People v. Dillon

• Citation: 668 P.2d 697,194 Cal.Rptr. 390,34 Cal.3d 441
• Decision Date: 01 September 1983
• Docket Number: Cr. 21964
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Parties: , 668 P.2d 697 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Norman Jay DILLON, Defendant and Appellant.

Page 390

194 Cal.Rptr. 390

34 Cal.3d 441, 668 P.2d 697

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Norman Jay DILLON, Defendant and Appellant.

Cr. 21964.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

Sept. 1, 1983.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 6, 1983.

Ronald W. Rose, San Jose, for defendant and appellant.

Gloria DeHart, Thomas A. Brady, Deputy Attys. Gen., San Francisco, for plaintiff and respondent.

MOSK, Justice.

Defendant appeals from a judgment convicting him of first degree felony murder and attempted robbery. The case presents two principal issues. First, we inquire whether a standing crop can be the subject of robbery; declining to perpetuate an archaic distinction between that crime and larceny, we conclude that it can. We next address a multiple attack on the first degree felony-murder rule. After reviewing its legislative history we find that in California the rule is a creature of statute, and hence cannot be judicially abrogated. We also reject various constitutional challenges to the rule; we hold primarily that the rule does not deny due process of law by relieving the prosecution of the burden of proving malice, because malice is not an element of the crime of felony murder.

We further hold, however, that the penalty for first degree felony murder, like all statutory penalties, is subject to the constitutional prohibition against cruel or unusual punishments (Cal. Const., art. I, § 17), and in particular to the rule that a punishment is impermissible if it is grossly disproportionate to the offense as defined or as committed, and/or to the individual culpability of the offender. (In re Lynch (1972) 8 Cal.3d 410, 105 Cal.Rptr. 217, 503 P.2d 921.) Because such disproportion is manifest on the record before us--as it was to the triers of fact--we modify the judgment to punish this defendant as a second degree murderer. As modified, the judgment will be affirmed.

At the time of these events defendant was a 17-year-old high school student living in the Santa Cruz Mountains not far from a small, secluded farm on which Dennis Johnson and his brother illegally grew marijuana. Told by a friend about the farm, defendant set out with two schoolmates to investigate it and to take some of the marijuana if possible. After crossing posted barricades and evading a primitive tin-can alarm system, the three boys reached the farm, a quarter-acre plot enclosed by a six-foot wire fence. In an effort to avoid being seen by Johnson, who was guarding the property, the boys tried several different approaches, then hid in a hollow tree stump. Johnson appeared with a shotgun, cocked the weapon, and ordered them out; defendant remained in hiding, but his companions complied. Johnson demanded to know what they were doing there; disbelieving their story that they were hunting rabbits, he told them to get off the property. He warned them that his brother would have shot them if he had met them, adding that the next time the youths came on his property he might shoot them himself. Defendant overheard these threats.

The two boys departed promptly, but defendant stayed inside the tree trunk until it grew dark. Finally emerging, he went to take another look at the plantation. Again Johnson confronted him with a shotgun, pointed the weapon at him, and ordered him to go. He left without further ado.

Some weeks later defendant returned to the farm to show it to his brother. As the latter was looking over the scene, however, a shotgun blast was heard and once more the boys beat a hasty retreat.

After the school term began, defendant and a friend discussed the matter further and decided to attempt a "rip-off" of the marijuana with the aid of reinforcements. Various plans were considered for dealing with Johnson; defendant assertedly suggested that they "just hold him up. Hit him over the head or something. Tie him to a tree." They recruited six other classmates, and on the morning of October 17, 1978, the boys all gathered for the venture. Defendant had prepared a rough map of the farm and the surrounding area. Several of the boys brought shotguns, and defendant carried a .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle. They also equipped themselves with a baseball bat, sticks, a knife, wirecutters, tools for harvesting the marijuana, paper bags to be used as masks or for carrying plants, and rope for bundling plants or for restraining the guards if necessary. Along the way, they found some old sheets and tore them into strips to use as additional masks or bindings to tie up the guards. Two or three of the boys thereafter fashioned masks and put them on.

The boys climbed a hill towards the farm, crossed the barricades, split into four pairs, and spread out around the field. There they saw one of the Johnson brothers tending the plants; discretion became much the better part of valor, and they made little or no progress for almost two hours. Although the testimony of the various participants was not wholly consistent, it appears that two of the boys abandoned the effort altogether, two others were chased away by dogs but began climbing the hill by another route, and defendant and his companion, with the remaining pair, watched cautiously just outside the field of marijuana.

One of the boys returning to the farm then accidentally discharged his shotgun, and the two ran back down the hill. While the boys near the field reconnoitered and discussed their next move, their hapless friend once more fired his weapon by mistake. In the meantime Dennis Johnson had circled behind defendant and the others, and was approaching up the trail. They first heard him coming through the bushes, then saw that he was carrying a shotgun. When Johnson drew near, defendant began rapidly firing his rifle at him. After Johnson fell, defendant fled with his companions without taking any marijuana. Johnson suffered nine bullet wounds and died a few days later.

I

Defendant first contends the court erred in phrasing the attempted robbery charge in terms of CALJIC instructions Nos. 6.00 and 6.01. CALJIC No. 6.00 provides, inter alia, that an attempt to commit a crime requires proof of a specific intent to commit the crime and of "a direct but ineffectual act done toward its commission"; and that in determining whether such an act took place "it is necessary to distinguish between mere preparation, on the one hand, and the actual commencement of the doing of the criminal deed, on the other. Mere preparation, which may consist of planning the offense or of devising, obtaining or arranging the means for its commission, is not sufficient to constitute an attempt," but the acts will be sufficient when they "clearly indicate a certain, unambiguous intent to commit that specific crime, and, in themselves, are an immediate step in the present execution of the criminal design ...." CALJIC No. 6.01 states, "If a person has once committed acts which constitute an attempt to commit crime, he cannot avoid responsibility by not proceeding further with his intent to commit the crime, either by reason of voluntarily abandoning his purpose or because he was prevented or interfered with in completing the crime."

Defendant in effect maintains that in cases in which an attempted felony is also used to support a charge of homicide on a felony-murder theory, these instructions are too broad because they could result in liability up to and including the death penalty despite the absence of any conduct that would amount to an actual element of the underlying crime, and despite the fact that the perpetrator might voluntarily abandon his criminal plan. In felony-murder cases, therefore, defendant would apparently require proof not only of intent and a direct act beyond mere preparation, but of the commission of an element of the underlying crime other than the formation of such intent, and would allow as a defense the voluntary abandonment of the criminal effort, regardless of how close to consummation it had progressed.

We are not persuaded to so limit the law of attempts. The instructions given here accurately state that law (Pen.Code, § 664; see People v. Gallardo (1953) 41 Cal.2d 57, 66, 257 P.2d 29; People v. Miller (1935) 2 Cal.2d 527, 530, 42 P.2d 308; People v. Murray (1859) 14 Cal. 159), while defendant's proposal would frustrate its aim. "One of the purposes of the criminal law is to protect society from those who intend to injure it. When it is established that the defendant intended to commit a specific crime and that in carrying out this intention he committed an act that caused harm or sufficient danger of harm, it is immaterial that for some collateral reason he could not complete the intended crime." (People v. Camodeca (1959) 52 Cal.2d 142, 147, 338 P.2d 903.) Accordingly, the requisite overt act "need not be the last proximate or ultimate step towards commission of the substantive crime.... [p] Applying criminal culpability to acts directly moving toward commission of crime ... is an obvious safeguard to society because it makes it unnecessary for police to wait before intervening until the actor has done the substantive evil sought to be prevented. It allows such criminal conduct to be stopped or intercepted when it becomes clear what the actor's intention is and when the acts done show that the perpetrator is actually putting his plan into action." (People v. Staples (1970) 6 Cal.App.3d 61, 67, 85 Cal.Rptr. 589; see also United States v. Stallworth (2d Cir.1976) 543 F.2d 1038; United States v. Coplon (2d Cir.1950) 185 F.2d 629, 633.)

We are satisfied that society is entitled to no lesser degree of protection when the charge is felony murder, involving as it does an attempt to commit a felony that by settled judicial definition must be "inherently dangerous to human life." (See, e.g., People v. Williams (1965) 63 Cal.2d 452, 457, 47 Cal.Rptr. 7, 406 P.2d 647.) As long as the trier of fact is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intended to commit a crime...