Court Opinion

ID: 9788603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:12:28.563668+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:14.844012
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Reluctantly, I conclude the merger doctrine (People v. Ireland (1969) 70 Cal.2d 522 [75 Cal.Rptr. *185188, 450 P.2d 580]) that limits second degree felony murder must be understood to preclude the offense of grossly negligent discharge of a firearm (Pen. Code, § 246.3) from serving as a predicate felony under the circumstances of this case. As Justice Kennard demonstrates (dis. opn. of Kennard, J., ante, at p. 184), moreover, we cannot be certain beyond a reasonable doubt (Neder v. United States (1999) 527 U.S. 1 [144 L.Ed.2d 35, 119 S.Ct. 1827]) that the jury did not rely on felony-murder instructions to convict defendant of second degree murder; defendant’s conviction should therefore be reversed.
Concurring separately in People v. Hansen (1994) 9 Cal.4th 300, 317-318 [36 Cal.Rptr.2d 609, 885 P.2d 1022], I endorsed the “collateral and independent felonious design” test of People v. Mattison (1971) 4 Cal.3d 177, 185 [93 Cal.Rptr. 185, 481 P.2d 193], and opined that the defendant’s intent to “intimidate” another was sufficiently independent of the killing to avoid the merger doctrine in that case. The majority in this case, making a commendable effort to straighten out a fairly twisted piece of doctrine (see dis. opn. of Brown, J., post, at pp. 186-188), returns to the Mattison test the court seemingly abandoned in Hansen, supra, 9 Cal.4th at page 315, and reasons that defendant’s claimed intent merely to scare the thieves away was collateral to the resulting homicide. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 171.)
I would like to join in the majority reasoning, which is consistent with my Hansen concurrence. But sometimes consistency must yield to a better understanding of the developing law. The anomalies created when assaultive conduct is used as the predicate for a second degree felony-murder theory (see dis. opn. of Kennard, J., ante, at pp. 180-182) are too stark and potentially too productive of injustice to be written off as “characteristic of the second degree felony-murder rule in general” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 173). It simply cannot be the law that a defendant who shot the victim with the intent to kill or injure, but can show he or she acted in unreasonable self-defense, may be convicted of only voluntary manslaughter, whereas a defendant who shot only to scare the victim is precluded from raising that partial defense and is strictly liable as a murderer. The independent and collateral purposes referred to in Mattison must be understood as limited to nonassaultive conduct. In circumstances like the present, the merger doctrine should preclude presentation of a second degree felony-murder theory to the jury.
Justices Brown (dis. opn., post, at pp. 191-192) and Moreno (conc, opn., ante, at pp. 175-176) question both the foundations of and need in the criminal law for a nonstatutory second degree felony-murder rule and suggest it may be ripe for reexamination, as Justice Panelli (People v. Patterson (1989) 49 Cal.3d 615, 641-642 [262 Cal.Rptr. 195, 778 P.2d 549] (conc. & *186dis. opn.)) and Chief Justice Bird (People v. Burroughs (1984) 35 Cal.3d 824, 852-854 [201 Cal.Rptr. 319, 678 P.2d 894] (conc, opn.)) have done in the past. I agree and for these reasons would also apply the rule narrowly so as not to create an unnecessary divergence between culpability and punishment.