Court Opinion

ID: 9883302
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 01:39:49.109258+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:22.547313
License: Public Domain

LUCAS, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the judgment to the
extent it affirms defendant’s convictions of conspiracy to commit first degree murder, and of assault with a deadly weapon. For the reasons stated in Justice Mosk’s dissenting opinion, however, I would also affirm the convictions of murder with special circumstances and attempted murder. The evidence of defendant’s guilt of those offenses was overwhelming.
Finally, unlike either the majority or Justice Mosk, I would also affirm defendant’s robbery conviction despite so-called Beeman error. (See People v. Beeman (1984) 35 Cal.3d 547, 560 [199 Cal.Rptr. 60, 674 P.2d 1318].) As I will demonstrate, the evidence which indicated that defendant aided and abetted a robbery with an intent to facilitate, or assist in facilitating, that offense was likewise overwhelming.
My colleagues in the majority properly decline to apply a reversible per se standard for measuring the prejudicial effect of Beeman error. (See People v. Garcia (1984) 36 Cal.3d 539 [205 Cal.Rptr. 265, 684 P.2d 826] [reversible per se standard for Carlos error in capital cases].) I agree that such a strict standard would be unnecessary in these cases, being compelled by neither logic nor constitutional mandate. First, we must bear in mind that Beeman “error” is quite harmless in many cases: Rather than requiring a finding of intent to commit or assist in a crime, the pre-Beeman instruction called for a finding of aiding, promoting, encouraging or instigating the commission of a crime “with knowledge of the unlawful purpose of the perpetrator . ...” As the majority acknowledges, in many cases, anyone who “aided” or “promoted” a criminal act, knowing of the perpetrator’s unlawful purpose, also intended to commit, or at least assist in committing, that act. The majority, however, incorrectly holds that no such conclusion can be drawn in the present case.
The majority concedes that, at the outset, defendant joined a criminal conspiracy to “shoot the sheriff.” Defendant, to promote that end, announced that he was “gonna get a gun.” He and several of his companions stopped at his apartment and picked up his rifle, but he could not find any bullets. He left the apartment, armed with the rifle, angrily remarking that his girlfriend, Barbara Conrad, “wouldn’t give him no shells.”
The group, continuing to discuss “getting] some cops,” drove to a sporting goods and liquor store where ammunition was sold; defendant bought some beer and argued with the clerk about his change. After leaving the store, the group reentered around midnight, and defendant resumed his pre*26vious altercation with the clerk. While the clerk was being distracted and assaulted by various members of the group, one of them stole several boxes of .22 magnum ammunition fitting defendant’s rifle. The group then fled, ultimately pursued by the police. Defendant was driving the “getaway” car. (His testimony to the effect that he drove away merely because he was afraid of being arrested for drinking was inherently unbelievable.)
At the conclusion of the ensuing gunfight, after defendant had shot and killed Officer Hittson and had been wounded himself, defendant announced to attending physicians that he had been shot trying to “rob” a liquor store.
The foregoing evidence was largely uncontradicted by any credible evidence and overwhelmingly demonstrated that defendant aided and abetted a robbery of the store in order to obtain ammunition he needed to fulfill his coconspirators’ murderous objective. Although the jury was not told that aiding and abetting required an intent to commit, or assist in committing, a crime, it was told (under the standard pre-Beeman instruction) to determine whether defendant aided, promoted, encouraged or instigated the robbery with knowledge of the perpetrator’s unlawful purpose. Thus, by necessary implication, the jury must have found that defendant assisted in the robbery knowing of the perpetrator’s unlawful purpose. That being so, there can be no reasonable doubt that the jury likewise would have found that he intended to commit, or assist in committing, robbery. He wanted bullets. He got bullets.
I would affirm the judgment in its entirety.