Court Opinion

ID: 9951403
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-15 22:02:44.638132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:40:00.870593
License: Public Domain

Filed 3/15/24 P. v. Cobb CA3
                                           NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for
publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication
or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

                IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
                                       THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT
                                                     (Sacramento)
                                                            ----

 THE PEOPLE,                                                                                   C099046

                    Plaintiff and Respondent,                                      (Super. Ct. No. 96F07199)

           v.

 PABLO ANDRES COBB,

                    Defendant and Appellant.

         In 1998, a jury convicted Pablo Andres Cobb of first degree murder, burglary, and
attempted robbery. The jury also found true special circumstance allegations that
defendant committed the murder while committing a burglary and a robbery, and an
allegation that defendant personally used a firearm. In 2022, defendant filed a petition

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for resentencing under Penal Code1 section 1172.6, which the trial court denied.2 On
appeal, he argues the trial court incorrectly denied his petition based on the jury
instructions given at his trial. We will affirm the trial court’s order.

                                      BACKGROUND
       In 1998, a jury found defendant guilty of first degree murder (§ 187, subd. (a)),
burglary (§ 459), and attempted robbery (§§ 664, 211). The jury also found true
allegations defendant personally used a firearm as to each count (§ 12022.5, subd. (a))
and special circumstance allegations defendant committed the murder during a burglary
and attempted robbery (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(17)(G), (A)).
       We affirmed the judgment on appeal and described the evidence at trial. (People
v. Avila et al. (May 2, 2002, C029883) [nonpub. opn.].) In short, defendant and two
codefendants attempted to rob the victim at his apartment.3 The victim resisted and was
shot and killed. In a later police interview, defendant admitted he shot the victim. (Ibid.)
       In 2022, defendant filed a petition for resentencing under section 1172.6. The
parties filed briefs attaching the relevant jury instructions. The trial court instructed the
jury on general principles of aiding and abetting using CALJIC Nos. 3.00 and 3.01. The
trial court instructed the jury on first degree murder using: CALJIC No. 8.10 (Murder --
Defined); CALJIC No. 8.11 (Malice Aforethought -- Defined); CALJIC No. 8.20
(Deliberate and Premeditated Murder); and CALJIC No. 8.21 (First Degree Felony-

1      Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code.
2      Defendant filed his petition under former section 1170.95. Effective June 30,
2022, the Legislature renumbered former section 1170.95 to section 1172.6 without
substantive change. (Stats. 2022, ch. 58, § 10.) We will cite to the current section 1172.6
throughout this opinion.
3     The trial court tried all three defendants jointly with two separate juries: one for
defendant and one for the codefendants.

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Murder). The jury was not instructed with CALJIC No. 8.27 (First Degree Felony
Murder -- Aider and Abettor) or any other felony murder aider and abettor instructions.
       The introductory instruction for the special circumstance allegations, a modified
version of CALJIC No. 8.80.1, stated, “If you find the defendant in this case guilty of
murder of the first degree, you must then determine if one or more of the following
special circumstances are true or not true: (1) that the murder was committed by
defendant while engaged in the crime of burglary ([section] 190.2(a)(17)(vii)); and (2)
that the murder was committed by defendant while engaged in the commission or
attempted commission of a robbery ([section] 190.2(a)(17)(i)). [¶] . . . [¶] If you are
satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant actually killed a human being, you
need not find that the defendant intended to kill in order to find the special circumstance
to be true.”
       The jury instruction omitted a paragraph from the pattern jury instruction CALJIC
No. 8.80.1, reading, “If you find that a defendant was not the actual killer of a human
being, or if you are unable to decide whether the defendant was the actual killer or an
aider and abettor, you cannot find the special circumstance to be true as to that defendant
unless you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that such defendant with the intent to
kill aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, solicited, requested, or assisted any
actor in the commission of the murder in the first degree, or with reckless indifference to
human life and as a major participant, aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced,
solicited, requested, or assisted any actor . . . in the commission of the crime of burglary,
robbery or attempted robbery which resulted in the death of a human being.”4 (Brackets
removed.)

4     A version of this portion of the jury instruction was used to instruct the jury for
codefendants.

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       The trial court instructed the jury on the elements of the special circumstance
allegation using CALJIC No. 8.81.17, which stated, “To find that the special
circumstance, referred to in these instructions as murder in the commission of burglary or
robbery or attempted robbery, is true, it must be proved: [¶] 1a. The murder was
committed while the defendant was engaged in or aided and abetted in the commission or
attempted commission of a burglary or robbery; and [¶] 2. The murder was committed in
order to carry out or advance the commission of the crime of burglary or robbery or
attempted robbery or to facilitate the escape therefrom or to avoid detection. In other
words, the special circumstance referred to in these instructions is not established if the
attempted burglary or robbery or burglary or robbery was merely incidental to the
commission of the murder.”
       The trial court held a hearing and the parties argued whether defendant could be
characterized as the “actual killer” in the murder based on the jury instructions used at
trial. The prosecution argued the trial court could also consider defense counsel’s closing
argument from trial, which acknowledged defendant shot the victim.
       The trial court issued a written order dismissing the petition. The court indicated
it was not relying on the factual recitation in the direct appeal opinion. The language in
CALJIC No. 8.80.1, however, required the jury to find defendant was the actual killer to
find the special circumstance allegations true. Because defendant could still be found
guilty of murder under current law as an actual killer, he was ineligible for relief. The
trial court also noted that although it did not need to decide whether the closing argument
could be considered, trial counsel did concede defendant was the shooter at trial.
       Defendant filed a timely notice of appeal.
                                       DISCUSSION
       Defendant argues the trial court erred when it found defendant ineligible for relief
because the jury’s findings do not necessarily mean that defendant was the actual killer.
Defendant claims CALJIC No. 8.80.1 could have allowed the jury to find the special

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circumstance allegations true based on a theory that defendant was an aider or abettor
who acted with intent to kill, rather than as the actual killer. We see no merit in
defendant’s argument.
A.     Senate Bill No. 1437
       Senate Bill No. 1437 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.) was enacted “to amend the felony
murder rule and the natural and probable consequences doctrine, as it relates to murder,
to ensure that murder liability is not imposed on a person who is not the actual killer, did
not act with the intent to kill, or was not a major participant in the underlying felony who
acted with reckless indifference to human life.” (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 1, subd. (f).)
The legislation accomplished this by amending sections 188 and 189 and adding section
1172.6 to the Penal Code.
       Senate Bill No. 1437 (2017-2018 Reg. Sess.) amended the felony-murder rule by
adding section 189, subdivision (e). (Harden (2022) 81 Cal.App.5th 45, 50-51 (Harden);
see People v. Strong (2022) 13 Cal.5th 698, 707-708.) Section 189, subdivision (e) now
limits the circumstances under which a person may be convicted of felony murder: “A
participant in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of a felony listed in subdivision
(a) [defining first degree murder] in which a death occurs is liable for murder only if one
of the following is proven: [¶] (1) The person was the actual killer. [¶] (2) The person
was not the actual killer, but, with the intent to kill, aided, abetted, counseled,
commanded, induced, solicited, requested, or assisted the actual killer in the commission
of murder in the first degree. [¶] (3) The person was a major participant in the
underlying felony and acted with reckless indifference to human life, as described in
subdivision (d) of [s]ection 190.2.” (Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 3.)
       These amendments did “not eliminate direct aiding and abetting liability for
murder because a direct aider and abettor to murder must possess malice aforethought.”
(People v. Gentile (2020) 10 Cal.5th 830, 848.) Put another way, “section 189, as
amended, now limits liability under a felony-murder theory principally to ‘actual

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killer[s]’ ([ ] § 189, subd. (e)(1)) and those who, ‘with the intent to kill,’ aid or abet ‘the
actual killer in the commission of murder in the first degree’ (id., subd. (e)(2)).” (People
v. Strong, supra, 13 Cal.5th at p. 708.) For a direct aider and abettor, this requisite intent
to kill is established if the “accomplice aids the commission of that offense with
‘knowledge of the direct perpetrator’s unlawful intent and [with] an intent to assist in
achieving those unlawful ends.’ ” (Gentile, at p. 843.) Thus, a defendant who aided and
abetted a murder with the intent to kill is also ineligible for resentencing under section
1172.6.
       Section 1172.6 includes a prima facie determination. Under subdivision (c), the
trial court must receive briefing from the parties and “determine whether the petitioner
has made a prima facie case for relief. If the petitioner makes a prima facie showing that
the petitioner is entitled to relief, the court shall issue an order to show cause. If the court
declines to make an order to show cause, it shall provide a statement fully setting forth its
reasons for doing so.” (§ 1172.6, subd. (c).) As part of the prima facie determination, a
defendant must show he was convicted of murder and that he could not presently be
convicted of such because of changes to section 188 or 189, effective January 1, 2019.
(§ 1172.6, subd. (a)(2) & (a)(3).)
       “[T]he ‘prima facie bar was intentionally and correctly set very low.’ ” (People v.
Lewis (2021) 11 Cal.5th 952, 972.) The trial court must accept the defendant’s
allegations as true and “should not engage in ‘factfinding involving the weighing of
evidence or the exercise of discretion.’ ” (Ibid.) “The record of conviction will
necessarily inform the trial court’s prima facie inquiry under section [1172.6], allowing
the court to distinguish petitions with potential merit from those that are clearly meritless.
This is consistent with the statute’s overall purpose: to ensure that murder culpability is
commensurate with a person’s actions, while also ensuring that clearly meritless petitions
can be efficiently addressed as part of a single-step prima facie review process.” (Lewis,
at p. 971.)

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       A denial at the prima facie stage “ ‘is appropriate only if the record of conviction
demonstrates that “the petitioner is ineligible for relief as a matter of law.” [Citations.]
This is a purely legal conclusion, which we review de novo.’ ” (People v. Ervin (2021)
72 Cal.App.5th 90, 101.)
B.     Analysis
       Here, the jury instructions and verdicts demonstrate, without factfinding or relying
on the opinion from defendant’s direct appeal, that the jury necessarily found defendant
was the actual killer. The trial court used CALJIC Nos. 8.10 and 8.21 to instruct the jury
on two theories of murder: malice murder and felony murder. The trial court also
instructed the jury on the special circumstance allegations using a modified version of
CALJIC No. 8.80.1 similar to the instruction used in Harden, supra, 81 Cal.App.5th at
page 55, footnote 8, which included a paragraph reading, “If you are satisfied beyond a
reasonable doubt that the defendant actually killed a human being, you need not find that
the defendant intended to kill in order to find the special circumstance to be true.” As the
Harden court noted, a true finding based on this instruction must mean that defendant
was either the actual killer or had a specific intent to kill. (Id. at p. 55, fn. 8.) In either
case, defendant could still be convicted of felony murder under the amended section 189
and would thus be ineligible for relief under section 1172.6. (Harden, at p. 55, fn. 8.)
       Moreover, the combination of felony murder jury instructions used to convict
defendant makes clear that if he was convicted on a felony-murder theory, he could only
have been convicted as the actual killer. At the time of defendant’s trial, “the felony-
murder rule had three aspects. First, it was a rule of strict liability: It made a killer guilty
of murder even when he or she had no intent to kill. Second, it was a rule of vicarious
liability: It made a nonkiller guilty of murder. [Citations.] Taking these aspects
together, it made either a killer or a nonkiller guilty of murder, regardless of any
participant’s intent to kill. It also had the third aspect, not particularly relevant here, of
fixing the degree of the murder as first degree.

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       “Here, however, the jury was not instructed on the felony-murder rule as a theory
of vicarious liability. It was instructed on it only as a rule of strict liability and of degree-
fixing.” (People v. Bratton (2023) 95 Cal.App.5th 1100, 1123.) As in Bratton, the jury
was instructed using CALJIC No. 8.10, which set forth the strict liability nature of felony
murder, and CALJIC No. 8.21, which designated the felony murder as first degree
murder. (Bratton, at p. 1123.) However, the trial court did not instruct the jury using
CALJIC No. 8.27, the vicarious liability instruction, “which would have stated: ‘If a
human being is killed by any one of several persons engaged in the commission or
attempted commission of the crime of [robbery or burglary], all persons, who either
directly and actively commit the act constituting such crime, or who with knowledge of
the unlawful purpose of the perpetrator of the crime and with the intent or purpose of
committing, encouraging, or facilitating the commission of the offense, aid, promote,
encourage, or instigate by act or advice its commission, are guilty of murder of the first
degree.’ ” (Bratton, at p. 1123.) Thus, if defendant was convicted under a felony-murder
theory, it could only have been as the actual killer. (Ibid.)
       Defendant argues Harden is distinguishable and that the more comparable case is
People v. Lopez (2022) 78 Cal.App.5th 1, 20, which rejected an argument that a true
robbery-murder special-circumstance finding established the defendant was the actual
killer. As the Harden court noted, however, the jury instructions in Lopez were
“materially dissimilar” to those here. (Harden, supra, 81 Cal.App.5th at p. 59.) Notably,
the “actually killed” language from CALJIC No. 8.80.1 was absent and CALCRIM No.
730, the special circumstance instruction in Lopez, required only that “ ‘defendant did an
act that caused the death of another person.’ ” (Harden, at p. 58.) We likewise reject
defendant’s argument that the great bodily injury finding from Harden was critical to its
conclusion; that finding was only one among multiple dispositive factors in the case. (Id.
at p. 55.)

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       Finally, defendant argues the “actually killed” language in CALJIC No. 8.80.1 did
not require a finding he was the actual killer but could imply merely a finding he intended
to kill as an aider or abettor. Even accepting defendant’s interpretation, he would be
ineligible for relief. First, as noted above, aiding or abetting with intent to kill is still a
permissible way to convict a defendant of felony murder after the changes to section 189.
Second, defendant’s argument relies on People v. Curiel (2023) 15 Cal.5th 433, for the
proposition that intent to kill is inadequate to make him ineligible for relief, but Curiel
does not support his ultimate conclusion. While Curiel did observe that a finding of
intent to kill alone is not enough to refute a defendant’s allegations in a section 1172.6
petition (id. at p. 463), it also considered a hypothetical situation where a jury found
intent to kill, and also found “the other elements supporting felony murder under section
189 as amended, including (1) the commission or attempted commission of a felony
enumerated in that statute and (2) the death of a person during the commission or
attempted commission of the enumerated felony. In that case, if the jury additionally
found intent to kill, it would ‘ordinarily be dispositive’ because the jury’s findings would
conclusively establish all of the elements of felony murder under current law.
[Citations.] Considered together, the jury’s findings would completely refute a
petitioner’s allegation that he or she could not currently be convicted of murder because
of changes to sections 188 and 189.” (Curiel, at p. 464.)
       Here, even accepting defendant’s interpretation of the special circumstance
finding, he would fall squarely within the hypothetical posed in Curiel. The jury found
that burglary and attempted robbery had been committed because it found defendant
guilty of those counts. The jury also found that the victim’s death occurred in the
commission of those felonies, based on the felony murder instruction (CALJIC No. 8.21),
which required the killing to occur “during the commission or attempted commission of
the crime of burglary or robbery or attempted robbery” and the special circumstance

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instructions (CALJIC Nos. 8.80.1 and 8.81.17), which had similar requirements. Thus,
defendant would still be ineligible for relief.
                                       DISPOSITION
       The trial court’s order denying the section 1172.6 petition is affirmed.

                                                    /s/
                                                   Ashworth, J.

We concur:

 /s/
Earl, P. J.

 /s/
Renner, J.

     Judge of the El Dorado County Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice
pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.

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