Court Opinion

ID: 9796748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:04:09.575846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:51:16.839216
License: Public Domain

WERDEGAR, J., Dissenting.
My colleagues hold that defendant’s conduct in soliciting the murder of his sister, reaching an agreement with a hired assassin to do the killing, and making a downpayment under the agreement establishes probable cause to believe defendant himself attempted the murder. I respectfully dissent. “An attempt to commit a crime consists of two elements: a specific intent to commit the crime, and a direct but ineffectual act done toward its commission.” (Pen. Code, § 21a.) Defendant’s conduct in this case does not include “a direct but ineffectual act” done toward the murder’s commission. Accordingly, he cannot be guilty of attempted murder.
As we have long recognized, the required act for an attempt under California law must be “directed towards immediate consummation” *15(People v. Dillon (1983) 34 Cal.3d 441, 454 [194 Cal.Rptr. 390, 668 P.2d 697]) of the crime attempted. As the majority details, defendant’s conduct included numerous indirect acts toward accomplishing the murder of his sister: he sought the services of a hired assassin; he located a person (actually an undercover police detective) he thought would act as such; he furnished the supposed assassin with a description of his sister, her home, her car and her workplace, as well as specific information concerning her daily habits; he discussed how the murder would be done and how and when he would pay for the work, agreeing to furnish $5,000 in cash as a downpayment; and, finally, just before he was arrested, he stated he was “absolutely, positively, 100 percent sure, that I want to go through with it” and urged the supposed assassin to do it “as fast as you can.”
I agree with the majority that as evidence defendant harbored the specific intent to kill his sister, these facts are overwhelming. None of them, however, constitutes a direct but ineffectual act done toward the murder’s commission. (Pen. Code, § 21a.) As the majority states, defendant “did not himself point a gun at his sister” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 9); neither did he otherwise directly menace her. Instead, he relied on the person he thought had agreed to commit the murder to do the actual deed.1 The direct object of defendant’s preparatory acts was the person he sought to engage as his agent—not the ultimate, intended victim of the scheme.
We previously have stated that for attempt, it must be “clear from a suspect’s acts what he intends to do . . . .” (People v. Dillon, supra, 34 Cal.3d at p. 455, italics added.) In this case, what defendant intended to do was have his sister killed by someone else. Defendant’s own conduct did not include even “slight” acts toward actual commission of the murder. That he hired another, supplied him with information, and paid him a downpayment only highlights his intention not to perform the act himself.
The California cases the majority purports to rely on generally involve single actors, i.e., defendants who acted directly on their victims.2 These *16cases simply confirm that for attempt a defendant must have committed a direct act toward commission of the crime. Defendant here committed no direct act toward commission of the murder, since his scheme interposed a third party between himself and his intended victim, and the third party never acted. The majority goes astray in applying to this solicitation-of-murder case, where action by another person was required to effectuate (or attempt) the intended killing, principles applicable when an offense is intended and attempted by a single individual.
Although defendant’s conduct went beyond the minimum required for solicitation, for purposes of attempt law his arrangements constitute mere preparation. Reprehensible as they were, his acts “did not amount to any more than the mere arrangement of the proposed measures for [the] accomplishment” of the crime. (People v. Adami (1973) 36 Cal.App.3d 452, 457-458 [111 Cal.Rptr. 544].) This is because, as a logical matter, they did no more than “leave the intended assailant only in the condition to commence the first direct act toward consummation of the defendant’s design.” (Id. at p. 458.) To do all one can to motivate and encourage another to accomplish a killing— even to make a downpayment on a contract to kill—while blameworthy and punishable, is neither logically nor legally equivalent to attempting the killing oneself. In concluding to the contrary, the majority blurs the distinction between preparation and perpetration the Legislature intended by requiring that an attempt include a direct act. (Pen. Code, § 21a.) The majority’s supportive reasoning likewise conflates the two separate elements of attempt, specific intent and direct act (ibid.): “Viewing the entirety of [defendant’s] conduct in light of his clearly expressed intent, we find sufficient evidence under the slight-acts rule to hold him to answer to the charges of attempted murder.” (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 8-9, italics added.)* *3 As a court, we are not authorized to ignore the statutory requirements.
*17The majority’s criticisms of People v. Adami, supra, 36 Cal.App.3d 452, are unpersuasive. The majority faults Adami for not mentioning the slight acts rule, but since the Adami court concluded no “appreciable fragment of the crime charged was accomplished” (id. at p. 457), the rule had no application. Nor, contrary to the majority’s account, did Adami assume that evidence of solicitation cannot also be evidence of attempt. Adami simply held that hiring a murderer, planning the murder, and making a downpayment logically constitute “solicitation or mere preparation” (ibid.), not attempted murder.
Confronted with statutory language and judicial precedent contrary to its conclusion, the majority relies on out-of-state cases. Several of these interpret attempt statutes distinguishable from our own.4 Others involve more than a completed agreement with a hired killer, including a direct act toward the victim.5 The remaining cases are in my view mistaken for the same reason the majority is mistaken; they implicitly allow that a defendant may be guilty of attempt when no direct act toward the commission of the crime has been done.6 Courts in some other jurisdictions have, as the majority fails to acknowledge, maintained the distinction between preparation and attempt in cases similar to this.7
*18Had the supposed assassin hired to kill defendant’s sister actually attempted to kill her, defendant would be punishable under Penal Code section 31 as a principal in the offense, either as an aider and abettor or as a coconspirator.8 But in this case, neither defendant nor the supposed assassin took a direct act toward commission of the offense. Defendant’s conduct was confined to encouraging and enabling his intended agent to kill (or attempt to kill), but the detective with whom he dealt took no such action. There was no attempt.
For the foregoing reasons, I dissent.

 Although the majority asserts defendant “did aim at [his sister] an armed professional who had agreed to commit the murder" (maj. opn., ante, at p. 9), the armed professional referred to (i.e., the detective) only pretended to agree so that in fact there was no agreement, though defendant thought there was. This absence of actual agreement presumably is why the case was not prosecuted as a conspiracy. (See People v. Jurado (2006) 38 Cal.4th 72, 120 [41 Cal.Rptr.3d 319, 131 P.3d 400] [“ ‘A conviction of conspiracy requires proof that the defendant and another person had the specific intent to agree or conspire to commit an offense, as well as the specific intent to commit the elements of that offense, together with proof of the commission of an overt act “by one or more of the parties to such agreement” in furtherance of the conspiracy’ ”].)

 See, e.g„ People v. Memro (1985) 38 Cal.3d 658, 699 [214 Cal.Rptr. 832, 700 P.2d 446] (ushering a boy into a room and standing close by during a strobe display were direct acts *16sufficient for the attempted commission of a lewd or lascivious act on a minor); People v. Dillon, supra, 34 Cal.3d at page 456 (arriving on land armed and disguised, and dividing into groups to encircle a field, were direct acts sufficient for the attempted robbery of a marijuana farm); People v. Anderson (1934) 1 Cal.2d 687, 690 [37 P.2d 67] (approaching a ticket office and pulling out a gun were direct acts sufficient for the attempted armed robbery of a theater); People v. Morales (1992) 5 Cal.App.4th 917, 926-927 [7 Cal.Rptr.2d 358] (threatening twice to “get” the victim, going home, loading a gun, driving to the victim’s neighborhood, and hiding in a position with a clear shot were direct acts sufficient for attempted murder).

 The majority casts its holding so circumstantially as to undercut any guidance this case might provide in future cases. As the majority states, in finding the record sufficient to hold defendant to answer to the charges of attempted murder, it does “not decide whether an agreement to kill followed by a downpayment is always sufficient to support a charge of attempted murder. Whether acts done in contemplation of the commission of a crime are merely preparatory or whether they are instead sufficiently close to the consummation of the crime is a question of degree and depends upon the facts and circumstances of a particular case.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 14.)

 See, e.g., United States v. Martinez (2d Cir. 1985) 775 F.2d 31, 35 (“conduct amounting to a ‘substantial step’ towards the commission of the crime”); United States v. Church (C.M.A. 1991) 32 M.J. 70, 71 (“an act. . . amounting to more than mere preparation”); Howell v. State (1981) 157 Ga.App. 451 [278 S.E.2d 43, 46] (“ ‘substantial step toward the commission of that crime’ ”); State v. Molasky (Mo. 1989) 765 S.W.2d 597, 600 (noting “[a]n act of perpetration [is] no longer required, and instead a defendant need only do an act which [is] a ‘substantial step’ toward commission”); State v. Manchester (1983) 213 Neb. 670 [331 N.W.2d 776, 780] (“ ‘conduct which is a substantial step ’ ”); State v. Gay (1971) 4 Wn.App. 834 [486 P.2d 341, 345] (“ ‘act. . . tending but failing to accomplish’ ” the crime).

 See, e.g., State v. Mandel (1954) 78 Ariz. 226 [278 P.2d 413, 415-416] (defendant planned to entice victim to murder scene and drove assassin in her car to view victim’s home and arroyo where body was to be disposed of); State v. Kilgus (1986) 128 N.H. 577 [519 A.2d 231, 234-236] (defendant said he was “going to have to get involved” and made arrangements for the victim to be alone); State v. Burd (1991) 187 W.Va. 415 [419 S.E.2d 676, 680] (defendant offered to drive the assassin to show him the victim’s house and provided a fake suicide note to leave at the crime scene and money for a gun).

 See, e.g., State v. Montecino (La.Ct.App. 2005) 906 So.2d 450, 454; Ashford v. Com. (2006) 47 Va.App. 676 [626 S.E.2d 464, 467-468].

 See, e.g., People v. Otto (1981) 102 Idaho 250 [629 P.2d 646, 648]; Johnson v. Sheriff (1975) 91 Nev. 161 [532 P.2d 1037, 1038]; State v. Disanto (2004) 2004 SD 112 [688 N.W.2d 201, 213].

 Penal Code section 31 states that “[a]ll persons concerned in the commission of a crime, . . . whether they directly commit the act constituting the offense, or aid and abet in its commission, or, not being present, have advised and encouraged its commission ... are principals in any crime so committed.”