Court Opinion

ID: 9726932
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:13:29.147759+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:31.991318
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, J.
I dissent. In my opinion the judgment is not supported by the evidence.
Penal Code section 197 provides that homicide is justified “. . . 4. When necessarily committed in attempting, by lawful ways and means, to apprehend any person for any felony committed, . . .,” and Penal Code section 837 provides “A private person may arrest another: . . . When a felony has been in fact committed, and he has reasonable cause for believing the person arrested to have committed it. ” (Italics added.)
*834Neither the Attorney General in his brief nor the majority in its opinion questions the reasonableness of defendant’s articulated belief that the deceased had committed a felony. This is because the facts are such that it cannot be argued otherwise.
The People had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant’s attempted arrest of the deceased was not a lawful arrest.1 If this arrest was lawful under Penal Code section 837, then the homicide was justified under Penal Code section 197. Thus the People were required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt two things (1) that the victim had not in fact committed a felony, and (2) that defendant did not have good reason to believe a felony had been committed.
As noted, under the facts as a matter of law, the People could not prove No. (2) beyond a reasonable doubt. The Attorney General concedes as much when he advances the argument adopted by the majority that the evidence is “susceptible to the interpretation that decedent was engaged in ... a misdemeanor.” This argument is addressed to element No. (1)—the commission of a felony in fact.
I agree that the evidence is susceptible of the inference that decedent was only engaged in vandalism or malicious mischief and it follows that defendant was not entitled as he claims to have the jury instructed that as a matter of law decedent had committed a felony. On the other hand the jury should not have been instructed, as it was, that malicious mischief as a matter of law, was a misdemeanor. Penal Code section 594 (vandalism) as amended in 1974 is either a felony or a misdemeanor depending upon the amount of damage done.
The assertion by the majority that the evidence is susceptible of the interpretation that decedent was only engaged in a misdemeanor, is pregnant with the admission that the evidence is also susceptible of the interpretation that the decedent was at least engaged in the felony of attempted burglary. It cannot be denied that the latter interpretation is an equally reasonable one.
*835In light of the foregoing the majority by finding support for the jury’s verdict in the interpretation that decedent was only a misdemeanant places a burden on the defendant which was not properly his.
As I observed earlier the People had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that decedent was not a felon. The burden was not on defendant to prove the contrary. No amount of generalizing about the habits and psychology of burglars as perceived by the majority can overcome the reasonable doubt which, as a matter of law, inheres in these facts.
Finally, the jury was given the traditional general instruction on reasonable doubt. This was followed by a series of instructions on the general principles of law applicable. The tenor of these instructions, however, tend to convey to a lay jury that defendant somehow had the burden of justifying his conduct. In my opinion the jury should have been specifically instructed that the People were obligated to prove the invalidity of the attempted arrest beyond a reasonable doubt.
I would reverse the judgment.
Appellant’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied September 29, 1976.

 Penal Code section 1105 provides: “Upon a trial for murder, the commission of the homicide by the defendant being proved, the burden of proving circumstances of mitigation, or that justify or excuse it, devolves upon him, unless the proof on the part of the prosecution tends to show that the crime committed only amounts to manslaughter, or that the defendant was justifiable or excusable.”
Defendant was charged with manslaughter only and the prosecution’s evidence tended to show justification, thus Penal Code section 1105 had no application.