Court Opinion

ID: 9785869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:44:36.33646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:10.367577
License: Public Domain

MORENO, J., Dissenting.
The majority reverses defendant’s conviction for evading a police officer because the trial court failed to instruct the jury, sua sponte, that it could not consider that the police vehicle was equipped *1015with a red light and siren in determining whether the vehicle was “distinctively marked” as required by Vehicle Code section 2800.2, subdivision (a).1 I do not agree that the trial court erred. In my view the trial court was not required to instruct the jury on the meaning of the term “distinctively marked” because that term is in common parlance and was easily understood by the jury, and the jury properly could consider that the police vehicle was equipped with a red light and siren in determining whether it was “distinctively marked.”
On the night of January 4, 2002, Los Angeles Police Officers Andrew Buesa and Richard Ludwig were on patrol in a gray Ford Crown Victoria “dual purpose” police vehicle equipped with a forward facing red light under the interior rearview mirror, a “blue amber blinking light in the back,” and a siren. Ford Crown Victorias are the same make and model of automobile used for some black-and-white police cruisers. The officers turned a comer and saw defendant, who was seated in his vehicle, appear to sell drags to a man standing next to the vehicle. The man standing outside defendant’s vehicle noticed the officers’ vehicle and immediately fled between some houses. The officers turned on the vehicle’s emergency lights and defendant’s vehicle sped away, accelerating so rapidly that its tires lost traction.
The officers pursued defendant’s vehicle, turning on their siren, and defendant pulled his vehicle to the curb. Officer Buesa, who was in uniform, left his patrol vehicle and repeatedly ordered defendant to get out of his vehicle. Defendant ignored these orders and again drove away, accelerating rapidly. Defendant finally was apprehended after a high-speed chase involving several police vehicles, during which defendant almost collided with another vehicle and failed to stop for two stop signs and a red traffic signal. The officers found cocaine base and drug paraphernalia in defendant’s vehicle.
In addition to drag offenses, defendant was charged with a felony violation of section 2800.2, subdivision (a), which prohibits fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer in violation of section 2800.1 by driving a vehicle “in a willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property.” Section 2800.1 prohibits fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer’s vehicle if the vehicle (1) “is exhibiting at least one lighted red lamp visible from the front and the person either sees or reasonably should have seen the lamp,” (2) “is sounding a siren as may be reasonably necessary,” (3) “is distinctively marked,” and (4) “is operated by a peace officer . . . wearing a distinctive uniform.” (§ 2800.1, subd. (a); see § 2800.2, subd. (a).)
*1016The trial court instructed the jury that a person violates section 2800.2, subdivision (a), only if he or she flees or attempts to evade a uniformed officer whose vehicle (1) “is exhibiting at least one lighted red lamp visible from the front, and the person either sees or reasonably should have seen the lamp,” (2) “is sounding a siren as may be reasonably necessary,” and (3) “is distinctively marked.” The court further instructed the jury: “The term ‘distinctively marked’ does not necessarily mean that the police vehicle must be marked with an insignia or logo. The jury is to determine whether the circumstances, which may include evidence of a siren and red lamp, are sufficient to inform any reasonable person that he was being pursued by a law enforcement vehicle.”
The jury convicted defendant of violating section 2800.2, subdivision (a), and the Court of Appeal affirmed the resulting judgment in an unpublished decision, but the majority in this court reverses the judgment on the ground that the jury instructions were inadequate. The majority holds that the trial court had a sua sponte duty to instruct the jury that “[t]o be distinctively marked, a vehicle must have, in addition to a red light and siren, one or more distinguishing physical features that are reasonably visible to other drivers during the pursuit.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1013, italics added.) I disagree.
The trial court did not have a sua sponte duty to define the statutory term “distinctively marked,” because that term has a plain and unambiguous meaning that the jury could understand without further instructions. (People v. Roberge (2003) 29 Cal.4th 979, 988 [129 Cal.Rptr.2d 861, 62 P.3d 97].) The majority disagrees because it concludes that the term “distinctively marked” has a technical, legal meaning that differs from its common meaning, because “a peace officer’s vehicle is distinctively marked if its outward appearance during the pursuit exhibits, in addition to a red light and a siren, one or more features that are reasonably visible to other drivers and distinguish it from vehicles not used for law enforcement so as to give reasonable notice to the person being pursued that the pursuit is by the police.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1006.)
The majority reasons that the circumstances that a police vehicle has a red light and siren must be disregarded in determining whether it is “distinctively marked” within the meaning of section 2800.1, subdivision (a)(3), because subdivision (a)(1) already requires the pursuing vehicle to exhibit a “lighted red lamp” and subdivision (a)(2) requires the police vehicle to sound a siren “as may be reasonably necessary.” The majority reasons that permitting a jury to consider the use of a red light and siren in determining whether a police vehicle is distinctively marked would render “mere surplusage” the requirement that the vehicle is distinctively marked. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1010.) I disagree.
*1017It is well established that “whenever possible, significance must be given to every word [in a statute] in pursuing the legislative purpose, and the court should avoid a construction that makes some words surplusage. [Citations.]” (Agnew v. State Bd. of Equalization (1999) 21 Cal.4th 310, 330 [87 Cal.Rptr.2d 423, 981 P.2d 52].) “Surplusage” is defined as “excessive or nonessential matter.” (Webster’s 9th New Collegiate Dict. (1990) p. 1188.) In Agnew v. State Bd. of Equalization, supra, 21 Cal.4th 310, 330, for example, we determined that the term “tax” does not include “interest,” because such a construction would “render surplusage the word ‘interest’ in many of the statutes in which the Legislature has referred both to interest and tax.”
Similarly, in People v. Johnson (2002) 28 Cal.4th 240, 243 [121 Cal.Rptr.2d 197, 47 P.3d 1064], we interpreted Penal Code section 288.5, which defines the crime of continuous sexual abuse of a child and expressly provides that “ ‘[n]o other felony sex offense involving the same victim may be charged in the same proceeding with a charge under this section unless the other charged offense occurred outside the time period charged under this section or the other offense is charged in the alternative.’ ” We rejected the People’s argument that multiple convictions of Penal Code section 288.5 and underlying specific sexual offenses occurring during the same period were permitted under Penal Code section 954, which permits a defendant to be convicted of “two or more different offenses connected together in their commission,” because “[i]f section 954 permits multiple charges and convictions in the present circumstances, then the alternative charging language of subdivision (c) of section 288.5 is essentially rendered meaningless.” (People v. Johnson, supra, at p. 247.)
We never have held, as does the majority in the present case, that the circumstance that the same evidence may, but does not always, establish two separate elements of an offense renders one of those elements surplusage.
In the present case, the requirement that a police vehicle must be distinctively marked can be satisfied, in part, by the same evidence used to establish the additional requirements that the vehicle exhibit a red lamp that is visible from the front and that the suspect reasonably should have seen, and sound a siren as reasonably necessary. This does not render any of these three separate requirements excessive or nonessential. If the requirement that the vehicle be distinctively marked was removed from the statute, a jury would automatically find that a defendant evaded a police officer if the vehicle exhibited a red light and sounded a siren as necessary. The addition of the requirement that the vehicle be distinctively marked means that the jury will find that the defendant evaded a police officer only if the jury determines, from the totality of the circumstances, including the red light and siren, that the vehicle was distinctively marked. Thus, the requirement that the vehicle *1018be distinctively marked is not surplusage or rendered meaningless because it permits the jury to find that the statute was not violated even if the vehicle exhibited a red light and sounded a siren.
This conclusion is supported by the decision in People v. Chicanti (1999) 71 Cal.App.4th 956 [84 Cal.Rptr.2d 1], in which the Court of Appeal considered and rejected the contrary reasoning in People v. Estrella (1995) 31 Cal.App.4th 716 [37 Cal.Rptr.2d 383], upon which the majority relies: “We respectfully disagree with the Estrella concern that the ‘distinctively marked’ requirement would be rendered ‘mere surplusage’ if the red lamp and siren could be used as the basis for a finding the vehicle was distinctively marked. The requirements are separate elements, and a reasonable trier of fact which found the red lamp was lighted and siren was on may or may not also conclude under the circumstances of a particular case that the red lamp and siren satisfy the distinctive marking element.” (People v. Chicanti, supra, 71 Cal.App.4th at p. 962; see People v. Shakhvaladyan (2004) 117 Cal.App.4th 232, 237 [11 Cal.Rptr.3d 590].)
I might reach a different conclusion if multiple elements of an offense invariably were satisfied by the same evidence, but that is not the situation here. For example, a jury applying the statute in the present case might reasonably determine that a red sports car used as an undercover police vehicle that exhibited a red light and was equipped with a siren that it did not use was not distinctively marked within the meaning of the statute. Even if this hypothetical undercover red sports car sounded its siren in addition to exhibiting a red light, a jury still reasonably could find that the vehicle was not distinctively marked within the meaning of the statute. The court’s jury instruction in the present case, after all, did not require the jury to find that the vehicle was distinctively marked if it exhibited a red light and sounded a siren as necessary; the instruction merely permitted the jury to consider these facts in determining “whether the circumstances ... are sufficient to inform any reasonable person that he was being pursued by a law enforcement vehicle.” I see nothing wrong with this instruction.
The jury in this case was instructed “to determine whether the circumstances, which may include evidence of a siren or red lamp,” established that the vehicle was distinctively marked. The term “distinctively marked” is common parlance, and a jury easily can understand the term without the need for special instructions. The fact that the jury was permitted, but not required, to conclude, depending upon all of the circumstances, that a vehicle exhibit*1019ing a red light and sounding a siren is distinctively marked, does not render any of those three requirements surplusage. In my view, the trial court’s instruction was proper and defendant’s conviction for evading a peace officer should be affirmed.
Chin, J., concurred.
Respondent’s petition for a rehearing was denied August 23, 2006, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Corrigan, J., did not participate therein. Chin, J., and Moreno, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

 All undesignated statutory references are to the Vehicle Code.