Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant was charged with violating a state statute that prohibited "willfully" threatening violence against a crime witness or victim, Pen. Code 140(a), where defendant, in a recorded telephone conversation with his incarcerated wife, said that he would kill an 88-year-old man who had accused the couple of stealing money from his mobile home. At issue was whether the statute violate defendant's free speech under the First Amendment. The court construed section 140(a) as requiring proof that a reasonable person would understand the allegedly threatening statements, when considered in their context and surrounding circumstances, "to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence," the high court's definition of a "true threat." Thus, section 140(a) did not violate the First Amendment. The court held that, although the appeals court upheld the constitutionality of the statute, it did so on grounds different from the reasonable person standard the court articulated. Therefore, the court reversed the judgment of the appeals court and remanded to that court to consider whether the court's holding affected defendant's judgment of conviction.

Defendant was convicted of murdering a 22-year-old Soy Sun Lao during a doughnut shop robbery and convicted of two other robberies, both committed with a knife and one accompanied by an assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury. Defendant was sentenced to death and the court subsequently reviewed defendant's case on automatic appeal. The court reviewed guilt phase issues, penalty phase issues, and defendant's other claims of error. The court concluded that defendant's claim that the cumulative effect of guilt and penalty phase errors required reversal of his sentence failed because defendant had not established that any prejudicial error had occurred at either phase of his trial. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.

Defendant was convicted of crimes related to the murder of Colleen Mary Kennedy and sentenced to death. On automatic appeal, defendant argued, among other things, that the trial court provided an erroneous instruction concerning the element of asportation for the offense of kidnapping and thereby violated his rights to due process and a fair trial under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and article I, sections 7 and 17 of the California Constitution. The court held, and the Attorney General conceded, that the totality of the circumstances standards set forth in People v. Martinez could not be applied to defendant's actions where defendant moved the victim from one room to another room. The court also held, and the Attorney General conceded, that "it is reasonably probable that a result more favorable to [defendant] would have been reached in the absence of the error." Therefore, the court reversed the judgment of conviction for kidnapping, vacated the findings related to kidnapping, and otherwise affirmed the judgment.

Defendant was convicted of residential burglary and receiving stolen property. The trial court held a trial to determine whether defendant had suffered a prior Alabama felony conviction that qualified as a serious felony conviction under the Three Strikes Law, Pen. Code, 667. At issue was whether faxed copies of certified court records were admissible to establish that a prior conviction qualified as a serious or violent felony under the Three Strikes law. The court affirmed the Court of Appeal judgment upholding the trial court's admission of the faxed copy of the certified court record because there was sufficient evidence to sustain a finding that the faxed document was an accurate copy of an authentic court record from the Circuit Court of Lauderdale County, Alabama.

Defendant had twice been convicted and sentenced to death for robbing and murdering the two managers of an apartment where he had lived. On his automatic appeal, the court addressed defendant's numerous claims of error. The court rejected defendant's claims and held that in those few instances in which the court found error or assumed the existence of error, the court concluded that any error was harmless. The court also held that, in combination, these errors did not compel the conclusion that defendant was denied a fair trial. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions and sentence of death.

Defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence, a spiny lobster, obtained by a game warden on the ground that the warden had engaged in an unconstitutional search and seizure in stopping defendant's car a few blocks from a pier where the warden had observed, through a spotting telescope, defendant fishing with a handline. At issue was whether a game warden, who reasonably believed that a person had recently been fishing or hunting, but lacked reasonable suspicion that the person had violated an applicable fish or game statute or regulation, could stop a vehicle in which the person was riding to demand that the person display all fish or game the person had caught or taken. The court held that when, as in this case, the vehicle stop was made reasonably close in time and location to the fishing or hunting activity, the encroachment upon an angler's or hunter's reasonable expectation of privacy resulting from a brief vehicle stop and demand was nonetheless rather modest, and no more intrusive than other actions by game wardens that have been upheld in past California cases. In weighing the special need of the state to stop persons who choose to fish or hunt in the state and to demand such persons display all fish or game that had been taken against the intrusion upon such persons' reasonable expectation of privacy entailed by such a stop and demand, the court held that the vehicle stop and demand at issue constituted a reasonable procedure under the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals upholding the suppression of evidence obtained by the game warden and subsequent dismissal of the charges against defendant.

Defendant was convicted, among other things, of murder and attempted murder in association with a criminal street gang pursuant to the California Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act ("STEP"), Pen. Code, 186.20 et seq. The court explicitly held that the STEP Act allowed a predicate offense to be established by proof of an offense defendant committed on a separate occasion. Therefore, at issue was whether, even if the STEP Act allowed a predicate offense to be established by evidence of a defendant's offense on a separate occasion, the inherent prejudice in such evidence generally required its exclusion under Evidence Code section 352. The court held that the admission of evidence of defendant's conviction of extortion and related activities in 1993 and 1994 was a proper exercise of the trial court's discretion under section 352 where the evidence was highly probative on several issues and not unduly prejudicial because the evidence tended to establish elements of the prosecution's case. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendants, minors, committed arson by setting off a firecracker on a brush-covered hillside in Pasadena, causing a fire that burned five acres of forest land. At issue was whether there was sufficient evidence to establish the requisite mental state of malice, as defined in the arson statutes, because defendants lit and threw the firecracker without intent to cause a fire or any other harm. The court held that, under the circumstances of the case, defendants' acts of intentionally igniting and throwing a firecracker amidst dry brush on a hillside, although done without intent to cause a fire or other harm, were sufficient to establish the requisite malice for arson.

Defendant was convicted of murdering her 4-year-old niece where the jury found as special circumstances that the murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture and occurred while defendant was engaged in the commission and attempted commission of mayhem. Defendant was sentenced to death and alleged numerous errors on appeal. The court discussed and reviewed the cumulative impact of the guilt phase errors and held that there was no reasonable doubt that they had any significant impact on defendant's conviction and there was no reasonable possibility that they affected the penalty determination. The court also held that the court's error in failing to curtail unduly inflammatory passages in the prosecutor's closing argument was harmless "under the most exacting standard of review." The court further held when the circumstances were balanced against the evidence in mitigation, it could not say that it was an especially close case at the penalty phase. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment and jury's verdict.

Defendant was convicted of first degree felony murder with the special circumstance of killing during the course of a robbery and receipt of stolen property. At issue was whether the trial court erred by failing to provide a sua sponte instruction on accident as a defense to the crime of robbery, thus requiring reversal not only of his robbery conviction, but also of his conviction of first degree felony murder and the special circumstance. The court affirmed the judgment and held that the intent element of robbery did not include an intent to apply force against the victim or to cause the victim to feel fear; rather, it was when defendant committed a forcible act against the victim motivated by the intent to steal, even if defendant did not also intend for the victim to experience force or fear. The court also held that a trial court had no obligation to provide a sua sponte instruction on accident where, as here, defendant's theory of accident was an attempt to negate the intent element of the charged crime.