People v. Hill

• Decision Date: 27 July 2000
• Docket Number: No. S077706.,S077706.
• Citation: 3 P.3d 898,23 Cal.4th 853,98 Cal.Rptr.2d 254
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joe Willy HILL, Defendant and Appellant.

98 Cal.Rptr.2d 254

23 Cal.4th 853

3 P.3d 898

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joe Willy HILL, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S077706.

Supreme Court of California.

July 27, 2000.

Richard Jay Moller, Garberville, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Daniel E. Lungren and Bill Lockyer, Attorneys General, George Williamson and David P. Druliner, Chief Assistant Attorneys General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Racquel M. Gonzalez, Robert M. Foster and Lora Fox Martin, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

CHIN, J.

Conviction of kidnapping and carjacking generally requires proof that the perpetrator committed the criminal acts against the will of the victim, i.e., without the victim's consent. This requirement presents special problems when the victim is an infant too young to give or withhold consent. In People v. Oliver (1961) 55 Cal.2d 761, 768 (Oliver), we found the against-the-will requirement satisfied as to a person unable to give legal consent if the criminal act "is done for an illegal purpose or with an illegal intent." We believe an analogous rule is appropriate for carjacking. Applying the rule to this case, we conclude that substantial evidence supports defendant's convictions for kidnapping and carjacking as to both an infant and the infant's mother.

I. The Facts and Procedural History

Because defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the convictions, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the judgment below. (People v. Marshall (1997) 15 Cal.4th 1, 34, 61 Cal.Rptr.2d 84, 931 P.2d 262.) So viewed, and as relevant to the issues here, the evidence shows that in the evening of April 19, 1996, January R. drove to her Spring Valley home with her seven-month-old daughter Marissa, exited the car, and reached into the passenger side to take the child from her seat. While she was unbuckling the child, defendant and William Dabney, wearing hooded jackets with bandannas over their faces, accosted her. Dabney told January to give him money. She said they could have the car but asked them to let her and the baby go. She gave Dabney her jewelry. He demanded her keys, grabbed them from her, and tossed them to defendant. Dabney and January got into the backseat, with Marissa still in the front passenger seat but no longer buckled. Defendant drove the car with all four inside.

When the car stopped, Dabney made sexual overtures to January and demanded that she take off her clothes or he would shoot the baby. Believing that Dabney and defendant would let her go if she complied, January partially undressed. Dabney pushed her onto the seat and raped her. During this time, the baby "was crying. She was in the front seat rolling back and forth because the seat wasn't buckled in." January then managed to push Dabney away, grab the baby, open the car door, and flee. Defendant and Dabney drove away. January obtained aid from a nearby house.

A jury convicted defendant of various crimes, including kidnapping (Pen.Code, § 207)¹ and carjacking (§ 215) both January and Marissa. On appeal, defendant argued the evidence did not support the convictions for kidnapping and carjacking Marissa because the evidence was insufficient that he acted against the victim's will and by means of force or fear. Citing Oliver, supra, 55 Cal.2d 761, 12 Cal.Rptr. 865, 361 P.2d 593, the Court of Appeal found sufficient evidence supported the kidnapping charge as to both victims, but it agreed with defendant regarding carjacking Marissa. Accordingly, it affirmed both kidnapping convictions but reversed the conviction for carjacking Marissa.

Both parties petitioned for review. We granted both petitions, limiting review to whether sufficient evidence supported the carjacking and kidnapping convictions as to the infant victim.

II. Discussion

A. Kidnapping

Section 207, subdivision (a), provides: "Every person who forcibly, or by any other means of instilling fear, steals or takes, or holds, detains, or arrests any person in this state, and carries the person into another country, state, or county, or into another part of the same county, is guilty of kidnapping." As the language indicates, the statute generally requires that the defendant use force or fear. (People v. Alcala (1984) 36 Cal.3d 604, 622, 205 Cal.Rptr. 775, 685 P.2d 1126; People v. Stephenson (1974) 10 Cal.3d 652, 659-660, 111 Cal.Rptr. 556, 517 P.2d 820.)² "If a person's free will was not overborne by the use of force or the threat of force, there was no kidnapping." (People v. Moya, supra, 4 Cal.App.4th at p. 916, 6 Cal. Rptr.2d 323, citing People v. Stephenson, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 659, 111 Cal.Rptr. 556, 517 P.2d 820.)

The Court of Appeal here recognized that "[a]n analytical problem arises when the person taken, for example a baby, lacks free will." How can a baby's will be overborne? We confronted this problem in Oliver, supra, 55 Cal.2d 761,12 Cal. Rptr. 865,361 P.2d 593. There, the defendant was convicted of kidnapping and lewd conduct with a two-year-old child. So far as the evidence showed, "the baby went willingly with defendant" (id. at p. 764, 12 Cal.Rptr. 865,361 P.2d 593), but we also noted that "the baby was too young to give his legal consent to being taken by the defendant." (Ibid.) In this situation, we were concerned that a defendant might be convicted of kidnapping a person unable to give consent even if the defendant acted for a good purpose such as carrying the person to safety. (Id. at pp. 765-766, 12 Cal.Rptr. 865,361 P.2d 593.) Accordingly, we concluded that "section 207, as applied to a person forcibly taking and carrying away another, who by reason of immaturity or mental condition is unable to give his legal consent thereto, should ... be construed as making the one so acting guilty of kidnaping only if the taking and carrying away is done for an illegal purpose or with an illegal intent." (Id. at p. 768, 12 Cal.Rptr. 865,361 P.2d 593.) We found the trial court's failure to instruct on this requirement prejudicial and reversed the kidnapping conviction. (Ibid.)³

The Court of Appeal here found that defendant moved Marissa with an illegal purpose and thus was guilty of her kidnapping. Defendant argues the court erred in two respects. First, he contends that, although Oliver requires that the taking of a child be for an illegal purpose or intent, the decision did not eliminate section 207's requirement of force or fear even as to a child.

We need not, and do not, decide whether, or to what extent, the Oliver decision eliminated the need to show as to a child force or fear in addition to an illegal purpose, or whether the illegal purpose itself establishes force or fear (see Parnell v. Superior Court (1981) 119 Cal.App.3d 392, 402-403, fn. 3, 173 Cal.Rptr. 906), for here ample evidence of force or fear exists. Defendant and Dabney accosted January and forced her and the child to go with them. Defendant drove the car with both victims inside. This behavior constituted the use of both force and fear. Defendant contends the force and fear was directed at January, not the baby. A reasonable jury, however, could find it was directed at both. At the least, our decision in Oliver "indicated that in kidnapping cases the requirement of force may be relaxed where the victim is a minor who is `too young to give his legal consent to being taken' and the kidnapping was done for an improper purpose." (People v. Rios (1986) 177 Cal. App.3d 445, 451, 222 Cal.Rptr. 913, citing Oliver, supra, 55 Cal.2d at pp. 764-766, 12 Cal.Rptr. 865, 361 P.2d 593.) Here, defendant snatched the baby as well the mother. The baby certainly did not move herself. Dabney also threatened to shoot the baby, thus using her as leverage to force the mother's cooperation. Additionally, the car seat was unbuckled, and Marissa was rolling around on the front seat while defendant drove. We are unaware of any authority that to suffer kidnapping, a baby must apprehend any force used against her.

Defendant also argues that Oliver's, requirement of an illegal intent or purpose is not satisfied because his illegal intent was directed at the mother, not the child. We disagree. As the Court of Appeal found, "Even if we assume the movement of Marissa might not have been a means to commit a crime directly against her, it was, however, carried out as the direct result of the intent to commit a crime and, within the reasoning of Oliver, renders [defendant] liable for Marissa's kidnapping pursuant to Penal Code section 207."⁴ Defendant argues that he violated only section 278, not section 207. Section 278 makes guilty of the crime generally called child stealing or child abduction a "person, not having a right to custody, who maliciously takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals any child with the intent to detain or conceal that child from a lawful custodian...." Defendant did not violate this statute, for we see no evidence that he intended to detain or conceal Marissa from her mother. Indeed, he kept them together. Thus, we need not, and do not, decide here whether a person can be guilty of violating both statutes if the elements of each are present. (See People v. Campos (1982) 131 Cal. App.3d 894, 899, 182 Cal.Rptr. 698.)

For these reasons, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal to the extent it finds sufficient evidence to support the conviction for kidnapping Marissa as well as January.

B. Carjacking

Section 215, subdivision (a), defines carjacking as "the felonious taking of a motor vehicle in the possession of another, from his or her person or immediate presence, or from the person or immediate presence of a passenger of the motor vehicle, against his or her will and with the intent to either permanently or temporarily deprive the person in possession of the motor vehicle of his or her possession, accomplished by means of force or fear." The Court of Appeal found...