Court Opinion

ID: 9749681
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:57:52.153294+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:35:35.515925
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I concur in the result. I believe that the trial court erred by not giving the CALJIC No. 3.02 instruction concerning liability for natural and probable consequences for purposes of determining whether a witness was an accomplice, but that the error was harmless.
Because the jury was not instructed with CALJIC 3.02, the jury could have found that Mario Lopez (Lopez) was an accomplice only if it found that he knew of and intended to further defendant’s unlawful purpose, i.e., murder. That is not a complete statement of accomplice law. Lopez also could have been found to be an accomplice if he aided and abetted a crime—here assault—(a “target offense”), the natural and probable consequence of which was murder. (See generally People v. Prettyman (1996) 14 Cal.4th 248, 259-263 [58 Cal.Rptr.2d 827, 926 P.2d 1013].)
If the jury had been instructed with CALJIC No. 3.02, then the jury could have found that Lopez was an accomplice even if it believed he did not know that defendant intended to shoot the victim. (People v. Gonzales (2001) 87 Cal.App.4th 1 [104 Cal.Rptr.2d 247].) If Lopez engaged in a criminal act, the natural and probable consequence of which was murder, then he was an accomplice, and his testimony required corroboration and had to be viewed with distrust.
Prettyman and its requirement that the prosecution rely on the target offense as a prerequisite to the duty to instruct on that offense is not applicable here in determining whether the trial court had a sua sponte duty to instruct the jury on natural and probable consequences. Prettyman concerns the sua sponte duty to instruct on target offenses relevant to the natural and probable consequences principle in connection with the prosecution of a defendant pursuant to that principle. (People v. Prettyman, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 269.) The Prettyman discussion is not determinative with regard to an accomplice instruction.
Although I agree that appellate courts should “avoid loading yet another sua sponte instructional duty on trial courts” (People v. Prettyman, supra, 14 Cal.4th at p. 278 (cone. opn. of Mosk, J.)), the duty I find here has already *487been established. When there is sufficient evidence that a witness is an accomplice, the trial court is required on its own motion to instruct the jury on the principles governing the law of accomplices. (People v. Frye (1998) 18 Cal.4th 894, 965-966 [77 Cal.Rptr.2d 25, 959 P.2d 183]; People v. Gordon (1973) 10 Cal.3d 460, 469-470 [110 Cal.Rptr. 906, 516 P.2d 298].) When there is evidence that a witness—rather than acting as a direct aider and abettor—aided and abetted a target offense, the natural and probable consequence of which is the charged crime, the law of accomplices necessarily requires the jury to be so instructed. The trial court erred by failing to give the CALJIC No. 3.02 instruction because the instruction, in this case, is part of the law of accomplices, not because the instruction was required by Prettyman in connection with the accomplice liability of a defendant.
A conviction will not be reversed for failure to instruct on these principles if a review of the entire record reveals sufficient evidence of corroboration. (People v. Frye, supra, 18 Cal.4th at p. 966; People v. Arias (1996) 13 Cal.4th 92, 143 [51 Cal.Rptr.2d 770, 913 P.2d 980].) Corroboration need only be slight. (People v. Fauber (1992) 2 Cal.4th 792, 835 [9 Cal.Rptr.2d 24, 831 P.2d 249].) “It [the evidence] need not corroborate every fact to which the accomplice testified or establish the corpus delicti, but is sufficient if it tends to connect the defendant with the crime in such a way as to satisfy the jury that the accomplice is telling the truth.” (Id. at p. 834; see also Pen. Code, § 1111.)
Here, the error was harmless because Lopez’s testimony was independently corroborated. Among other evidence, Jose Correa testified that he saw defendant lift his shirt as if showing something to the victim, and he thereafter heard a gunshot and saw defendant running with a gun in his hand. Hence, any error in failing to instruct the jury on the natural and probable consequences doctrine was harmless.
Appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied September 11, 2002. Kennard, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.