Court Opinion

ID: 9855457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:25:17.214617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:35:46.954215
License: Public Domain

LUCAS, C. J., Concurring and Dissenting
 I concur in the judgment. As several prior cases have indicated, the second degree felony-murder doctrine performs a valuable function in deterring the commission of crimes which, though involving no express or implied malice, are nonetheless so inherently dangerous as to justify a murder charge when a death occurs during their commission. (See People v. Mattison (1971) 4 Cal.3d 177, 185 [93 Cal.Rptr. 185, 481 P.2d 193] [furnishing methyl alco*628hol]; People v. Taylor (1970) 11 Cal.App.3d 57, 63 [89 Cal.Rptr. 697] [furnishing heroin].) Accordingly, the majority quite properly refuses to accept defendant’s invitations (1) to abrogate the doctrine entirely, or (2) to permit consideration of other felonies not involved in the case in determining the inherent dangerousness of the defendant’s own offense.
I dissent, however, to the majority’s unrealistic, unwise and unprecedented definition of inherent dangerousness as involving “a high probability of death.” With that one broad, gratuitous stroke, the majority has precluded application of the second degree felony-murder doctrine to most, if not all, drug furnishing offenses (as well as many nondrug offenses), thereby overruling or disapproving, sub silentio, several prior cases of this court and the Court of Appeal. (E.g., People v. Poindexter (1958) 51 Cal.2d 142, 149 [330 P.2d 763] [furnishing narcotics to minor]; People v. Taylor (1980) 112 Cal.App.3d 348 [169 Cal.Rptr. 290] [furnishing heroin]; People v. Taylor, supra, 11 Cal.App.3d 57, 59 [same]; People v. Cline (1969) 270 Cal.App.2d 328, 331-332 [75 Cal.Rptr. 459, 32 A.L.R.3d 582] [furnishing phenobarbital].)
Each of the foregoing cases held that a second degree murder charge could be founded upon the furnishing of illegal, dangerous drugs. No mention whatever was made of any need to show a “high probability” of death in those cases. The courts therein simply concluded that an inherent danger to life was sufficient to warrant a felony murder charge. As we stated in Poindexter, supra, “Here there was uncontroverted testimony that Callies died from narcotics poisoning, and that taking a shot of heroin was an act dangerous to human life.” (51 Cal.2d at p. 149, italics added.)
Because the drug furnishing statutes must be viewed in the abstract for purposes of applying the second degree felony-murder doctrine, as a practical matter the majority’s new “high probability” requirement will be impossible to satisfy in any case arising under those statutes, for to my knowledge none of them involves drugs so dangerous that death is a highly probable result. At a time when our society faces a serious “crack” cocaine crisis of epidemic proportions, the majority’s holding is particularly unwelcome. I note that neither defendant nor the People urged adoption of the “high probability” standard—the issue remained unbriefed throughout the appeal process.
We recently set forth in People v. Burroughs (1984) 35 Cal.3d 824 [201 Cal.Rptr. 319, 678 P.2d 894], another second degree felony-murder case, the correct and proper test for determining the inherent dangerousness of an offense. There, we referred to a felony “inherently so dangerous that by its very nature, it cannot be committed without creating a substantial risk *629that someone will be killed . . . .” (Id. at p. 833, italics added.) This formulation was not the creation of the Burroughs court. As one commentator has observed, citing English cases from 1887 and 1898, at common law the second degree felony-murder rule was “limited by the requirement that the commission of a felony involve substantial human risk . . . .” (Pike, What Is Second Degree Murder in California (1936) 9 So.Cal.L.Rev. 112, 118, fn. omitted.)
Applying the foregoing test in the context of a drug furnishing offense, the relevant question would be whether furnishing a particular drug such as cocaine or heroin created a substantial risk of death. Although that test may be difficult for the prosecution to meet, the majority’s alternative test will entirely foreclose the possibility of a murder charge in all of these cases.
As I have indicated, the purpose of the felony-murder rule is to deter the commission of inherently dangerous felonies. Certainly that purpose is furthered by deterring offenses bearing a substantial risk of death, as well as those offenses involving a greater likelihood of death. As the court in a similar case (involving heroin furnishing) explained, “knowledge that the death of a person to whom heroin is furnished may result in a conviction for murder should have some effect on the defendant’s readiness to do the furnishing.” (People v. Taylor, supra, 11 Cal.App.3d 57, 63, italics added, quoted by us with approval in People v. Mattison, supra, 4 Cal.3d 177, 185.)
The majority indicates that its “high probability of death” standard was borrowed from second degree murder cases (e.g., People v. Watson (1981) 30 Cal.3d 290, 300 [179 Cal.Rptr. 43, 637 P.2d 279]) requiring proof of implied malice. Such a standard may be appropriate for measuring whether defendant’s general course of conduct should warrant a murder charge based on implied malice, but it is singularly inappropriate for determining whether felonious conduct should lead to such a charge. Notions of implied malice have never before been imported into felony murder, where the commission of the felony itself acts as a substitute for malice.
The anomalous and inconsistent nature of the majority’s holding is confirmed by the fact that a defendant can be charged with first degree felony murder by committing such offenses as burglary, robbery, rape or child molestation (see Pen. Code, § 189), none of which offenses, viewed in the abstract, involves a high probability of death, although each of which may present substantial risks of death. If a first degree murder charge can be based on an offense not involving a high probability of death, surely the lesser charge of second degree murder can be based on similar offenses, so long as the requisite substantial risk of death can be demonstrated.
*630For all the foregoing reasons, I dissent to the majority’s improper new formulation of the standard for determining inherent dangerousness.
Eagleson, J., and Kaufman, J., concurred.