Court Opinion

ID: 9601482
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:45:22.616691+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:14.035145
License: Public Domain

SCHAUER, J.
I dissent.
Excepting his final conclusions, I agree with and adopt Justice Traynor’s discussion and statement of the law as expressed in his concurring opinion. I do not agree that the evidence shows murder by lying in wait.
Furthermore, even if we accept the theory of lying in wait advanced in Justice Traynor’s opinion, I do not believe the judgment of first degree murder can properly be sustained. It should not be sustained because no instruction so defining lying in wait was given to the jury and the record therefore fails to show — indeed it indicates the contrary — that the jury *483ever passed on the issues and found the facts essential to support the verdict on the theory described.
The evidence is ample to establish murder in the second degree and in my view both the law and justice would be better served by reducing the judgment of conviction to murder of the second degree and, as so reduced, affirming it.