Court Opinion

ID: 9747857
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:39:06.981662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:27.966861
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, J.
I respectfully dissent.
The majority takes the position a trial court need not instruct as to the lesser of “grand theft person” in a robbery-murder and robbery special-circumstance case unless the prosecution includes a separately pleaded robbery charge. I have a problem with this analysis. It does not seem to me the courts can allow the prosecution through artful pleading to deny a defendant a lesser instruction as to the predicate felony in a first degree felony-murder prosecution merely by omitting a separate count on that felony from its information. Even more clearly, the prosecution cannot deny a defendant a lesser instruction as to the felony on which the prosecution bases its special circumstance allegation.
The majority concedes, as it must, that the defendant would have been entitled to a lesser instruction on robbery had it been pled as a separate count. Moreover, my colleagues concede that if the trial court had failed to so instruct both the first degree murder and robbery special-circumstance convictions would have had to be reversed under recent California Supreme Court decisions the majority itself cites. (People v. Kelly (1992) 1 Cal.4th 495 [3 Cal.Rptr.2d 677, 822 P.2d 385]; People v. Ramkeesoon (1985) 39 Cal.3d 346 [216 Cal.Rptr. 455, 702 P.2d 613].)
Murder in the commission of a robbery is first degree murder. Murder in commission of grand theft person is not even second degree murder. (People v. Morales (1975) 49 Cal.App.3d 134 [122 Cal.Rptr. 157].) Furthermore, *529murder in commission of a robbery is a special circumstance murder making the defendant eligible for death or life without possibility of parole if that special circumstance is proved. Murder in commission of grand theft person is not a special circumstance murder. (In this case, appellant received life without possibility of parole solely on the robbery-murder special circumstance with the jury specifically rejecting two other charged special circumstances.) Consequently, by failing to give a lesser instruction on robbery the trial court presented the jury an “all or nothing” option on both the murder charge and the special circumstance finding. Properly instructed, the jury might well have concluded appellant was only guilty of grand theft, not robbery. If so, both the first degree murder conviction and the robbery-murder special-circumstance finding would have fallen by the wayside.
As the California Supreme Court observed in a case similar to the one now before this court: “The jury here was left with an ‘unwarranted all-or-nothing choice’ [citation] on both the robbery and murder counts. The omission of the theft instructions practically guaranteed robbery and felony-murder convictions since defendant had admitted taking Mullins’ property and robbery was the only available theft offense. The findings of robbery and murder did not necessarily resolve the factual question of whether the intent to steal was formulated after defendant had inflicted the fatal blows because the jury was never required to decide specifically whether defendant had formed the intent to steal after the assault. The jury was simply given the standard instructions which list the elements of robbery (CALJIC No. 9.10) and felony murder (CALJIC No. 8.21). Accordingly, the error in failing to instruct on theft and larceny cannot be deemed harmless." (People v. Ramkeesoon, supra, 39 Cal.3d at pp. 352-353, italics added, fns. omitted.) As a result, the Supreme Court reversed both the robbery and the murder convictions in Ramkeesoon.
More recently, the high court applied the same rationale to a robbery special circumstance finding where the trial court had failed to instruct on the lessers to robbery. In People v. Kelly, supra, “[t]he court gave the standard instructions on robbery and the robbery special circumstance, but did not specifically instruct that if defendant formed the intent to steal only after the killing, he was guilty at most of the lesser included offense of theft. . . .
“[T]he court also did not instruct on any lesser included offenses of robbery. This was error. Since there was evidence that defendant was guilty only of theft rather than robbery, the court had a sua sponte duty to instruct on theft as a lesser included offense. [Citing People v. Turner (1990) 50 Cal.3d 668, 690 [268 Cal.Rptr. 706, 789 P.2d 887]; People v. Ramkeesoon, supra, 39 Cal.3d at p. 351.] . . .
*530“The error was prejudicial as to the robbery count and the robbery special circumstance. ‘An error in failing to instruct on lesser included offenses requires reversal unless it can be determined that the factual question posed by the omitted instruction was necessarily resolved adversely to the defendant under other, properly given instructions.’ (People v. Ramkeesoon, supra, 39 Cal.3d at pp. 351-352.) We cannot so determine in this case.
“. . . Hence, we reverse the robbery count, the related firearm-use enhancement, and the robbery special circumstance.” (People v. Kelly, supra, 1 Cal.4th at pp. 529-530, italics added.)
Thus, under Ramkeesoon and Kelly the failure to give the lesser instruction on robbery clearly infected the first degree murder conviction and the robbery-murder special-circumstance finding. There is only one question remaining—Does the fact the prosecution decided not to charge robbery as a separate count but only as a predicate felony for felony-murder and as a special circumstance mean it was unnecessary to give the lesser instruction on robbery?
The majority argues grand theft person is not a lesser of murder but only of robbery. Murder was charged; robbery was not. Consequently, there was no charge alleged in the information to which grand theft person is a lesser and it was not error to reject this instruction when appellant’s counsel requested it. Especially after Ramkeesoon and Kelly, I have some serious problems with this argument.
The Supreme Court has made clear the vice in failing to give the lesser instruction is not just what it means for the robbery charge but what it means for the felony-murder charge and the special circumstance allegation. Grand theft person may not be a lesser of premeditated first degree murder, but grand theft person-murder is a lesser of robbery-murder. And a grand-theft-person-murder finding is a lesser finding of a robbery-murder special-circumstance finding. The defendant is entitled for the jury to know that when property is taken from a victim at or after a murder it does not necessarily mean the only crime of which the perpetrator can be found guilty is robbery-murder. The theft crime of which he is guilty may only be grand theft person and, if so, he will not be guilty of first degree felony murder and, in addition, the special circumstance allegation also will not be true.
As to the first degree felony-murder count and the special circumstance allegation the same “all or nothing” vice is present whether or not the *531robbery is separately charged. Separately charged or not, robbery is the essential element—the linchpin, if you will—of both a first degree robbery-murder conviction and the robbery-murder special-circumstance allegation. It simply is irrelevant to the Ramkeeson-Kelly rationale for requiring trial courts to give lesser instructions as to the predicate felony in felony-murder and felony special-circumstance allegations that the felony be charged as a separate and independent felony. There is just as great a need for the lesser instruction where the predicate felony is not charged separately as where it is so charged.
The majority launches into a discussion of grand theft person as a lesser related offense of murder and the dire consequences of finding it is. I am not convinced. Had the jurors been properly instructed on this lesser offense and concluded appellant was guilty of grand theft person rather than robbery in connection with this homicide, appellant would not have been convicted of the independent lesser offense of grand theft person, because the prosecution did not charge him with robbery. No, the jury would have found appellant guilty of a lesser predicate felony—grand theft person—and thus he would not stand convicted of first degree felony murder.
This latter result is what would flow if a properly instructed jury found a defendant guilty of the lesser in a case where robbery was independently charged—the lesser becomes the predicate felony thus avoiding the first degree robbery-murder conviction. There is no reason it should be different if the prosecution elects not to add an independent robbery count to its information. The only real difference is the prosecution, having failed to include a robbery charge, does not gain a grand theft person conviction.
The position the majority adopts places the defendant and the jury entirely at the mercy of the prosecution and its charging decisions. If the prosecution wants to avoid a lesser included instruction addressed to the predicate felony for its felony-murder theory and for its special circumstance allegation, all it has to do is omit any separate count charging that predicate felony. If the prosecution chooses this charging strategy the trial court has neither a sua sponte duty to instruct on the lesser included or related offenses of that predicate felony nor even a responsibility to honor a specific defense request to give such an instruction. If the prosecution wants an “all or nothing” on first degree felony murder or special circumstance murder it can have it.
This flies in the face of a legion of cases holding the prosecution cannot by artful pleading deny a defendant his due process right to avoid “all or nothing” jury choices when some version of the evidence will support *532conviction of a lesser offense. (People v. Geiger (1984) 35 Cal.3d 510 [199 Cal.Rptr. 45, 674 P.2d 1303, 50 A.L.R.4th 1055] and cases cited therein.) The majority does not claim the evidence would not support the lesser of grand theft person as well as the greater of robbery. Instead it depends entirely on the procedural hurdle the prosecution erected when it elected to omit a separate robbery count from its charging document. But as discussed above that hurdle is not impassable. It is still feasible to give a proper lesser included instruction on the predicate felony. A prosecutor’s whim or deliberate strategy is not enough to justify denial of the due process right to lesser included instructions. Accordingly, I would reverse and remand for a new trial before a properly instructed jury.
Appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied December 22, 1994. Mosk, J„ and Kennard, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.