Court Opinion

ID: 9745096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 22:34:39.98565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:56.028891
License: Public Domain

arithmetic, is simple. It, just like arithmetic, has nothing to do with facts.
*456In arithmetic it does not matter whether you are counting apples, oranges, or kumquats. Two plus two equals four.
It is the same with the lesser included offense doctrine. It doesn’t matter whether a murder was with a gun or a pillow, whether there was one victim or a hundred and one victims. Murder does not include drunk driving because the elements of murder do not include the elements of drunk driving. Murder does not include theft of artichokes because the elements of murder do not include the elements of theft of artichokes.
Sometimes my colleagues remember this. They did so as recently as November 22, 1993. (In re Daniel R. (1993) 20 Cal.App.4th 239 [24 Cal.Rptr.2d 414].) In Daniel R. the question was whether assault with a deadly weapon (Pen. Code, § 245; statutory references, unless otherwise noted, are to the Penal Code) was an included offense of discharging a firearm at an occupied vehicle (§ 246).
In answering the question Justice Johnson stated, and Justice Lillie agreed, that “[w]e need not decide whether defendant’s conduct satisfied the elements of an assault with a deadly weapon.” (Italics added.) (20 Cal.App.4th at p. 243.) That is, the facts are irrelevant. How this defendant committed this offense (§ 246) has nothing to do with the lesser included offense doctrine. Justice Johnson stated, and Justice Lillie agreed, that . . our task is to determine whether in the abstract one can willfully and maliciously discharge a firearm at an occupied vehicle without also, and necessarily, committing an assault with a deadly weapon.” (20 Cal.App.4th at p. 243, italics added.)
Sometimes my colleagues do not remember this. They forgot it in People v. Rush (1993) 16 Cal.App.4th 20 [20 Cal.Rptr.2d 15] (see dissent, People v. Rush, supra, 16 Cal.App.4th 20, 27-38). They forgot it again today.
If there is some principle which can reconcile In re Daniel R. with the instant majority opinion and with Rush, it escapes me. I respectfully suggest it also escapes—and befuddles—every trial court in the Second Appellate District.
Appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied May 11, 1994. Mosk, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.