capital punishment from those who do not, the circumstance must provide a principled basis for doing so.” (Id. at p. 474, italics added.) In considering the case at hand, the court noted that the Idaho Supreme Court had given the circumstance at issue a limiting construction, referring to a “ ‘cold-blooded, pitiless slayer.’ ” (Id. at p. 469.) The court concluded that the circumstance as so construed genuinely narrowed the class of first degree murderers “because some within the broad class of first-degree murderers do exhibit feeling. Some, for example, kill with anger, jealousy, revenge, or a variety of other emotions. In Walton [v. Arizona (1990) 497 U.S. 639 [111 L.Ed.2d 511, 110 S.Ct. 3047]] we held that Arizona could treat capital defendants who take pleasure in killing as more deserving of the death penalty than those who do not. Idaho similarly has identified the subclass of defendants who kill without feeling or sympathy as more deserving of death. By doing so, it has narrowed in a meaningful way the categoiy of defendants upon whom capital punishment may be imposed.” (Arave v. Creech, supra, 507 U.S. at p. 476, italics omitted and added.)
It is a truism therefore, that to be consistent with the Eighth Amendment, a special circumstance that makes a defendant eligible for the death penalty must not only narrow the class of murderers, but must do so in a principled and meaningful way to “ ‘ “reasonably justify the imposition of a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to others found guilty of murder” ’ ” (Romano v. Oklahoma, supra, 512 U.S. at p. 7), and to identify a subclass of defendants “as more deserving of death.” (Arave v. Creech, supra, 507 U.S. at p. 476.) Special circumstances based on moral trivialities would therefore not pass constitutional muster. A “foul language” special circumstance, for example—using foul language while committing the murder—would not survive an Eighth Amendment challenge.
Most of California’s many special circumstances fulfill the function of identifying the subclass of murderers more deserving of death. When someone not only commits first degree murder, but tortures the victim (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(18)), or murders by an especially destructive device that is a danger to the general public (id., subd. (a)(4)), or kills a peace officer (id., subd. *223(a)(7)), the moral justification for the greater penalty is clear. Not so with murder by surprise. The lying-in-wait special circumstance as interpreted by this court declares in effect: “The defendant deserves a greater punishment than the ordinary first degree murderer because not only did he commit first degree murder, but he failed to let the person know he was going to murder him before he did.” How can we make sense of this kind of special circumstance? Not only is surprise a common feature of murder—since murderers usually want their killings to succeed, and victims usually don’t want to be murdered—but it is not at all obvious that a murderer who does not conceal his purpose before murdering the victim is less culpable than one who does. One of the examples of murder without the lying-in-wait special circumstance furnished by the Ninth Circuit, is “a sadistic person who wants the victim to know what is coming, and who has no doubt of his ability to accomplish the crime, [and who] confronts] the victim face to face, say[ing] ‘I’m going to kill you’ ” (Morales v. Woodford, supra, 388 F.3d at p. 1175). How is this murderer less culpable and less deserving of the death penalty, by any conventional standard of morality, than someone who conceals his purpose before murdering? To put it another way, because a murderer must gain an advantage over his victim, why is it at all morally significant that he gained the advantage through surprise rather than through overpowering, or that he murders right after the surprise rather than sadistically toying with the victim? And how is the murderer who announces his intention to murder just before carrying it out against a defenseless person less culpable than one who maintains surprise?
The closest this court has come to a principled defense of lying in wait as a special circumstance is the comment in People v. Edelbacher (1989) 47 Cal.3d 983, 1023 [254 Cal.Rptr. 586, 766 P.2d 1], that “[mjurder committed by lying in wait has been ‘anciently regarded ... as a particularly heinous and repugnant crime.’ (Note, Murder Committed by Lying in Wait, supra, 42 Cal. L.Rev. 337.)” The cited article, as noted above {ante, at p. 218), in fact explains that English law regarded lying in wait as particularly heinous because in the period following the Norman conquest in the 11th century, Anglo-Saxons would lie in wait to assassinate their Norman conquerors. Whether we still share with the medieval Normans that special repugnance for lying-in-wait murder as originally conceived—an ambush assassination that involves physical concealment and a substantial period of watching and waiting—there is nothing to indicate that ordinary murder by surprise, the lying-in-wait special circumstance as construed by this court, has been historically, or is regarded currently, as an especially heinous form of murder.3
*224In defense of the lying-in-wait special circumstance, the majority states: “In distinction with premeditated first degree murder, the lying-in-wait special circumstance requires a physical concealment or concealment of purpose and a surprise attack on an unsuspecting victim from a position of advantage. [Citations.] Thus, any overlap between the premeditation element of first degree murder and the durational element of the lying-in-wait special circumstance does not undermine the narrowing function of the special circumstance.” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 203-204.) But the majority fails to explain how premeditated murder by surprise is more deserving of the death penalty or life without possibility of parole than premeditated murder that does not involve surprise.
Because, as discussed above, lying in wait was originally conceived as a type of first degree murder and not a special circumstance, it was not particularly designed to do what the Eighth Amendment requires—provide a principled basis for determining which murderers are especially culpable and therefore eligible for the death penalty. I do not assert that the court cannot give the special circumstance a reasonable limiting construction that would survive an Eighth Amendment challenge. But it has failed to do so.
m.
In the present case, as noted, the jury was instructed on a definition of the lying-in-wait special circumstance that “ ‘[t]he lying in wait need not continue for any particular period of time provided that its duration is such as to show a state of mind equivalent to premeditation or deliberation.’ ” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 201-202, fn. 10.) Although the jury was also instructed that the lying in wait must constitute “a substantial period of watching and waiting for an opportune time to act,” the instruction regarding the duration of the lying in wait makes it reasonable for the jury to interpret the word “substantial” to simply mean that time necessary for deliberation, as this court has done. (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 202, fn. 10; see also People v. *225Edwards (1991) 54 Cal.3d 787, 823 [1 Cal.Rptr.2d 696, 819 P.2d 436].) Because the lying-in-wait special circumstance, as set forth by this instruction, does not provide a principled basis for dividing first degree murderers eligible for the death penalty from those who are not, and is therefore not consistent with the Eighth Amendment, I would hold that the instruction is in error.
For purposes of assessing the prejudicial effect of this instructional error, I will assume that the above erroneous jury instruction could have been cured by omitting the words “The lying in wait need not continue for any particular period of time provided that its duration is such as to show a state of mind equivalent to premeditation or deliberation.” With this omission, the jury is at least left with the unalloyed instruction that the lying-in-wait special circumstance requires a substantial watching and waiting period; it would not necessarily have to equate watching and waiting with the time required to premeditate and deliberate, but the term “substantial” would connote something closer to the classic ambush situation, in which the murderer not only deliberates but, while watching and waiting, holds fast to a concealed, murderous purpose for a sustained period. The evidence does not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have found a substantial period in the present case. (See People v. Flood (1998) 18 Cal.4th 470, 503-504 [76 Cal.Rptr.2d 180, 957 P.2d 869] [instructional error not reversible when the evidence at trial establishes the error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt].) The evidence showed that defendant became aware of August, and pursued him, for only a few moments, and it is not clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a properly instructed jury would have found this to be a substantial period of watching and waiting. Indeed, there is insufficient evidence in the record that defendant engaged in a substantial period of watching and waiting before murdering August.4
*226I do not deny that defendant’s murder of August alone—a random, callous act of killing—could under some theory be viewed as a particularly heinous murder making defendant eligible for the death penalty. But lying in wait is not what made that murder heinous. I would therefore reverse the lying-in-wait special circumstance as to the August murder, but would otherwise uphold defendant’s capital sentence based on the multiple-murder special circumstance and the fact that the jury could still properly consider the aggravated circumstances of the August murder at the penalty phase of the trial. (See Brown v. Sanders (2006) 546 U.S. 212, 221-223 [163 L.Ed.2d 723, 126 S.Ct. 884].)

 All statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise indicated.

I note that the jury was instructed in the present case that “[t]he lying in wait need not continue for any particular period of time provided that its duration is such as to show a state of mind equivalent to premeditation or deliberation.”

 Other justifications for the lying-in-wait special circumstance were considered and rejected by Justice Broussard in his cogent concurring and dissenting opinion in People v. Webster, supra, 54 Cal.3d 411, 467: “In Richards v. Superior Court [(1983)] 146 Cal.App.3d *224306, 314, footnote 5, the court speculated that ‘[o]ne supposes that [lying in wait] is perceived as a particularly cowardly form of murder—hence the opprobrium heaped on the western villain who killed from ambush. And in earlier, more religious times, special scorn was reserved for those who murdered victims in a fashion intended to deprive them of the opportunity for reflection and contrition. Thus, the piteous complaint of Hamlet’s father that he was murdered “in the blossoms of my sin/ Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d/ No reckoning made, but sent to my account/ With all my imperfections on my head . . . .” (Hamlet, act I, scene v., line 66ff.)’ [f] I do not believe the drafters and voters in 1978 included the lying-in-wait special circumstance because of a 400-year-old notion that an honorable killer allows the victim time to confess his sins, or even a 100-year-old notion that an honorable killer waits until the victim has a chance to draw first. In any case, the lying-in-wait special circumstance, as construed in Morales, embodied neither notion. To the contrary, Morales specifically rejected the contention that the special circumstance only applies if the killer ambushes the victim.” I agree.

 Justice Werdegar proposes that the lying-in-wait special circumstance be interpreted to require not simply concealment of purpose but “active deceit.. . —a misrepresentation or ruse that lulls the victim into a false sense of security” (cone. opn. of Werdegar, J., ante, at p. 214), and that such limiting construction would insulate that special circumstance from a constitutional challenge. Assuming she is correct, such construction would not save the lying-in-wait finding in the present case. The jury was not instructed on active deceit, and although some parts of the instruction could lead jurors to believe that active deceit was required, the part of the instruction incorporating Morales makes clear that concealment of purpose alone, together with the two other factors discussed above, would suffice to find lying in wait. (See Morales, supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 555.) Nor is it clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have found active deceit in the present case had it been instructed in that requirement. Defendant’s act of pulling up alongside Stokes, and briefly motioning at and smiling at him, is hardly evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of an active deceit that is distinguishable from mere concealment of purpose. (Cf. People v. Sims, supra, 5 Cal.4th at p. 433 [lying-in-wait special circumstance found where murderers lured pizza delivery man to motel room by ordering pizza].)