Court Opinion

ID: 9632670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:21:24.889554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:20.850105
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
—I concur generally with the majority opinion. I write separately
because I fear that in a different case the jury may misconstrue the standard instructions on second degree murder on a theory of implied malice. (CAL-JIC Nos. 8.11 & 8.31 (5th ed. 1988 bound vol.).)
Penal Code1 sections 187 and 188 define murder and malice. Subdivision (a) of section 187 provides that “Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought.” “Such malice,” continues section 188, “may be express or implied. It is express when there is manifested a deliberate intention unlawfiilly to take away the life of a fellow creature. It is implied, when no considerable provocation appears, or [as relevant here] when the circumstances attending the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart.”
The jury was instructed in the elements of murder. Because the term “abandoned and malignant heart” is opaque to the average juror, the jury was told in accordance with CALJIC Nos. 8.11 and 8.31 that it could return a verdict for second degree murder if it found that defendant had killed the victim and “1. The killing resulted from an intentional act, [1] 2. The natural consequences of the act are dangerous to human life, and [|] 3. The act was deliberately performed with knowledge of the danger to, and with conscious disregard for, human life.” As the majority opinion notes, the jury specifically found defendant guilty of second degree murder on the basis of “implied (not express) malice.”
In People v. Dellinger (1989) 49 Cal.3d 1212, 1221-1222 [264 Cal.Rptr. 841, 783 P.2d 200], we approved the language of the current version of *113CALJIC Nos. 8.11 and 8.31. We relied on People v. Watson (1981) 30 Cal.3d 290 [179 Cal.Rptr. 43, 637 P.2d 279] (Watson). Watson declared that implied malice exists “when a person does an act, the natural consequences of which are dangerous to life .... Phrased in a different way, malice may be implied when [the] defendant does an act with a high probability that it will result in death and does it with a base antisocial motive and with a wanton disregard for human life. (People v. Washington (1965) 62 Cal.2d 777, 782 [44 Cal.Rptr. 442, 402 P.2d 130].)” (Id. at p. 300, internal quotation marks omitted.) Watson also stated that “Implied malice contemplates a subjective awareness of a higher degree of risk than does gross negligence . . .” (id. at p. 296), and that “. . . malice may be implied when a person, knowing that his conduct endangers the life of another, nonetheless acts deliberately with conscious disregard for life. . . .” (ibid., italics deleted).
As the majority opinion observes, by harmonizing the language of a long line of cases Watson culminated a decades-long effort to interpret for the jury section 188’s cryptic “abandoned and malignant heart” language. (See People v. Sedeno (1974) 10 Cal.3d 703, 719, 722-723 [112 Cal.Rptr. 1, 518 P.2d 913]; People v. Poddar (1974) 10 Cal.3d 750, 757 [111 Cal.Rptr. 910, 518 P.2d 342]; People v. Phillips (1966) 64 Cal.2d 574, 587 [51 Cal.Rptr. 225, 414 P.2d 353]; People v. Conley (1966) 64 Cal.2d 310, 321 [49 Cal.Rptr. 815, 411 P.2d 911]; People v. Washington (1965) 62 Cal.2d 777 [44 Cal.Rptr. 442, 402 P.2d 130]; People v. Thomas (1953) 41 Cal.2d 470 [261 P.2d 1] (conc. opn. of Traynor, J.).)2 Justice Traynor’s oft-quoted concurring opinion in Thomas stated that implied malice “is shown when ... the defendant for a base, antisocial motive and with wanton disregard for human life, does an act that involves a high degree of probability that it will result in death.” (41 Cal.2d at p. 480.) The concurring opinion provided examples (id. at p. 479) from four cases decided in the district Courts of Appeal: striking the victim with a knife; firing a shotgun at trespassers; shooting with intent to wound; and, in a variation on the classic illustration of “depraved heart” second degree murder, firing shots at random into a crowded dance hall. (See, e.g., People v. Roberts (1992) 2 Cal.4th 271, 317 [6 Cal.Rptr.2d 276, 826 P.2d 274].)
In 1983 the Legislature adopted the “high probability of death/natural consequences” standard this court set forth in Watson for implied malice. *114(Stats. 1983, ch. 937, § 1, p. 3387, amending § 192.)3 Therefore, even if I agreed with amicus curiae the State Public Defender that the “high probability of death” language requires a graver act than the “natural consequences dangerous to life” language, and believed that the Legislature’s original “abandoned and malignant heart” formulation also set a high standard for the necessary physical act, my view would be purely academic, for the Legislature has decided that the two phrases are synonymous.
But as the State Public Defender observed at oral argument, the fact that lawyers, judges, and others versed in the law may recognize Watson’s equivalence does not mean that a lay juror necessarily will be able to do so. A problem could well arise in some cases because the language now set forth in CALJIC Nos. 8.11 and 8.31 is technical and abstract and hence less readily understood than the “high probability of death” language. The instructions might therefore cloud a juror’s ability to discern whether the facts warrant a murder conviction—especially because the jury would be faced with the certainty that death had occurred.
In determining whether an instruction is erroneous or not, we ascertain whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury misconstrued the words in the context of an individual case. (People v. Clair (1992) 2 Cal.4th 629, 662-663, 688 [7 Cal.Rptr.2d 564, 828 P.2d 705].) Though there was no such likelihood here, in another case a reasonable likelihood may arise. Consider a situation in which, in a remote part of a rural county, a hunter, for no apparent reason, fired a bullet into the air at a 45-degree angle, causing a human death on the ground some distance away. The act was illegal because it “could result in injury or death” (§ 246.3), and was somewhat dangerous even though performed in a thinly populated area. But let us further hypothesize that death as a result was a freak occurrence: there was uncontested evidence that the bullet was far more likely to strike the ground or a tree than a human being. There was no high probability that the act would result in death; the act’s natural consequences were not dangerous to human life. But the “natural consequences dangerous to life” language is vague enough to those unschooled in the nuances of the law of homicide that a lay jury might nevertheless vote to convict the hunter of implied-malice murder. If a reviewing court concluded there was a reasonable likelihood the jury misconstrued the instruction, the judgment of conviction would be reversed.
Under the previous versions of those instructions—which gave the high probability language (CALJIC Nos. 8.11, 8.31 (4th ed. 1979 bound vol.))— *115the jury would readily understand the task it faced, for the language was forthright and clear.
To avoid reversals of judgments of conviction that might otherwise be required, I believe we should encourage the trial courts to give the clearest possible exposition of section 188. We have striven for decades to do so, most recently in Watson, supra, 30 Cal.3d 290, and People v. Dellinger, supra, 49 Cal.3d 1212. The clearest language describing the nature of the physical act required to establish implied malice is Watson's, formulation that the act must have contained a high probability that death would result. The Legislature has approved this standard (§ 192), and we have never retreated from it. The trial courts would be on safe ground to recite it to the jury.
Kennard, J., concurred.

Unlabeled section references are to this code.

People v. Sedeño, supra, was disapproved on another point in People v. Flannel (1979) 25 Cal.3d 668, 684, footnote 12 [106 Cal.Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d 1], People v. Poddar and People v. Conley, both supra, were overruled on another point in People v. Saille (1991) 54 Cal.3d 1103, 1113-1114 [2 Cal.Rptr.2d 364, 820 P.2d 588],

Section 192 now provides that “ ‘Gross negligence’, as used in this section [to help define vehicular manslaughter], shall not be construed as prohibiting or precluding a charge of murder under Section 188 upon facts exhibiting wantonness and a conscious disregard for life to support a finding of implied malice, or upon facts showing malice, consistent with the holding of the California Supreme Court in People v. Watson 30 Cal.3d 290.”