Court Opinion

ID: 9786748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:02:13.145954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:48.263516
License: Public Domain

BAXTER, J., Concurring.
I agree the death sentence for first degree financial-gain murder should be affirmed, and otherwise concur in the judgment as modified on appeal. In so doing, I express no view on whether, as a matter of law, defendant’s conviction for conspiracy to commit murder properly triggered its own special circumstance finding and death verdict below. Nor is it clear that the majority is deciding this significant issue on its merits. Nonetheless, I accept my colleagues’ decision to impose (and to stay) an indeterminate life term for the conspiracy count based solely on pragmatic considerations not fully disclosed by the majority opinion.
Providing no analysis of relevant statutory law, defendant claimed on the last page of his opening brief on appeal that special circumstance allegations *173can never accompany a charge of conspiracy to commit murder, and that neither death nor life imprisonment without the possibility of parole can ever be imposed for this crime. The Attorney General—focused on upholding the guilt and penalty verdicts entered on the first degree murder count—did not oppose defendant’s effort either to vacate the death sentence for conspiracy or to characterize that sentence as unauthorized. Instead, after an equally brief discussion, the Attorney General purported to “agree[ ]” that the death penalty cannot be imposed for conspiracy to commit murder. As a result, the merits of this claim have not been meaningfully briefed or orally argued by either party in this court. Under these circumstances, and for no other reason, I go along with the result reached in the majority opinion.
However, the punishment intended by the Legislature for conspiracy to commit murder seems to present a close and difficult question. (See Pen. Code, §§ 182, subd. (a) [“the punishment” for conspiracy to commit murder “shall be that prescribed for murder in the first degree,” italics added], 190, subd. (a) [“murder in the first degree shall be punished by death, imprisonment in the state prison for life without the possibility of parole, or imprisonment in the state prison for a term of 25 years to life,” italics added].) Indeed, the prosecutor in this case is evidently not the first to seek and obtain separate death sentences for murder and conspiracy to commit murder. (See, e.g., People v. Padilla (1995) 11 Cal.4th 891, 910, 916, 919 [47 Cal.Rptr.2d 426, 906 P.2d 388]; see also People v. Marks (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1335, 1338, 1339 & fn. 3 [248 Cal.Rptr. 874, 756 P.2d 260] [noting that defendant received death for murder for financial gain, and life without parole for conspiracy to commit such murder]; but see Owen v. Superior Court (1979) 88 Cal.App.3d 757, 760-762 [152 Cal.Rptr. 88] [holding that, under then existing statutory law, a charge of conspiracy to commit murder cannot include special circumstance allegations absent the victim’s death].)
The Legislature may wish to clarify whether, and under what circumstances, the death penalty scheme appearing in section 190.1 et seq. of the Penal Code applies to the crime of conspiracy to commit murder. In the meantime, nothing said or done in the present case will prevent me from considering the range of punishment statutorily available for this serious offense if the issue is properly presented and fully litigated in another case.