Court Opinion

ID: 9614826
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:28:58.521968+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:10.411729
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I concur insofar as the judgment is modified to provide for life imprisonment on the murder count.
*910I dissent, however, from the affirmance on the kidnaping count. The majority declare (ante, p. 908) that the substantial increase in the risk of serious physical harm to the victim required by Daniels to support a conviction under section 209 “is clearly brought into being when . . . the victim is forced to travel a substantial distance under the threat of imminent injury by a deadly weapon.” I reject such an oversimplified rule. A “threat of imminent injury by a deadly weapon” may sound impressive, but in this context it is nothing unusual; such a threat is a common method by which the victim of a simple kidnaping under section 207 is persuaded to accompany his or her abductor. (See e.g., People v. Stanworth (1974) 11 Cal.3d 588, 603-604 [114 Cal.Rptr. 250; 522 P.2d 1058] (knife); People v. Ford (1964) 60 Cal.2d 772 [36 Cal.Rptr. 620; 388 P.2d 892] (gun); People v. Iverson (1972) 26 Cal.App.3d 598, 601 [102 Cal.Rptr. 913] (knife); People v. Gibbs (1970) 12 Cal.App.3d 526, 533 [90 Cal.Rptr. 866] (knife and club); People v. Quinlan (1970) 8 Cal.App.3d 1063, 1067 [88 Cal.Rptr. 125] (gun and knife).) The rule is thus no more than a rephrasing of the Thornton rationale, also repeated with approval by the majority here, that a significant increase in risk of harm is shown by “ ‘any substantial asportation which involves forcible control of the robbery victim. . . .’ ” (Ibid., quoting from People v. Thornton (1974) 11 Cal.3d 738, 768 [114 Cal.Rptr. 467, 523 P.2d 267].)
As I explained in my dissent in Thornton (id. at p. 77), however, “Forcible control, as this court recently and unanimously held, is an essential ingredient of all kidnaping under California law. (People v. Stephenson (1974) 10 Cal.3d 652, 659-660 [111 Cal.Rptr. 556, 517 P.2d 820].) It follows that a definition couched merely in terms of forcible control fails to distinguish between simple and aggravated kidnaping.” Yet because the penalties for the two offenses are vastly different in severity such a distinction must be drawn, under pain of violating the equal protection clause. (See, e.g., In re Lynch (1972) 8 Cal.3d 410 [105 Cal.Rptr. 217, 503 P.2d 921].) As I further observed in my Thornton dissent, “under the majority’s view the present defendant must be found guilty of aggravated kidnaping —but not an intended robber who renders his victim unconscious, or securely binds and gags [him], before driving exactly the same distance. The contrast underscores the arbitrariness of the majority’s reliance on the single element of ‘forcible control,’ rather than the totality of the circumstances placed before the jury, in determining whether the movements resulted in a substantial increase in the risk of harm.” (11 Cal.3d at p. 782.)
When the totality of those circumstances is considered, it will immediately be seen that in the case at bar the manner in which the victim was moved was not highly dangerous within the meaning of our prior cases.
*911In contrast to People v. Laursen (1972) 8 Cal.3d 192 [104 Cal.Rptr. 425, 501 P.2d 1145], and People v. Ramire.z (1969) 2 Cal.App.3d 345 [82 CaLRptr. 665], there was no' reckless, high-speed chase with police in hot pursuit; in contrast to People v. Milan (1973) 9 Cal.3d 185 [107 Cal.Rptr. 68, 507 P.2d 956], and People v. Beamon (1973) 8 Cal.3d 625 [105 Cal.Rptr. 681, 504 P.2d 905], the car was not operated in city traffic at gunpoint, while the victim, made desperate attempts to save himself with the vehicle in motion. Here, although the jury impliedly found on proper instructions that Mitchell did not consent to the asportation, the evidence is uncontradicted that he drove his own car in a normal manner and apparently made no effort to attract the attention of police or passersby, if any.
The irony is that the Attorney General does not contend to! the contrary. He does not urge that the movement of Mitchell “under the threat of imminent injury by a deadly weapon” itself created the requisite increased risk of harm. The majority’s rationale finds no support in the brief of the Attorney General. Rather, he argues that defendant increased the risk of harm by moving Mitchell from a “public” lumberyard to a “secluded” dump where the robbery and deadly assault could be accomplished with less chance of being observed by third persons. But the facts do not support this theory either. The events in question took place shortly after 2 a.m. on a Sunday. The People concede in their supplemental brief that defendant “could have taken Mitchell’s car at the lumberyard”; considering the hour, in so doing he could also have fired the fatal shot at that location with little fear of attracting unwanted attention. Even a “public” lumberyard, I suggest, is scarcely a beehive of activity at 2 o’clock on a Sunday morning.1
Thus even if the asportation here may conceivably have increased the risk of harm to Mitchell in some degree, it cannot have “substantially” increased it as required by Daniels. Under the rule of People v. Mutch (1971) 4 Cal.3d 389 [93 Cal.Rptr. 721, 482 P.2d 633], defendant was convicted of kidnaping to commit robbery under a statute which did not prohibit his acts at the time he committed them, and he is therefore entitled to relief. I would vacate the judgment on the kidnaping count.

 The lateness of the hour also refutes the majority’s speculation that unforeseen intervention by third parties during the asportation was a “great” likelihood. {Ante, p. 908, fn. 4.) The chances of running into a late reveller or an early riser between the lumberyard and the dump were slim indeed.