Court Opinion

ID: 9796833
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:06:30.553505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:49.629909
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J.
I dissent.
This court last tried to define the mental state required for the crime of assault in People v. Colantuono (1994) 7 Cal.4th 206 [26 Cal.Rptr.2d 908, 865 P.2d 704] (Colantuono). There, a majority of this court held that assault, as defined in Penal Code section 240, is not a specific intent crime and does not require proof that the defendant intended to injure another person, (Colantuono, supra, at pp. 217-219.) I disagreed with that holding. Based on the plain meaning of the statutory definition of assault—“an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another” (Pen. Code, § 240)—and on the 1872 code commissioners’ note to Penal Code section 240 (code commrs. note foil. Ann. Pen. Code, § 240 (1st ed. 1872, Haymond & Burch, commrs.-annotators) p. 104) (stating that “[i]f there is no present purpose to do an injury, there is no assault”), I concluded that assault requires proof of an intent to injure another and that, for this reason, assault is a specific intent crime. (Colantuono, supra, at p. 226 (conc. & dis. opn. of Kennard, J.); id. at pp. 225-228.)
Because the Colantuono majority never clearly explained what the required mental state for assault is, but only what it is not, this court is again faced with the task of defining the mental state required for assault. Reexamining the issue, the majority now compounds the error in Colantuono by holding that a defendant, to be guilty of assault, need only be aware of facts that would lead a reasonable person to realize that a battery would directly, naturally, and probably result from the defendant’s conduct, even though the defendant honestly but mistakenly believes that no battery is likely to result. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 788 & fn. 3.) Once again, I disagree.
I
The majority begins its analysis by reciting the statutory definition of assault—“an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another” (Pen. Code, § 240)—and declaring that we should “seek to ascertain the Legislature’s intent at the date of enactment.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 785.) Because the current statutory definition of assault is unchanged since the Penal Code’s enactment in 1872, *792the majority asserts that “we must construe the Legislature’s intent as of 1872.” (Ibid.)
I agree with this approach. Indeed, it is the one I used in my dissent in Colantuono, supra, 7 Cal.4th 206.
To ascertain the Legislature’s intent in 1872 when it enacted the statutory definition of assault as part of the original Penal Code, the majority relies on the third of three definitions of “attempt” in the 1872 edition of Bouvier’s Law Dictionary as “ ‘an intent to commit some act which would be indictable, if done, either from its own character or that of its natural and probable consequences ....’” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 786.) The majority asserts that this definition of “attempt” supports its conclusion that in 1872 the Legislature intended to require, as the mental state for assault, an intent to commit an act that would, if successfully completed, result in the injury of another as a direct, natural and probable consequence. (Ibid.)
The majority quickly dismisses the first and second definitions of “attempt” appearing in the 1872 edition of Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, because these definitions inconveniently do nothing to support its position. Indeed, as applied to the crime of assault, both of these definitions of “attempt” lead to the conclusion that assault requires an intent to inflict a battery—that is, an intent to injure.1 The majority has chosen Bouvier’s third definition of attempt to construe Penal Code section 240 because that definition appears on quick reading to support this court’s mistaken holding in Colantuono, supra, 7 Cal.4th 206. Whether it actually supports it, however, is questionable. If an “attempt” requires an “intent” to commit an act that “would be indictable if done,” and if an assault is an “attempt” to commit a battery, then an assault must require an intent to commit an act that would be punishable as a battery—that is, an intent to apply force unlawfully to another or, in other words, an intent to injure the other.
Tellingly, the majority fails to cite one appellate decision or one text writer from the 1872 period applying Bouvier’s third definition of attempt to the crime of assault, or any other evidence that any member of the 1872 Legislature was aware of or relied upon this definition of attempt as explaining that term’s meaning in Penal Code section 240. The majority also must acknowledge that the meaning it gives to the term “attempt” in Penal Code section 240 cannot be given to the same word in other sections of the original 1872 Penal Code, such as sections 663 and 664. (Maj. opn., ante, at *793pp. 786-787.) In those sections, which apply to the crime of criminal attempt, the word “attempt” requires a specific intent or purpose to commit the target crime. (See Pen. Code, § 21a; People v. Kipp (1998) 18 Cal.4th 349, 376 [75 Cal.Rptr.2d 716, 956 P.2d 1169].) The majority thus acknowledges its failure to apply a normal rule of statutory construction: “ ‘ “ ‘[Identical words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning.’ ” ’ ” (Department of Revenue of Ore. v. ACF Industries, Inc. (1994) 510 U.S. 332, 342 [114 S.Ct. 843, 849, 127 L.Ed.2d 165]; accord, Wilcox v. Birtwhistle (1999) 21 Cal.4th 973, 979 [90 Cal.Rptr.2d 260, 987 P.2d 727]; California Teachers Assn. v. Governing Bd. of Rialto Unified School Dist. (1997) 14 Cal.4th 627, 643 [59 Cal.Rptr.2d 671, 927 P.2d 1175].) The majority asks us to believe, contrary to this rule, that the 1872 Legislature, when it adopted the original Penal Code by a single legislative act, intended that “attempt” would mean one thing in sections 663 and 664, and something quite different in section 240.
The majority dismisses as mistaken the code commissioners’ comment to Penal Code section 240. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 787, fn. 2.) In so doing, it flouts another rule of statutory construction: “When a statute proposed by the California Code Commission for inclusion in the Penal Code of 1872 has been enacted by the Legislature without substantial change, the report of the commission is entitled to great weight in construing the statute and in determining the intent of the Legislature.” (People v. Wiley (1976) 18 Cal.3d 162, 171 [133 Cal.Rptr. 135, 554 P.2d 881].)
When they submitted their draft of the Penal Code to the Legislature, the code commissioners provided an extensive comment describing the crime of assault. Because the Legislature adopted without change the recommendation of the code commissioners, their comment deserves this court’s attention and consideration. Their note to Penal Code section 240 states in relevant part: “Intent to Strike.—An assault has also been said to be an intentional attempt, by violence, to do an injury to the person of another. It must be intentional. If there is no present purpose to do an injury, there is no assault. There must also be an attempt. A purpose not accompanied by an effort to carry into immediate execution falls short of an assault. Thus no words can amount to an assault. But rushing towards another with menacing gestures, and with a purpose to strike, is an assault, though the accused is prevented from striking before he comes near enough to do so.—[Citations.] . . . So, where an Embassador exhibited a painting in the window of his house which gave offense to the crowd without, and defendant, among the crowd, fired a pistol at the painting at the very time when the Embassador and his servants were in the window to remove it, but did not intend to hurt any of them, and in fact did not. Held, that there being no intent to injure the *794person there could be no conviction for an assault. [Citations.]” (Code commrs. note foll. Ann. Pen. Code, § 240, supra, pp. 104-105, italics in original.) Thus, the code commissioners have unambiguously declared their understanding that the crime of assault as codified in Penal Code section 240 requires the mental state of a purpose to injure.
The majority mentions the code commissioners’ comment only as evidence that the Legislature sought to codify “the historical ‘common law definition’ of assault.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 786.) The majority ultimately rests its argument about the intent of the 1872 Legislature on its assertion that the common law definition of assault did not require an intent to injure. But the majority is mistaken. As the commissioners’ comment accurately indicates, at common law the crime of assault “was an attempt to commit a battery and nothing else” and therefore “the need for an intent to inflict such harm has been emphasized.” (Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law (3d ed. 1982) pp. 159, 161.) The authors of another criminal law treatise make the same point: “An attempt to commit any crime requires a specific intent to commit that crime; and so assault of the attempted-battery sort requires an intent to commit a battery, i.e., an intent to cause physical injury to the victim.” (LaFave & Scott, Criminal Law (2d ed. 1986) p. 692, fns. omitted.)
Turning to the majority opinion in Colantuono, supra, 7 Cal.4th 206, the majority here correctly observes that it “has resulted in some confusion.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 787.) Seeking to end the confusion, the majority states that the mental state required for assault is knowledge of “those facts sufficient to establish that [the defendant’s] act by its nature will probably and directly result in physical force being applied to another, i.e:; a battery.” (Id. at p. 788.) Acknowledging that the Colantuono majority stated that merely reckless conduct cannot constitute an assault (Colantuono, supra, at p. 219; see also People v. Rocha (1971) 3 Cal.3d 893, 898 [92 Cal.Rptr. 172, 479 P.2d 372] (Rocha)), the majority here assures us that under the standard it adopts “mere recklessness or criminal negligence is still not enough” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 788), and this is because “a jury cannot find a defendant guilty of assault based on facts he should have known but did not know” (ibid..). I do not agree that the majority’s formulation requires a mental state more culpable than criminal negligence or recklessness.
Criminal negligence is determined by an objective standard based on whether a reasonable person in the defendant’s position would have been aware of the risk of harm to another. (Williams v. Garcetti (1993) 5 Cal.4th 561, 574 [20 Cal.Rptr.2d 341, 853 P.2d 507].) To be “in the defendant’s position” means, among other things, to be aware of the facts that the defendant knew. (Albrecht v. Broughton (1970) 6 Cal.App.3d 173, 179 [85 *795Cal.Rptr. 659]; see BAJI No. 3.11 (8th ed. 1994).) Thus, criminal negligence requires actual knowledge of facts that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the conduct in question involved a high risk of injury to another. (See LaFave & Scott, Criminal Law, supra, at pp. 235-237.) Recklessness, a mental state more culpable than criminal negligence, requires not only knowledge of the facts making the conduct excessively dangerous, but also a subjective appreciation of the risk of harm to another. (Id. at p. 239; see also Pen. Code, § 450, subd. (f) [“ ‘Recklessly’ means a person is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk . . . .”]; People v. Budish (1982) 131 Cal.App.3d 1043, 1047 [182 Cal.Rptr. 653]; Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law, supra, at p. 851.)
Thus, the Colantuono majority, in requiring more than criminal negligence or recklessness, must have intended to require not only knowledge of facts making the conduct dangerous and a subjective appreciation of the risk of injury to another, but also an awareness of a higher degree of risk than that required for ordinary criminal negligence or recklessness. The majority here, in holding that a subjective appreciation of the risk of harm is not required, is not faithful to Colantuono, much less to the plain meaning of the statutory definition of assault or the intent of the 1872 Legislature that enacted that definition, as reflected in the code commissioners’ comment to Penal Code section 240.
As its last line of defense, the majority asserts that the Legislature has twice signaled its approval of this court’s muddled decision in Rocha, supra, 3 Cal.3d 893, holding that assault with a deadly weapon was not a specific intent crime and stating that the intent required for assault is “the intent to attempt to commit a battery.” (Id. at p. 899.) The majority declares that the Legislature implicitly approved Rocha in 1982 when it amended Penal Code section 22 to clarify that voluntary intoxication is admissible only on “whether or not the defendant actually formed a required specific intent,” and again in 1986 when it adopted Penal Code section 21a, defining the elements of criminal attempt. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 789.)
But the definition of attempt in Penal Code section 21a—as requiring “a specific intent to commit the crime”—is entirely inconsistent with the majority’s construction of the same word in Penal Code section 240 defining assault. How the Legislature’s adoption of this inconsistent definition of a key term in Penal Code section 240 constitutes an approval of Rocha or of what the majority does here today escapes me entirely. Nor do I see anything in Penal Code section 22 that supports the majority’s decision here or suggests that the Legislature was thinking of the definition of assault in 1982 when it amended that section.
*796Finally, and unlike the majority, I attach no significance to the Legislature’s failure to amend Penal Code section 240 after this court’s decisions in Rocha, supra, 3 Cal.3d 893, and Colantuono, supra, 7 Cal.4th 206. Legislative inaction is normally a poor indicator of legislative intent. (Harris v. Capital Growth Investors XIV (1991) 52 Cal.3d 1142, 1156 [278 Cal.Rptr. 614, 805 P.2d 873]; Gutierrez v. Mofid (1985) 39 Cal.3d 892, 902, fn. 5 [218 Cal.Rptr. 313, 705 P.2d 886] [“the Legislature’s mere failure to respond to a judicial construction of its statute is no evidence of its acquiescence in the ruling”].) This is especially true in this instance. Since it first defined the crime in 1850 (Stats. 1850, ch. 99, § 49, p. 234), using language that passed unchanged into the 1872 Penal Code, the Legislature has never amended its definition of assault. It did not do so after this court defined assault to require a purpose to injure (People v. Bird (1881) 60 Cal. 7, 8; People v. Dodel (1888) 77 Cal. 293, 294 [19 P. 484]; People v. McCoy (1944) 25 Cal.2d 177, 189-190 [153 P.2d 315]; People v. Wilson (1967) 66 Cal.2d 749, 765 [59 Cal.Rptr. 156, 427 P.2d 820]; People v. Coffey (1967) 67 Cal.2d 204, 221-222 [60 Cal.Rptr. 457, 430 P.2d 15]), and it has not done so since this court has held assault does not require a purpose to injure. Throughout this contradictory course of judicial construction, the Legislature has allowed the statutory definition of assault to remain an attempt to commit a violent injury. In 1850, “attempt” meant what it meant at common law, namely that one “commits an attempt when, with intent to commit a particular crime, he performs an act which tends toward but falls short of the consummation of such crime.” (4 Wharton’s Criminal Law (15th ed. 1996) § 693, p. 580.)2
How far this court has strayed from the Legislature’s definition of assault as “an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another”! (Pen. Code, § 240.) Under the definition of assault that the majority approves today, as the Attorney General was forced to acknowledge at oral argument in this case, a trial court instructing a jury in the exact words of this statute would not accurately define the crime of assault.
II
Here, the instruction that the trial court gave to the jury to explain the requirements for the crime of assault failed to state that assault requires either an intent to injure or a subjective awareness of the risk of injury. (See *797maj. opn., ante, at p. 783.) In my view, therefore, the instruction was erroneous.
On the evidence presented here, this error was prejudicial. Defendant testified that when he fired his shotgun he was aiming at the rear passenger-side wheel well of Gregory King’s truck, and not at King, and it was undisputed that none of the shotgun pellets hit King, who was standing on the opposite side of his truck. The defense plausibly argued that in discharging the shotgun defendant lacked any purpose to injure King or any awareness that King was in any danger of being injured.
An instruction that omits or misdescribes an element of a charged criminal offense violates the right to jury trial guaranteed by our federal Constitution, and the effect of this violation is measured against the harmless error test of Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705, 24 A.L.R.3d 1065]. Under that test, an appellate court may find the error harmless only if, after conducting a thorough review of the record, the court determines beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury verdict would have been the same absent the error. (Neder v. United States (1999) 527 U.S. 1, 7-10 [119 S.Ct. 1827, 1833-1384, 144 L.Ed.2d 35].) Applying that test here, after a thorough review of the record, I cannot say beyond a reasonable doubt that if the trial court had correctly instructed on the mental state required for an assault, the jury would have found that defendant had that mental state. Accordingly, I agree with the Court of Appeal that the instructional error requires reversal of defendant’s assault conviction.
Werdegar, J., concurred.
Appellant’s petition for a rehearing was denied September 26, 2001. Kennard, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

 In the context of assault and battery, the term “injure” does not require bodily harm and includes any “least touching” that is wrongful or offensive to the person who receives it. (Colantuono, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 214, fn. 4.)

 I do not mean to suggest that the Legislature should not reexamine its definition of the crime of assault. Given developments in other jurisdictions, and this court’s own difficulties with the existing definition, such an examination may be overdue. As the authors of a treatise on criminal law in this country have observed, the common law definition of assault, as codified in Penal Code section 240, was once very common but now “is rarely found in the modem codes.” (LaFave & Scott, Criminal Law, supra, at p. 691.)