Court Opinion

ID: 9744826
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:18:02.977067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:52.286881
License: Public Domain

McKINSTER, J.
I reluctantly agree with the majority’s conclusion, citing People v. Fuller (1978) 86 Cal.App.3d 618 [150 Cal.Rptr. 515] and People v. Bodely (1995) 32 Cal.App.4th 311 [38 Cal.Rptr.2d 72], that a killing that occurs during the course of a burglary of a car supports first degree *90felony-murder liability.1 I respectfully dissent, however, from the majority’s conclusion that the evidence presented in the trial court is sufficient to support the jury’s finding that the death in this case occurred during the commission of the car burglary. In my view, the evidence presented in the trial court is insufficient to support the jury’s first-degree felony-murder conviction because, unlike Bodely or Fuller,2 defendants here were not immediately pursued from the car burglary. Therefore, the death in this case did not occur during the defendants’ immediate flight from the scene of that crime and before defendants reached a place of temporary safety. In other words, I would conclude as a matter of law that the death and the burglary were not part of one continuous transaction in this case.
According to the undisputed evidence presented in the trial court, defendants drove away after stealing the stereo and were not immediately pursued. Defendants drove slowly through the housing development for some minutes, presumably looking for another car to burglarize, before Charles Cabral began his search for defendants’ red car. During that time, defendants examined and discarded the stolen stereo. Several minutes more elapsed before defendants actually encountered Cabral.3 It was only then that defendants “fled.” Thus, defendants were not engaged in flight from the burglary but, rather, were fleeing from their later and separate encounter with the crime victim, when the death occurred in this case. The burglary was complete because defendants, as a matter of law, had reached a “place of temporary safety” when they returned to their car with the stolen stereo and *91drove away without being pursued. Defendants, therefore, no longer were engaged in the commission of the burglary when they crashed into Joann Jacobs’s car. That a period of only minutes separated the burglary from Cabral’s search for defendants emphasizes the temporary nature of defendants’ safety but does not negate the fact that defendants actually reached such a place and therefore no longer were engaged in the burglary at the time of the collision.
Because felony murder is a legal fiction that “ascribes malice aforethought to the felon who kills in the perpetration of an inherently dangerous felony” (People v. Washington (1965) 62 Cal.2d 777, 780 [44 Cal.Rptr. 442, 402 P.2d 130]) it “erodes the relation between criminal liability and moral culpability.” (Id. at p. 783.) Where, as in this case, the underlying felony is the burglary of an unattended automobile, a crime which is not inherently dangerous to human life, I would require strict compliance with the essential factual elements of the so-called escape rule. Therefore, I would interpret the phrase “immediate pursuit” literally to require proof of actual physical pursuit without any intervening delay. That did not occur in this case. By the majority’s own account of the facts, Cabral did not immediately pursue defendants. Instead, he went inside the house, called the police and then got his car keys from the nightstand in the bedroom.
During the interval of time Cabral was in the house, defendants drove away. Cabral was not pursuing them when defendants left the crime scene and that lapse in time precludes Cabral’s pursuit from being “immediate.” That Cabral could not immediately pursue defendants because he apparently did not have the keys to his car does not excuse the requirement that the pursuit be “immediate.” Thus, defendants were not fleeing the crime scene, or escaping from immediate pursuers when they crashed into and killed Ms. Jacobs.
I base my conclusion defendants had reached a place of temporary safety, in part, on People v. Salas (1972) 7 Cal.3d 812 [103 Cal.Rptr. 431, 500 P.2d 7, 58 A.L.R.3d 832], in which the Supreme Court explained the “escape rule” and in doing so, noted, “The phrases ‘place of temporary safety’ and ‘scrambling possession’ are derived from the landmark case of People v. Boss (1930) 210 Cal. 245 .... In that case two defendants robbed a store and ran into the street; an employee immediately pursued them and was shot by Boss a moment later when the furthermost defendant was no more than 125 feet from the store. We [the Supreme Court] held that the trial court properly instructed the jury as to first degree felony murder as the homicide was committed in the perpetration of a robbery and we stated: ‘It is a sound principle of law which inheres in common reason that where two or more *92persons engage in a conspiracy to commit robbery and an officer or citizen is murdered while in immediate pursuit of one of their number who is fleeing from the scene of the crime with the fruits thereof in his possession, or in the possession of a co-conspirator, the crime is not complete in the purview of the law, inasmuch as said conspirators have not won their way even momentarily to a place of temporary safety and the possession of the plunder is nothing more than scrambling possession.” (People v. Salas, supra, 7 Cal.3d at pp. 821-822, italics added.) Although the Salas court acknowledged that “[t]he meaning of the two phrases is not made entirely clear” it nevertheless concluded, “The fact that a robber has not won his way to a ‘place of temporary safety’ can only mean that he is still fleeing, still trying to escape.” (Ibid.)
Defendants in this, case did not “flee” the burglary; they simply left the crime scene.4 Likewise, there was no immediate pursuit of defendants. In fact, during the time he was on the telephone talking to the police, Cabral did not actually know where defendants were, although he had a hunch about their location. Defendants were not “still fleeing” or “still trying to escape” with the fruit of the burglary in their possession at the time of the automobile collision—defendants were fleeing from their later, and separate, encounter with Cabral. In returning to their car and driving away without immediately being pursued, defendants had momentarily won their way to a place of temporary safety.
The collision in this case unquestionably was related to the burglary in the sense that Cabral would not have gone out to look for defendants had he not first seen them steal the stereo from the car. Nor, presumably, would defendants have fled had they not recognized Cabral’s car as one they recently burglarized. First degree felony murder requires proof of more than a relationship between the burglary and the collision. It requires proof the killing occurred during the commission of the burglary before liability equivalent to that of premeditated murder may be extended to an accidental killing.
By disagreeing with the majority, I do not intend to suggest that defendant Thongvilay, who was the driver of the car, is not criminally responsible for the death of Ms. Jacobs. As to him, the evidence might support a second degree murder conviction on an implied malice theory and clearly supports a *93vehicular manslaughter charge. The People, however, chose to prosecute this case only on a first-degree felony-murder theory, presumably because that was the only homicide theory that would also include the passenger, defendant Done Naly. Because he had no control over the car in which he was riding as a passenger, to hold defendant Naly responsible for first-degree felony-murder based on his participation in a felony that is not inherently dangerous is a manifest injustice.
I, therefore, respectfully disagree with the majority and would reverse the judgments. Because I would reverse the judgments, I do not address the remaining issues defendants raise in this appeal and therefore express no view regarding the majority’s resolution of those issues.
A petition for a rehearing was denied March 25, 1998, and appellants’ petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied June 17, 1998. Mosk, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Interestingly, the Fuller court devoted more than half of its discussion of the above noted issue to apologizing for its decision to extend first degree felony murder to the accidental killing at issue in that case. (People v. Fuller, supra, 86 Cal.App.3d at pp. 624-628.) When the Legislature enacted the felony-murder statute in 1872 only nighttime residential burglaries were criminalized in Penal Code section 459. Later, the Legislature divided burglary into degrees (Pen. Code, § 460) and added automobile burglaries as second degree burglaries without amending the first degree felony-murder statute (Pen. Code, § 189) to include only first degree burglaries. It is questionable whether the Legislature really intended a car burglary to be included with the other inherently dangerous crimes that trigger the first degree felony-murder rule. (People v. Fuller, supra, at p. 627.) The burglary of an unattended car by an unarmed perpetrater is not inherently dangerous to human life. It would be insufficient to even support second degree felony murder. “[H]ow can it rationally be used to support a first degree felony murder?” (Id. at p. 626.)

The facts in Fuller, in which the Fifth District reversed an order granting the defendant’s Penal Code section 995 motion and dismissed a first degree felony-murder charge, are that a police officer saw the defendants stealing tires from a closed car lot. When the defendants got into their car and “drove away ‘really fast’ ” the officer followed and “a high speed chase ensued.” That chase ended when the defendants ran a red light at an intersection and hit a car, killing the driver. (People v. Fuller, supra, 86 Cal.App.3d at pp. 621-622.)

The majority note defendants turned off the headlights on their car at that point. In my view, that fact cuts the opposite way and supports my conclusion that defendants were not immediately pursued, as disclosed by the fact they were driving around the neighborhood with the headlights on, presumably looking for another car to burglarize.

The majority focus on the fact defendants left the car door open when they left the scene of the crime. In the majority’s view, this fact is only explicable as evidence that defendants were fleeing the scene. In my view the fact defendants left the car door open is irrelevant. Defendants were burglars, after all, who had just broken into the car and ripped out the stereo. Ordinarily burglars are not so courteous as to tidy up when they leave, the majority’s apparent contrary view notwithstanding.