Court Opinion

ID: 9559166
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:23:52.650703+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:53.408956
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.
Í concur in that portion of the majority opinion which directs the modification of the judgment to reflect the fact that the additional term of imprisonment prescribed under Penal Code section 12022.5 may not be imposed to aggravate a life sentence.
I respectfully dissent, however, from the majority’s principal holding that section 12022.5 applies only to one who personally uses a firearm in the commission of the felonies prescribed in that section. I am in complete disagreement with such a conclusion. In my view, the additional punishment under section 12022.5 may properly be imposed upon an offender whose criminal acts were aided and abetted by a firearm held or fired by an accomplice.
In this connection, I fully concur with the analysis and reasoning of Presiding Justice Kaus in People v. Bush (1975) 50 Cal.App.3d 168 [123 Cal.Rptr. 576], a recent case which the majority herein, unfortunately, disapprove. As expressed in Bush, “. . . a person can ‘use’ an article without personally handling it. Among the many definitions of the word ‘use’ in Webster’s New International Dictionary (3d ed. 1966) we find: (1) ‘to put into action or serve’; (2) ‘have recourse to or enjoyment of; (3) ‘to carry out a purpose or action by means of; (4) ‘make instrumental to an end or process’; (5) ‘apply to advantage’ and (6) ‘to benefit from the use of. [H] None of these meanings suggests that the person using the *245thing in question personally possesses, handles, or wields it. When two robbers enter a store and one holds the victims at bay with his gun while the other relieves them of their possessions, clearly the latter ‘benefits from the use of the former’s weapon, has ‘recourse’ to it, carries ‘out his purpose or action by means of the gun and makes it ‘instrumental to an end.’ ” (P. 177.)
The foregoing conclusion of Presiding Justice Kaus, is amply supported by common sense, by an analysis of the intent and state of mind of both actor and victim, and by the demonstrated public policy underlying section 12022.5.
In their interpretation of the statute the majority insist upon the addition of a new fourth word in the statute, causing it to read “any person who personally uses a firearm,” etc. This change of language is adopted by the majority, notwithstanding the evident fact that several defendants during the course of a robbery may, in any meaningful sense of the term, “use” a single firearm.
Several considerations in combination point to such a conclusion. If we consider, the state of mind of the multiple actors in Justice Kaus’ cited example it cannot be doubted that both the robber who holds the handgun and the robber who seizes the victim’s property are “using” the gun in question. The fact that the latter robber does not physically hold or touch the weapon detracts not one whit from the fact that he performs his criminal acts within, and because of, the protection of its lethal range. If we extend the analysis and view the situation through the eyes of the victims the same result ensues. Each victim yields to the will and conduct of the second robber because, and only because, the second robber “uses” the weapon held by the first robber, adopting derivatively its threatening force.
The search for the probable legislative intent behind section 12022.5 is not difficult, and the identical conclusion is reached. An unprecedented growth in crime characterized by an increase in the use of firearms caused the enactment of section 12022.5 in an attempt to restrain, *246control, and deter the employment of dangerous weapons. We ourselves in People v. Chambers (1972) 7 Cal.3d 666, 672 [102 Cal.Rptr. 776, 498 P.2d 1024], recognized this very apparent purpose behind the statute which led us to our unanimous conclusion that “The obvious legislative intent to deter the use of firearms in the commission of the specified felonies requires that ‘uses’ be broadly construed.” (Italics added.) This language seems very clear to me as an interpretive rule consistent with the broad public policy behind section 12022.5. The Legislature’s commendable desire to deter firearm use requires that in interpreting the term “use” in section 12022.5, we construe it broadly. The majority decline to do so and, in effect, amend the statute.
The majority suggest that the only reason the Legislature enacted section 12022.5 was to avoid our holding in People v. Floyd (1969) 71 Cal.2d 879 [80 Cal.Rptr. 22, 457 P.2d 862], to the effect that section 12022 (prescribing additional punishment for persons armed with a deadly weapon) was inapplicable to cases in which possession of a weapon was a necessary element of the offense committed. The majority assert that the Legislature did not also intend to change the prior rule that only those who are personally armed with a weapon may suffer the additional punishment prescribed by section 12022. (E.g., People v. Hicks (1971) 4 Cal.3d 757, 765-766, fn. 4 [94 Cal.Rptr. 393, 484 P.2d 65]; but see People v. Perryman (1967) 250 Cal.App.2d 813, 820-821 [58 Cal.Rptr. 921].)
If the Legislature’s sole purpose in enacting section 12022.5 were to avoid the Floyd rule, it would have simply amended section 12022. Instead, the Legislature let that section stand and enacted an entirely new section prescribing additional punishment for a firearm “use.” Although the word “armed” in section 12022 may indeed connote personal possession of a weapon (as an offender cannot be deemed “armed” with a weapon in another’s possession), the term “use” is much broader and, as I have pointed out above, reasonably extends to one whose unlawful purposes are facilitated by a firearm physically possessed by an accomplice.
The record herein discloses that either defendant or his accomplice shot and killed Frank Simpson in the course of robbing him. The jury properly could infer that the use of the weapon facilitated the robbery *247and that, accordingly, defendant “used” a firearm within the meaning of section 12022.5 whether or not he personally fired the weapon.
I think the majority err in their very narrow interpretation of the statute, notwithstanding the demonstrated policy behind it, in their rejection of Bush, and in their dilution of Chambers.
McComb, J., and Clark, J., concurred.
Respondent’s petition for a rehearing was denied November 24, 1976. Clark, J., and Richardson, J., were of the opinion that the petition should ‘ be granted.