Court Opinion

ID: 9731108
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:33:41.148673+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:13.413251
License: Public Domain

KLINE, P. J., Dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority’s analysis of the alleged instructional error misconstrues the law, misrepresents the real issue and misappropriates the function of the jury. Additionally, the majority creates doctrinal problems destined to plague an important area of our criminal law.
1.
The jury received the standard CALJIC instructions on aiding and abetting, which informed them that an aider and abettor is “liable for the natural and probable consequences of any criminal act that he knowingly and intentionally aided and abetted” and that it was the jury’s task to determine whether the crime charged was a “natural and probable consequence of the criminal act knowingly and intentionally encouraged.” (CALJIC No. 3.02.) The trial court refused a supplemental instruction appellant proposed in an attempt to present to the jury the theory, which he vigorously advanced, that he could not be held liable as an aider and abettor *1058of Hosea Barfield’s murder if the jury found Bluitt intentionally fired at Hosea knowing he was not Chuckie and that this intentional act did not facilitate the crime appellant and Bluitt set out to commit. I agree with appellant that the refusal of such an instruction is reversible error.
The derivative liability of an aider and abettor for the “natural and probable consequences” of a criminal enterprise is indistinguishable from that imposed upon a defendant charged with conspiracy. Thus, with the same logic of CALJIC No. 3.02, pertaining to aiding and abetting, CALJIC No. 6.11 instructs that a member of a conspiracy is liable for “the natural and probable consequences of any act of a co-conspirator to further the object of the conspiracy.” However, the standard conspiracy instructions also place a limit on derivative liability for “natural and probable consequences.” CALJIC No. 6.15, which appellant asked to be given in this case with appropriate modifications, clarifies that “no act . . . of a conspirator that is an independent product of his own mind and is outside the common design and not a furtherance of that design is binding upon his co-conspirators, and they are not criminally liable for any such act.”1 This instruction correctly states the law. (People v. Durham (1969) 70 Cal.2d 171, 181 [74 Cal.Rptr. 262, 449 P.2d 198]; People v. Werner (1940) 16 Cal.2d 216, 223 [105 P2d 927]; People v. Kauffman, supra, 152 Cal. 331, 334.)
The “natural and probable consequence” rule of accomplice liability set forth in CALJIC No. 6.15, which is established in the criminal laws of most American jurisdictions, relates to the question of foreseeability. “Under this approach, if A counsels or aids B in the commission of a burglary or a robbery of C, and B encounters resistance from C and thus kills him in the course of the burglary or robbery, A is an accomplice to murder. On the other hand, if A is an accomplice in a scheme to steal a safe from a building, and one of the other parties, B, takes it upon himself to also rob the watchman in the building, A is not an accomplice to the robbery.” (LaFave & Scott, Handbook on Criminal Law (1972 § 65, p. 516, citations omitted.)2
The majority holds that an instruction limiting derivative liability along the lines of CALJIC No. 6.15 is “foreign to the law of aider and abettor *1059liability” (maj. opn., p. 1050), reasoning that “[a] subjective inquiry as to whether the perpetrator’s committed crime was the ‘independent product’ of his mind ... is improper because [it is unrelated to] an objective analysis of. . . whether the committed crime was the natural and probable consequence of the [perpetrator’s] criminal act. . . .” (Maj. opn., p. 1051.) If an instruction such as CALJIC No. 6.15 is for this reason foreign to the law of aider and abettor liability, then it must also be foreign to the law of conspiracy, which embodies precisely the same “natural and probable consequences” rule of accomplice liability.
As will be discussed presently, the majority fails to recognize that where, as here, there is an agreement between the perpetrator and the defendant, conspiracy and aiding and abetting are simply different ways of articulating the same theory of derivative liability. The standard of causation is not subjective in one instance and objective in the other; the ultimate question in both contexts is whether, from an objective point of view, the crime charged was the reasonably foreseeable result (i.e., the “natural and probable consequence”) of the criminal enterprise embarked upon. It seems to me clear as a matter of common sense, as well as of law, that whether an intentional criminal act should be objectively anticipated by a defendant who was a party to a criminal compact may be closely related to whether the act was the independent product of the mind of his cohort, outside of and not in furtherance of their agreement.
The majority is, of course, correct that a person may be held criminally liable as an aider and abettor even if he did not intend the perpetrator’s act nor share the intent of the perpetrator. However, these questions of intentionality beg the question of foreseeability. The fact that a defendant can be liable as an aider and abettor even though he did not intend the perpetrator’s act nor share the perpetrator’s intention does not render it logically or legally unnecessary to inquire whether the perpetrator’s intentional act was reasonably foreseeable, and therefore a “natural and probable consequence” within the meaning of the aiding and abetting instructions.
2.
The majority concedes that the undisputed facts of this case show a conspiracy to murder and that if appellant had been charged with conspiracy the trial court would have given a form of the instruction unsuccessfully sought in this case. (CALJIC No. 6.15.) In order to justify the trial court’s refusal to give such an instruction, the majority must identify some distinction between conspiracy and aiding and abetting pertinent to the principle articulated in the instruction in issue. The case law—which the majority *1060finds “confusing” (maj. opn., p. 1047)3—shows very clearly that no such distinction can be made.
Although, as will be seen, there are differences between aiding and abetting and conspiracy, they are for present purposes conceptually indistinguishable means to impose derivative liability. Conviction as an aider and abettor requires knowledge of the criminal purpose of the perpetrator and intent to commit, encourage, or facilitate the commission of the crime. (People v. Croy (1985) 41 Cal.3d 1, 12, fn. 5 [221 Cal.Rptr. 592, 710 P.2d 392]; People v. Beeman (1984) 35 Cal.3d 547, 560 [199 Cal.Rptr. 60, 674 P.2d 1318].) Conviction of a criminal conspiracy requires proof that the defendant and at least one other person specifically intended to agree or conspire to commit a crime, specifically intended to commit the crime, and carried out overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. (People v. Belmontes (1988) 45 Cal.3d 744, 789 [248 Cal.Rptr. 126, 755 P.2d 310], cert. den. 488 U.S. 1034 [(102 L.Ed.2d 980, 109 S.Ct. 848)]; CALJIC No. 6.Í0.5.) A person may be guilty as a conspirator or as an aider and abettor not only of offenses he intended to facilitate or encourage but of offenses that are the foreseeable consequences of the acts he knowingly and intentionally aided and encouraged. (People v. Beeman, supra, 35 Cal.3d at p. 560.) The chief difference between the two doctrines is the required element of agreement in conspiracy.4 Because this element is usually present when vicarious liability is at issue, most aiding and abetting cases could also be prosecuted as conspiracies and it is common to find cases in which conspiracy and aiding and abetting are presented as alternative or joint theories of liability.5 The *1061element of agreement is critical because it bears directly upon the parties expectations of one another and thereby helps determine whether the charged criminal act was reasonably foreseeable. (E.g., People v. Washington (1969) 71 Cal.2d 1170 [81 Cal.Rptr. 5, 459 P.2d 259, 39 A.L.R.3d 541]; People v. Luparello, supra, 187 Cal.App.3d 410; People v. Garewal (1985) 173 Cal.App.3d 285 [218 Cal.Rptr. 690].) As Learned Hand has put it, where there is such agreement, “a conspirator . . . is in substance the same thing [as] an abettor.” (United States v. Falcone (2d Cir. 1940) 109 F.2d 579, 581, see also Perkins, The Act of One Conspirator (1974) 26 Hastings L.J. 337, 340.)
The Supreme Court has pointed out that “like a conspirator, [a person tried as an aider and abettor] is guilty not only of the offense he intended to facilitate or encourage, but also of any reasonably foreseeable offense committed by the person he aids and abets.” (People v. Croy, supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 12, fn. 5, citing People v. Beeman, supra, 35 Cal.3d 547, 560.) Where, as here, there is evidence that the alleged conspirator or aider and abettor neither specifically intended nor contemplated the perpetrator’s act, the most important factual question is whether the act committed was nonetheless a reasonably foreseeable result of the intended act.
An unintended act ordinarily is not a reasonably foreseeable result of a criminal scheme, according to the case law, if it is outside of and does not further the common objective. “ ‘[T]he act must be the ordinary and probable effect of the wrongful act specifically agreed on, so that the connection between them may be reasonably apparent, and not a fresh and independent product of the mind of one of the confederates outside of, or foreign to, the common design. Even if the common design is unlawful, and if one member of the party departs from the original design as agreed upon by all of the members, and does an act that was not only not contemplated by those who entered into the common purpose, but was not in furtherance thereof, and not the natural or legitimate consequence of anything connected therewith, the person guilty of such act, if it was itself unlawful, would alone be responsible therefor.’” (People v. Kauffman, supra, 152 Cal. 331, 334, italics added.)6 *1062This principle, which is still good law,7 is consistent with the view of the commentators who have addressed this issue, who take the view that derivative liability should not be imposed when the perpetrator intentionally commits an act which is outside the scope of the planned oifense. (Kadish, Complicity, Cause and Blame: A Study in the Interpretation of Doctrine (1985) 73 Cal.L.Rev. 323; Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part (1961) § 135, pp. 401-402; see also, La Fave & Scott, Handbook on Criminal Law, supra, § 65, pp. 513-519.) According to Professor Kadish, derivative liability should not be imposed for an act which is too remote or too dependent upon the perpetrator’s volitional act; thus, a second party, whether charged as a conspirator or as an aider and abettor, is clearly not liable when the first intentionally chooses a different victim than the one intended. (Kadish, supra, at pp. 366-367.) The situation is different if the perpetrator commits a different act than the one intended because of a mistake, as the party who encouraged or facilitated the intended crime should not be excused simply because the perpetrator made a mistake. (See, Williams, Criminal Law: The General Part, supra, § 135, pp. 401-402.) As stated by Professor Williams, “the alleged accessory is not responsible for a deliberate change of plan by the perpetrator, but is for his accident or mistake in carrying out the plan.” (Williams, Textbook of Criminal Law (2d ed. 1983) § 15.9, p. 356.)
The idea that vicarious liability does not extend to intentional acts foreign to the common design was recently explored in People v. Garewal, supra, 173 Cal.App.3d 285. In that case the court reversed convictions prosecuted on both conspiracy and aiding and abetting theories because the court erroneously modified CALJIC No. 6.11 by adding to the following portion of the instruction the italicized language: “‘Every conspirator is legally responsible for an act of a coconspirator that follows as one of the probable and natural consequences of the object of the conspiracy even though it was not intended as a part of the original plan, or was even actually forbidden as part of the original agreement and even though he was not present at the time of the commission of such act.’ ” (Id., at p. 299, italics in original.) As *1063a result of this instruction, the court explained, “the jury had to resolve but one question of intent concerning the substantive offenses: Did Garewal conspire to commit burglary? If so, he was automatically and strictly liable for all that followed, even acts contrary to the agreement with his cohorts.” (Id., at p. 299.) As the court observed, Beeman does not permit vicarious responsibility for certain crimes to be potentially predicated “on a theory of conspiracy to commit a different crime. ...” (Ibid., italics in original.)
The Garewal court, aware that the Supreme Court “mixes citations to conspiracy and aiding and abetting instructions without distinguishing between them” (173 Cal.App.3d at p. 301), recognized that though CALJIC No. 6.11 purports to apply to conspiracy it is perfectly consistent with the law pertaining to an aider and abettor’s liability. (Id., at p. 299.) The problem with the modified version of CALJIC No. 6.11 given in Garewal was that it suggested that one can anticipate as a “ ‘probable and natural consequence[ ] of the object of the conspiracy’ ” “an act which was ‘actually forbidden as part of the agreement.’ “ (Id., at pp. 299-300.) “Worse, it extends a relatively mild form of vicarious liability, one which is at least limited by the reasonable contemplation of the defendant, although perhaps not by his intent, to acts which are specifically not contemplated, much less intended.” (Id., at p. 300, italics in original.)
Although it is here the failure to give a correct instruction rather than the giving of an erroneous instruction that is assigned as error, the result is essentially the same as that warranting reversal in Garewal. The chief issue in this case was whether the killing of Barfield was in fact a natural and probable consequence of the plan to kill Chuckie; i.e., whether the killing of Barfield was reasonably foreseeable. Appellant’s theory of the case was that the killing of anyone other than Chuckie was never contemplated nor conceivably advantageous and that it was therefore not reasonable to anticipate the deliberate commission of such an irrational act. The giving of CALJIC No. 3.02—which simply emphasized the importance of the question whether the crime charged “was a natural and probable consequence of [the] originally contemplated crime”—did not inform the jury whether, if it found that Bluitt’s killing of Barfield was a wholly independent act outside the criminal enterprise originally agreed upon and not in furtherance of that enterprise, it could still be considered a natural and probable consequence of the criminal act appellant knowingly and intentionally encouraged. Although the jury in this case was not misinformed, as in Garewal, it was at least uninformed whether the defense theory, if factually sustained, was legally tenable.
The requirement that the unintended criminal act for which derivative liability is imposed be in furtherance of the common objective, which has *1064long roots in the common law,8 was central to the defense in the present case. The fact that the standard instruction appellant proposed relative to this issue, CALJIC No. 6.15, is a standard conspiracy instruction does not mean it cannot be given in an aiding and abetting case. As I have been emphasizing, “[c]onspiracy principles are often properly utilized in cases wherein the crime of conspiracy is not charged in the indictment or information” (People v. Durham, supra, 70 Cal.2d 171, 180, fn. 7),9 particularly in aiding and abetting cases. (Ibid.; accord, People v. Belmontes, supra, 45 Cal.3d 744, 789; People v. Washington, supra, 71 Cal.2d 1170, 1174; People v. Pike (1962) 58 Cal.2d 70, 88-89 [22 Cal.Rptr. 664, 372 P.2d 656]; People v. Ditson (1962) 57 Cal.2d 415, 447 [20 Cal.Rptr. 165, 369 P.2d 714].) In short, there is no justification for depriving a defendant prosecuted on an aiding and abetting theory the same limiting instruction as to derivative liability for “natural and probable consequences” that is invariably given when a similarly situated defendant is tried as a conspirator.10
*1065People v. Villa, supra, 156 Cal.App.2d 128, is not, as the majority contends, inconsistent with this proposition. The defendant in that case sexually assaulted the victim in a car. When his cohorts unexpectedly later showed up he left the car and stood by while they committed similar offenses. Thereafter the defendant reentered the car and drove it away while his two friends beat the victim and forced her to orally copulate them in the backseat. The defendant knew what they were doing “but did nothing about it.” (Id., at p. 132.) The defendants were jointly tried and all were convicted of some of the offenses. Villa was acquitted of rape and of conspiracy, but found guilty of forced oral copulation and of robbery, though he did not directly participate in the commission of either of those crimes. The Court of Appeal upheld these convictions, reasoning that “although it acquitted appellant of the rape and conspiracy charges, [the jury] could find that appellant forced the complaining witness in his car, beat her and forced her to submit. It could also find that he turned his victim over to his friends for their pleasure, and then drove the get-away car to the destinations desired by his confederates.” (Id., at p. 136.) Thus, the statement in Villa that “[o]ne may aid or abet in the commission of a crime without having previously entered into a conspiracy to commit it” (Id., at p. 134) simply reflects the fact that the element of agreement distinguishes conspiracy from aiding and abetting. The acquittal of conspiracy was not inconsistent with conviction as an aider and abettor because the jury presumably found that the defendant and his confederates did not plan their criminal enterprise or agree to assist one another.11 In the present case, unlike Villa, it is conceded that the principals agreed to jointly commit and planned a criminal offense: the murder of Chuckie. Nothing in Villa indicates that a jury may convict a defendant of conspiracy or as an aider and abettor if it finds that the perpetrator’s intentional act exceeded the purpose of an agreed upon plan and that the charged offense did not further that plan. The majority’s use of Villa to show that the jury in an aiding and abetting case is “bound to consider relevant evidence of an uncharged conspiracy”—which is certainly correct—undermines rather than supports the majority’s erroneous conclusion that it is unnecessary to instruct the jury with respect to the legal significance of the evidence of the conspiracy it is bound to consider.
By failing to require instructions on this issue the majority has, among other things, provided district attorneys a strong incentive to prosecute *1066cases clearly involving conspiracy solely on an aiding and abetting theory, and in this manner deprive a defendant of a limitation on derivative liability that is logically justified. This is not a conventional charging decision, goes far beyond permissible prosecutorial discretion to investigate or prosecute, and finds no support in the cases relied upon in this connection by the majority. The cases show that conspiracy instructions relevant to the prosecution theory of complicity are commonly given in aiding and abetting cases when requested by a district attorney; there is no reason a defendant should be prevented from doing the same thing where, as here, such an instruction is necessary to instruct the jury on the defense theory of the case. The majority confers upon prosecutors a power to determine the giving of instructions heretofore reserved to the court; a power prosecutors have never claimed but will now surely assert.
3.
The most astonishing aspect of the majority opinion is the cavalier manner in which it ignores the law relevant to the duty to instruct, which should be central to our analysis.12 Stating that we must “consider[] the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict” (maj. opn., p. 1054) my colleagues focus upon the irrelevant questions whether the jury conceivably could have convicted appellant if it had received the instruction in issue or whether it might be possible to convict him on grounds unrelated to that instruction, thereby excusing the failure to give it to the jury.
The majority first endeavors to show that the defense theory of the case is not dispositive. According to the majority, “the hardheaded and presumably erratic and uncontrollable nature of his co-assassin was previously known to appellant.” (Maj. opn., p. 1055, italics added.) Because he knew Bluitt was uncontrollable, the majority concludes that the killing of Barfield was reasonably foreseeable even though it was “diiferent from, and not in furtherance of, the criminal act first contemplated.” (Maj. opn., p. 1054.)
The fact that the jury could have found appellant guilty as an aider and abettor by rejecting the defense theory of the case—believing appellant knew Bluitt was unpredictable and should therefore have foreseen an *1067intentional act—would not excuse the failure to instruct on the defense theory even if there were evidence to support this alternative view of the facts, as there is not, or if the district attorney had urged it on the jury, as he never did. The only ostensible “evidence” of what the majority describes as Bluitt’s “presumably erratic and uncontrollable nature” is a single passing reference to Bluitt as “hardheaded” in one of appellant’s several lengthy statements to the police. The majority seizes on the single casual use of this adjective, claiming that “[b]y common lay understanding, one who is hardheaded may be foreseeably and irrationally difficult to dissuade or control once embarked on a criminal enterprise, whether under the goad of fear of the director of that enterprise or fear of the intended victim or for other reasons.” (Maj. opn., p. 1054.) This assertion of the “common lay understanding” of the word “hardheaded” is truly bizarre. According to the dictionary definition, a “hardheaded” person is not irrational or erratic, but “stubborn, willful, . . . not moved by sentiment or impulse; having no illusions, practical, sober, realistic. ” (Webster’s Third Internat. Diet. (Unabridged) p. 1033, italics added.)
Because of the absence of any evidence appellant knew Bluitt was “erratic” or “uncontrollable,” and because the prosecution theory of aiding and abetting did not rest on any such idea, the People never at trial or on this appeal even suggested appellant should have foreseen Bluitt would intentionally kill someone other than the agreed upon victim because he knew Bluitt was unpredictable or irrational. Thus the majority excuses the failure to give a legally correct instruction directly related to a central defense theory that has some evidentiary support because it believes the jury might have convicted on an alternative basis never advanced by the district attorney which has no support in the record. This contrived analysis just does not wash.
As an alternative argument, the majority claims that the jury could have convicted appellant even if it had been instructed on the law pertaining to the defense. Thus the majority contends that “[Bluitt] might have been reasonably foreseen to have viewed appellant’s recanting of Barfield’s true identification as a loss of resolve, because of the police presence or for other reasons.” (Maj. opn., p. 1055, italics added.) Still later the majority further speculates that “the jury could have concluded that Barfield’s murder did further the parties’ original agreement to kill Chuckie,” because part of the criminal compact was to terrorize “The Man’s” enemies. (Maj. opn., p. 1055, italics added.) These attempts to show either that the evidence in support of the defense theory was too weak to justify the requested instruction or that the jury could have convicted appellant even if the instruction had been given are entirely inappropriate. It is the responsibility of a properly instructed jury, not this court, to weigh the evidence. The issue in this case is *1068not whether appellant can be found guilty, which is undeniable, but whether the jury was properly instructed.
The majority’s labored analyses make a mockery of the legal principles bearing upon a trial court’s responsibility to adequately instruct, which are well settled. The duty to instruct on the general principles of law relevant to issues raised by the evidence encompasses the “the duty to give instructions, sua sponte, on particular defenses and their relevance to the charged offense . . . if it appears that the defendant is relying on such a defense, or if there is substantial evidence supportive of such a defense and the defense is not inconsistent with the defendant’s theory of the case.” (People v. Sedeño (1974) 10 Cal.3d 703, 716 [112 Cal.Rptr. 1, 518 P.2d 913], italics added.) The Supreme Court has repeatedly found it is “ ‘ “elementary that the court should instruct the jury upon every material question upon which there is any evidence deserving of any consideration whatever. ” ’ ” (People v. Flannel (1979) 25 Cal.3d 668, 684 [160 Cal.Rptr. 84, 603 P.2d 1], quoting People v. Carmen (1951) 36 Cal.2d 768, 773 [228 P.2d 281], quoting People v. Burns (1948) 88 Cal.App.2d 867, 871 [200 P.2d 134], italics in original.) “ ‘Doubts as to the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant instructions should be resolved in favor of the accused. ’ ” (Flannel, supra, at p. 685, quoting People v. Wilson (1967) 66 Cal.2d 749, 763 [59 Cal.Rptr. 156, 427 P.2d 820], italics added.)
Applying the foregoing principles, it could not be more clear that the trial court erred in refusing the instruction at issue in this case.
The trial court had two obvious means of presenting the law relevant to the defense theory. First, CALJIC No. 6.15, the standard conspiracy instruction relating to this theory, could have been modified to apply to an aider an abettor.13 Alternatively, the standard aiding and abetting instructions could have been modified to clarify that an act which is intentionally committed by the perpetrator, different from and not in furtherance of the one knowingly and intentionally encouraged, is not a natural and probable consequence of the intended act. By not giving such an instruction, the trial court deprived appellant of his right to have his theory of the case presented to the jury. (People v. Carmen, supra, 36 Cal.2d at p. 773.)
As earlier noted, the defense theory was not adequately covered by the giving of CALJIC No. 3.02 because, unlike CALJIC No. 6.15, that instruction does not relate “natural and probable consequences” to the defense *1069claim that Bluitt’s intentional act was a product only of his mind that did not further the different criminal offense planned.14 Nor was the defense theory covered by the modified version of CALJIC No. 3.03 that was given. This instruction deals with the actions necessary for one who has aided and abetted commission of a crime to end his responsibility for the crime by withdrawal from the criminal enterprise.15 Appellant’s theory was different: He sought to convince the jury that he could not be held liable as an aider and abettor because it was not reasonably foreseeable that his cohort would intentionally act outside the scope of the criminal compact in a manner that did not further the purpose of that compact. That appellant allegedly attempted to stop Bluitt from firing at Hosea is not essential to this defense theory, even though it might be seen as strengthening the argument that he should not be held responsible for Bluitt’s act. If the jury agreed that Bluitt independently and intentionally acted outside the plan appellant aided and abetted and not in furtherance of that plan, appellant could not be held liable even if he had done nothing to affirmatively stop Bluitt.16 Stated differently, the withdrawal instruction relates to the conduct of the putative aider and abettor; the instruction at issue in this case relates to the conduct of the perpetrator, i.e, whether it was reasonably foreseeable.
The remaining question is whether the erroneous failure to instruct requires that the conviction be reversed. As indicated, I agree that a properly instructed jury could find appellant guilty. For example, as my colleagues point out, the jury could have found that the criminal design was calculated to intimidate enemies of The Man and that the killing of Barfield furthered that purpose. The problem, however, is that under the instructions given the jury could have convicted appellant as an aider and abettor even if, accepting appellant’s version of the facts, it believed Bluitt’s independent intentional act was outside the common design and did not further that design.
“[A] failure to instruct where there is a duty to do so can be cured only if it is shown that ‘the factual question posed by the omitted instruction was necessarily resolved adversely to the defendant under other, properly given, *1070instructions.’” (People v. Stewart (1976) 16 Cal.Sd 133, 141 [127 Cal.Rptr. 117, 544 P.2d 1317], quoting People v. Sedeño, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 721.) Here, the jury was simply not adequately informed of an important legal principle applicable to an essential element of derivative liability as an aider and abettor: the element of foreseeability. Because the jury found he did not personally use a firearm or inflict great bodily injury, it is clear appellant was convicted as an aider and abettor, not as the perpetrator. Considering that he voluntarily went to the police knowing he was not under suspicion, openly cooperated with the investigation and gave the police two taped statements consistent with the defense theory advanced at trial, the jury might not have returned a guilty verdict if it had received the instructions erroneously refused. In any event, the Supreme Court has said that “instructions or omissions which deny a defendant his right to have the jury decide each element of a charged offense are necessarily reversible error.” (People v. Garcia (1984) 36 Cal.3d 539, 550 [205 Cal.Rptr. 265, 684 P.2d 826].) Accordingly I would reverse the judgment.
A petition for a rehearing was denied January 10, 1990, and appellant’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied April 4, 1990. Mosk, J., and Broussard, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

The proposition, which may be traced back to People v. Kauffman (1907) 152 Cal. 331, 334 [92 P. 861], is similarly expressed in CALJIC No. 6.16, also requested by appellant at trial: “Where a conspirator commits an act which is neither in furtherance of the object of the conspiracy nor the natural and probable consequence of an attempt to attain that object, he alone is responsible for and is bound by that act, and no responsibility therefor attaches to any of his confederates.”

LaFave and Scott are critical of the “natural and probable consequence” rule of accomplice liability, which they see as inconsistent with more fundamental principles of our system of criminal law. “It would permit liability to be predicated upon negligence even when the crime involved requires a different state of mind. Such is not possible as to one who has personally committed a crime, and should likewise not be the case as to those who have given aid or counsel.” (Ibid., fn. omitted).

The footnote in People v. Rogers (1985) 172 Cal.App.3d 502, 515, fn. 17 [217 Cal.Rptr. 809], which the majority uses to show the confusion it finds in the case law, has nothing to do with whether aiding and abetting and conspiracy are based on the same or different theories of derivative criminal liability. All Justice Blease’s footnote does is complain about “semantic peculiarities’’ common to discussions of “natural and probable consequences" that are as common in the conspiracy cases as in those involving aiding and abetting. The fact that, as pointed out in Rogers, the Supreme Court has approved instructions that use the phrase “natural and probable consequences,” such as CALJIC No. 3.02, certainly does not mean that a trial court need never give clarifying instructions such as those requested in this case. Otherwise it would never be error to refuse CALJIC No. 6.15 in a conspiracy case, because CALJIC No. 6.11 is always given.

It is because of this element that conspiracy, unlike aiding and abetting, may also be a crime in and of itself: The agreement to engage in criminal activity is considered a special threat to society and therefore punishable independently of the substantive offense. (See Callarían v. United States (1961) 364 U.S. 587, 593-594 [5 L.Ed.2d 312, 317, 81 S.Ct. 321]; People v. Luparello (1986) 187 Cal.App.3d 410, 437 [231 Cal.Rptr. 832]; 1 Witkin & Epstein, Cal. Criminal Law (2d ed. 1988) § 157, pp. 175-176.)

 State v. Tally (1893) 102 Ala. 25 [15 So. 722] provides the classic example of the unusual situation in which, because the element of agreement was missing, an aiding and abetting did not also involve a conspiracy. In Tally, the defendant instructed a telegraph operator not to deliver a telegram which had been sent to warn the victim of an intended killing. The warning telegram was not sent and the victim was killed; the defendant was liable as an accom*1061plice despite the fact that the killers had no knowledge of his effort to help them. See also, People v. Villa (1957) 156 Cal.App.2d 128 [318 P.2d 828], discussed, ante, at pages 1048-1049.

People v. Werner, supra, 16 Cal.2d 216, exemplifies the situation in which vicarious liability cannot be imposed because the perpetrator’s act was outside and not in furtherance of the criminal compact. The defendant in that case, who had been convicted with his wife of attempted grand theft from one McNeil, told McNeil they could have a criminal action against him dropped upon the payment of $2,500 to the district attorney and $10,000 to the prosecuting witness. Subsequently, without defendant’s knowledge, his wife duplicitously told McNeil she would handle the matter and arranged a secret plan for McNeil to pass her the money. The couple was arrested after the wife received a fake payment. The court found the defendant could not be liable for attempted grand theft because, even assuming he intended *1062to divert the money from McNeil to his own use, the act upon which the charge was based was performed by his wife under a secret agreement foreign to the common plan in which the defendant had participated.

The majority inexplicably suggests that Kauffman is somehow limited by a footnote in People v. Durham, supra, 70 Cal.2d 171, stating that the language of conspiracy used in cases like Kauffman “does not refer to the crime of that name but only to the fact of combination as it has relevance to the question of aiding and abetting in the commission of the charged crime.” (Id., at p. 182, fn. 9.) I am at a loss to understand the significance my colleagues attach to this statement, because it is so obviously consistent with appellant’s point. The fact of combination is relevant to the question of aiding and abetting where, as here, the defense claims that the charged act was not foreseeable because it was inconsistent with the purpose of the conspiracy, or where, conversely, the prosecution attempts to show the opposite by demonstrating that the charged act, though perhaps unintended, was nevertheless consistent with the purpose of the conspiracy.

See, e.g., United States v. Gooding (1827) 25 U.S. (12 Wheat.) 460, 469 [6 L.Ed. 693, 696]; Logan v. United States (1892) 144 U.S. 263, 308-309 [36 L.Ed. 429, 445, 12 S.Ct. 617]; Hyde v. United States (1912) 225 U.S. 347, 359 [56 L.Ed. 1114, 1123, 32 S.Ct. 793]; Nye & Nissen v. United States (1949) 336 U.S. 613, 618 [93 L.Ed. 919, 924-925, 69 S.Ct. 766]; People v. Keefer (1884) 65 Cal. 232, 233 [3 P. 818]; People v. Harper (1945) 25 Cal.2d 862, 870 [156 P.2d 249].

In Durham, the defendant was convicted of first degree murder as an aider and abettor after his companion shot and killed a police officer who had stopped the two men for a traffic violation. The defendant argued that although he and his friend had previously been engaged in a conspiracy to rob there was neither evidence of a conspiracy to resist arrest nor evidence that he aided and abetted the shooting. (Id., at pp. 179-180.) The court rejected the argument, observing that the “prosecution’s theory of the case cannot be split into such fragments. . . . It is true that in presenting its case the prosecution had recourse to the principles of conspiracy. However, this thesis, far from seeking to establish a basis of criminal liability separate and apart from aiding and abetting, was pursued for the purpose of demonstrating Durham’s intimate involvement in the continuing criminal enterprise which culminated in the shooting of [the officer].” (70 Cal.2d at p. 180, fn. omitted.) Durham was properly convicted as an aider and abettor because the evidence adduced at trial supported the inference that the prior robberies were part of a criminal spree which encompassed forcibly resisting arrest.

The present case differs from People v. Ross (1979) 92 Cal.App.3d 391 [154 Cal.Rptr. 783], in which the court determined that it was proper to refuse requested conspiracy instructions. In Ross, the defendant was convicted of murder, robbery, burglary and arson. The defendant confessed that he and a codefendant planned a burglary and robbery and tied up the victim, but claimed that he did not participate in the subsequent beating and burning of the victim, protested when his cohort prepared to set fire the victim, and left before the burning because he wanted no part in the murder. (Id., at pp. 398-399.) At trial, the defendant sought conspiracy instructions in order to show termination of and withdrawal from the completed agreement to commit burglary and robbery before the murder. The appellate court found that it was not necessary to give conspiracy instructions because neither the prosecution nor the defense had relied upon evidence suggesting a conspiracy theory and the only termination and withdrawal shown by the evidence was covered by the aiding and abetting instructions which were given. (Id., at p. 404.) In the instant case, by contrast, there is credible evidence that appellant and Bluitt agreed in advance on a particular course of criminal conduct, the facts giving rise to the agreement were heavily relied on by the defense, and the theory upon which the defendant sought instructions limiting derivative liability—to show that an act *1065outside the scope and not in furtherance of the act intended to be aided and abetted—was not covered by any of the instructions given.

For those unpersuaded that the verdicts were not inconsistent, the court alternatively pointed out that “each count charging a separate and distinct offense must stand or fall on its own merits. The disposition of one count has no effect or bearing upon the other counts. This is so even though the respective verdicts in the various counts may be logically inconsistent. [Citations.]” (Id., at p. 133, italics added.)

Earlier in its opinion the majority states that “taken together the instructions given by the lower court. . . contain language approved by the Supreme Court in People v. Beeman, supra, 35 Cal.3d 547, and People v. Croy, supra, 41 Cal.3d 1, and the change of language suggested by People v. Hammond (1986) 181 Cal.App.3d 463, 468-469 [226 Cal.Rptr. 475].” (Maj. opn., p. 1048.) This statement is beside the point, as appellant is not challenging any instructions that were given in this case. The Supreme Court has never excused the failure to give the instruction appellant claims were erroneously refused. Moreover, the language and logic of numerous Supreme Court opinions, commencing with People v. Kauffman, supra, 152 Cal. 331, 334, indicate it was error to refuse such an instruction.

For example: “No reasonably unforeseeable act or declaration of a perpetrator that is an independent product of his own mind and is outside the offense which the defendant knowingly and intentionally aided and abetted and not a furtherance of that offense is binding upon the defendant, and the defendant is not criminally responsible for any such act.”

The majority’s contrary conclusion (maj. opn., p. 1055) in effect means that it can never be error to refuse CALJIC No. 6.15 in a conspiracy case if, as is invariably the case, CALJIC No. 6.11 is given.

The modified version of CALJIC No. 3.03 given in this case was as follows: “One who has aided and abetted the commission of a crime with knowledge of the unlawful purpose of the perpetrator of a crime, may end his responsibility for the crime by notifying the other party or parties of whom he has knowledge of his intention to withdraw from the commission of the crime and by doing everything reasonable under the circumstances in his power to prevent its commission.” (Italics added.)

The situation would obviously be different if there were evidence that appellant shared the new criminal object or knowingly intended to assist Bluitt’s new plan.