Court Opinion

ID: 9734965
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:54:30.809069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:27.008911
License: Public Domain

STONE, J.
I concur in the result since eases cited in the opinion appear to hold that the defense of diminished capacity to a charge of homicide committed in the perpetration of a felony is restricted to situations where the concomitant felony is not inherently dangerous. Yet for the reasons below, this rule would seem to lead to an anomalous result.
Both diminished capacity and diminished responsibility involve the same basic concept in determining specific intent or malice. It is whether a defendant had the capacity to perform the mental process by which the particular state of mind was formed. In either instance the question is resolved by evidence that a defendant was or was not able to arrive at a particular state or condition of mind by reason of mental retardation, mental disease or deterioration, temporary loss of his faculties through injury or through the use of drugs, including narcotics and alcohol. The Supreme Court recognized this similarity of causal efficacy in People v. Conley, 64 Cal.2d 310, where, in discussing the defense of diminished responsibility, it said, at page 319 [49 Cal.Rptr. 815, 411 P.2d 911] : “Implicit in such a defense is also the defense of diminished capacity. The jury could well reject the claim of complete unconsciousness and yet believe that the evidence introduced to establish unconsciousness was sufficient to indicate that defendant’s mental capacity was substantially reduced.”
Coining to grips with the cases we note, first, it is well established that diminished capacity may be made an issue in the defense of. a felony requiring specific intent. (People v. Ford, 60 Cal.2d 772, 792 [36 Cal.Rptr. 620, 388 P.2d 892].) Second, under the Wells-Gorshen rule diminished capacity can be made an issue where the homicide was not committed in the perpetration of another felony. (People v. Conley, supra.) Third, a defendant charged with a homicide committed in the perpetration of a felony not requiring specific intent but inherently dangerous, such as an ex-felon in posses*299sion of a concealed weapon (People v. Ford, supra, 60 Cal.2d at p. 795) is precluded from raising the issue of diminished capacity.
The upshot of these three rules is that a defendant charged with a homicide committed in the perpetration of a felony which requires specific intent has a right to raise the defense of diminished capacity to the felony charge. If the trier of fact believes that by reason of diminished capacity he could not form the specific intent to commit the felony, he then stands in the position of one charged with murder without the additional felony charge. Under the Wells-Gorshen rule, as explicated in Conley, he can raise the defense of diminished responsibility or diminished capacity as to the homicide. {People v. Sievers, 255 Cal.App.2d 34, 38 [62 Cal.Rptr. 841].) On the othqr hand, a defendant charged with a homicide committed in the perpetration of a felony which, although inherently dangerous, requires no specific intent is precluded from raising the defense of diminished capacity.
It would seem to be a denial of due process and equal protection of the law to permit a defendant charged with a homicide committed in the perpetration of a felony requiring specific intent, such as robbery, to raise the defense of diminished capacity to the felony and, if successful, to also raise it as to the murder, but to deny the defense to a defendant charged with homicide committed in the perpetration of a felony not requiring specific intent, such as an ex-felon in possession of a firearm.
Thus, it appears to me that a defendant’s right to raise the issue of diminished capacity in a felony-homicide case should not rest upon a judicial determination of whether the felony is inherently dangerous (the dissent here) or not so (the majority opinion) but, rather, upon the fact of diminished capacity and its effect.