Court Opinion

ID: 9784328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:42:41.708713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:53.300122
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Concurring.—
As January R. was removing her seven-month-old daughter Marissa from her car, defendant and his codefendant *862accosted her and forced her back into the car with Marissa. Defendant drove the car away with all four of them inside. Defendant stopped the car; his codefendant threatened to shoot Marissa and raped her mother January. January then got out of the car and grabbed Marissa from the car. Defendant drove off with his codefendant. A jury convicted defendant of numerous crimes, including two counts of kidnapping and two counts of carjacking. He challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions for kidnapping Marissa and for carjacking Marissa.
I agree with the majority that defendant was properly convicted under Penal Code section 207 of kidnapping the infant Marissa. In People v. Oliver (1961) 55 Cal.2d 761, 765, 768 [12 Cal.Rptr. 865, 361 P.2d 593], we held that kidnapping an infant or other person unable to give legal consent required both that the kidnapper forcibly take the victim away and that the kidnapper take the victim for an illegal purpose or with an illegal intent. Here, there was evidence both that defendant and his codefendant applied force to Marissa to take her away and that they did so in the course of accomplishing other crimes.
I take a somewhat different view, however, than does the majority, of defendant’s argument that he cannot be convicted for violating the carjacking statute, Penal Code section 215 (hereafter section 215), with respect to Marissa because there was insufficient evidence that the carjacking was against Marissa’s will.
Section 215 provides: “ ‘Carjacking’ is the felonious taking of a motor vehicle in the possession of another, from his or her person or immediate presence, or from the person or immediate presence of a passenger of the motor vehicle, against his or her will and with the intent to either permanently or temporarily deprive the person in possession of the motor vehicle of his or her possession, accomplished by means of force or fear.” It is modeled on the robbery statute, Penal Code section 211, which provides: “Robbery is the felonious taking of personal property in the possession of another, from his person or immediate presence, and against his will, accomplished by means of force or fear.”
Section 215 establishes these elements for the crime of carjacking: (1) taking a vehicle possessed by another; (2) from the presence of the possessor or a passenger; (3) “against his or her will”; (4) with intent to deprive possession; (5) and, by means of force or fear. Defendant contends there is insufficient evidence of the third and fifth elements to support his conviction.
Defendant, like the majority, reads the third element—“against his or her will”—to refer to the will of the person from whose presence the vehicle is *863taken, whether that person is a possessor or a passenger. I disagree. In my view, it is more probable that the Legislature intended that phrase to refer to the will of the possessor alone.
Carjacking is a form of larceny, like robbery, and the Legislature has classified it under the heading of “Robbery” in chapter 4 of title 8 of part 1 of the Penal Code. Larceny originated as a common law crime, and since that time it has always been essential to larceny that the taking be against the will of the possessor. The 18th-century English legal scholar William Blackstone described common law larceny as follows: “It [i.e., larceny] must be a taking. This implies the consent of the owner to be wanting.” (4 Blackstone’s Commentaries 230, italics omitted.) Later commentators also agree: “[L]arceny, a common law crime (invented by the English judges rather than by Parliament) [was] committed when one person misappropriated another’s property by means of taking it from his possession without his consent.” (2 LaFave & Scott, Substantive Criminal Law (1986) § 8.1, p. 328.)
The majority, however, rejects for carjacking the requirement that the taking be against the will of the property’s possessor. It concludes that it is sufficient for carjacking if a vehicle is taken against the will of the passenger, thus implicitly authorizing a conviction even if the person taking the vehicle has permission from the owner to take the vehicle. It would be a radical departure from established law to create a form of larceny lacking the essential element that the taking be done against the will of person possessing the property and instead permitting conviction for a taking that is not against the will of the possessor but that is against the will of a bystander who has no legal right to possess the property. There is no evidence that the Legislature intended to do so in enacting section 215, the carjacking statute.
The structure of the robbery statute, Penal Code section 211, from which section 215 is derived, also supports my view of section 215. Section 211 uses the phrase “against his will” to refer to the will of the person in possession of the property stolen: “the felonious taking of personal property in the possession of another, from his person or immediate presence, and against his will.” The antecedent of each “his” in section 211 is the “another” from whose possession the property is taken.
Section 215, the carjacking statute, has the same structure as Penal Code section 211, the robbery statute. It begins with a reference to a taking of property in the possession of another, describes in whose presence the taking must occur, and then states the “against his or her will” requirement. Section 215, like section 211, uses pronouns both to identify from whom the property is taken (“from his or her person”) and whose will the taking must *864be against (“against his or her will”). In my view, the Legislature’s use of section 211 as the template for section 215 makes it probable that the Legislature intended to retain, as the antecedent of “his or her,” the “another” who is in possession of the property taken: “the felonious taking of a motor vehicle in the possession of another, from his or her person or immediate presence, . . . against his or her will.” (§ 215, subd. (a), italics added.)
Accordingly, where as here a defendant is charged under section 215 with taking a vehicle from the immediate presence of a passenger, the question under the third element of this statute is whether the taking was against the will of the vehicle’s possessor, not whether it was against the will of the passenger. Here, there is more than sufficient evidence that defendant’s taking of the vehicle was against the will of its possessor, January, the mother of the infant Marissa.
Defendant also contends there is insufficient evidence that force or fear was used against Marissa to accomplish the carjacking. This question is not identical to the question of whether force or fear was used to kidnap Marissa. Kidnapping requires that force or fear be used in taking away the kidnap victim. Carjacking, by contrast, appears to require that force or fear be used in taking the vehicle away from the possessor or passenger: “the felonious taking of a motor vehicle in the possession of another, from his or her person or immediate presence, or from the person or immediate presence of a passenger of the motor vehicle, . . . accomplished by means of force or fear.” (§ 215, italics added.) The majority apparently agrees that carjacking requires a forcible taking of the vehicle from either its possessor or a passenger. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 861, fn. 5.)
Assuming, without deciding, that section 215 requires that force or fear be used in taking the vehicle away, there was ample evidence of that here. Marissa’s mother January forcibly removed Marissa from the vehicle out of fear for herself and Marissa and because of the force previously applied to herself and Marissa, thereby enabling defendant to take the vehicle from Marissa’s presence by driving away. Given that section 215 contains no express specification as to whom must the force or fear be directed against, it is an interesting question whether the fear created in January or the force applied to her would be sufficient to support a conviction for carjacking Marissa if that force or fear had not caused the departure of Marissa from the vehicle. But that is not the case here. The force and fear created by defendant, by causing January to remove Marissa, indirectly but undeniably enabled him to take the car away from Marissa’s presence as surely as if he had directly removed Marissa from the vehicle himself. This is analogous to a robbery committed when a bold and fearless person, undeterred by a *865robber’s threats and untouched by the robber, is restrained by fearful friends while the robber gathers the person’s property and carries it away.
On this basis, I concur in the majority’s affirmance of defendant’s conviction under section 215 of carjacking a vehicle in which Marissa was a passenger.