Court Opinion

ID: 9718371
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:21:54.460458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:58.792964
License: Public Domain

*592THOMPSON, J.
I concur by reason of the focus of the Supreme Court in its opinion in People v. Steger, 16 Cal.3d 539. There the high court emphasizes the requirement of a wilful premeditated intent to inflict extreme and prolonged pain as an element of murder by torture (16 Cal.3d at p. 546). However, rather than requiring a jury instruction to that effect, the Court undertook an independent evaluation of permissible inferences from the circumstantial evidence to determine that the element was not satisfied. The approach followed by Steger thus requires that each case of appellate review of conviction of murder raised to first degree by the employment of torture be considered on its own evidentiary facts.
The facts of the case at bench are different from those in Steger albeit only slightly. Since the Supreme Court has placed us in the business of finding fact inferable from circumstantial evidence, my personal finding is that the element of defendant’s wilful, premeditated intent to inflict extreme and prolonged pain should be inferred.
Appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied August 26, 1976.