People v. Rathert

• Citation: 24 Cal.4th 200,6 P.3d 700,99 Cal.Rptr.2d 779
• Decision Date: 28 August 2000
• Docket Number: No. S070946.,S070946.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Russell Ray RATHERT, Jr., Defendant and Appellant.

99 Cal.Rptr.2d 779

24 Cal.4th 200

6 P.3d 700

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Russell Ray RATHERT, Jr., Defendant and Appellant.

No. S070946.

Supreme Court of California.

August 28, 2000.

Richard Jay Moller, Redway, 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, Carol Wendelin Pollack, Assistant Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Marc E. Turchin, Victoria Bedrossian, Susan D. Martynec and Deborah J. Chuang, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

WERDEGAR, J.

In this case we define the mental state necessary to violate Penal Code¹ section 529, paragraph 3 (hereafter sometimes paragraph 3), prohibiting false personation. The Court of Appeal held the statute requires an intent to subject the impersonated individual to liability for suit or prosecution, or to secure a benefit for any person. It therefore reversed defendant's burglary conviction, which was predicated on entry with the intent to commit the underlying felony of false personation, because the pertinent jury instruction prejudicially omitted the required intent element.

We conclude section 529, paragraph 3, by its terms, is violated when one intentionally falsely personates another and, in such assumed character, does any act that might cause the liability or benefit described in the statute. Paragraph 3, in other words, requires the existence of no state of mind or criminal intent beyond that plainly expressed on the face of the statute. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeal.

FACTS

About 9:35 p.m. on March 22, 1996, defendant entered a Lucky supermarket in Rancho Palos Verdes. He approached store clerk Carlos Mariscal with a check and a driver's license, asking Mariscal "if it was okay to cash the check before [defendant] started getting groceries" and stating he wanted the check approved by the manager. The Talcro Financial Services cheek was made out to one Chris Laughrey and endorsed by Laughrey. Recognizing that Laughrey, the person pictured on the license, was obviously not defendant, Mariscal called the manager, Sergio Montez, who told defendant he would have to verify the check. Defendant acquiesced and said he would remain there and buy some groceries.

Montez recognized the check as similar to one he had refused several days earlier. Another Lucky supermarket had then cashed that check and later discovered it was invalid. Both checks had been drawn on a closed account.

Montez asked Michael Gutierrez, another employee, to keep an eye on defendant. Meanwhile, Montez telephoned the other Lucky store to verify that the earlier check was of the same kind as the one defendant was attempting to cash. He then called the police.

Defendant abruptly left the store for the parking lot when the police drove up. He entered an El Camino car on the passenger's side. Gutierrez waved down Deputy Sheriff Chris Knox, who had been patrolling the Lucky parking lot in his vehicle, and told Knox, "That's him." Knox followed the El Camino as it drove out of the parking lot, stopped it, and detained defendant and the driver. Defendant gave Knox two false names.

Defendant testified that, on the day he was arrested, he had met his friend, Cherise Hartley, at her house in San Pedro. Hartley asked him if he would cash a check for her, as she needed money to pay for food, diapers and rent. Chris Laughrey, the father of her child, had given her the check and permission to cash it, but was then in a rehabilitation center. She showed defendant a previously endorsed check and Laughrey's driver's license. Hartley told defendant, and he believed, the check was good. He agreed to help her, and they drove to the Lucky store. His account of what happened there generally accorded with the testimony of the store personnel, except he denied leaving the store because of the arrival of the police. Defendant testified he never said he was Chris Laughrey, but he admitted saying he had no other identification and that he intended to pass himself off as Laughrey in order to cash the check. When the manager took the check, saying he would have to verify it, defendant felt something was not quite right, so he went outside to ask Hartley if there was a problem with the check. She told him to get into the car and "forget it." When arrested, defendant gave a false name because he was then on parole and would have been "assumed guilty of anything."

Defendant was charged with forgery (§ 470), possession of a completed check with intent to defraud (§ 475, subd. (a)) and second degree burglary (§ 459). It was specially alleged he had previously been convicted of three serious or violent felonies (§§ 1170.12, subds.(a)-(d), 667, subds. (b)-(i)) and had served three prior prison terms (§ 667.5, subd. (b)).

The prosecution presented four alternative theories of burglary: entering a building (1) with the specific intent to steal, (2) with the specific intent to commit forgery, (3) to commit the crime of possession of a completed check with the specific intent to defraud, or (4) to falsely personate another in violation of section 529, paragraph 3. The jury convicted defendant of second degree burglary on the false personation theory,² acquitted him of forgery, and failed to reach a verdict on the charge of possession of a completed check with the intent to defraud. It found true the special allegations. The trial court denied defendant's motions for new trial, to strike the prior convictions, and to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor. It imposed a sentence of 25 years to life imprisonment.

DISCUSSION

In a burglary prosecution, complete and accurate jury instructions include the definition of each felony the defendant is alleged to have intended to commit upon entry into the burglarized structure. (See People v. Failla (1966) 64 Cal.2d 560, 564, 51 Cal.Rptr. 103, 414 P.2d 39; cf. People v. Prettyman (1996) 14 Cal.4th 248, 266-267, 58 Cal.Rptr.2d 827, 926 P.2d 1013 [similar instructional requirement obtains under natural and probable consequences doctrine].) Thus, in order to convict defendant of burglary on the theory that he entered the Lucky store with the intent to commit false personation, the jury should have been provided with a correct definition of false personation.

In assessing whether the jury in this case was correctly instructed, we first turn to the statute defining the offense of false personation. As relevant here, section 529 provides: "Every person who falsely personates another in either his private or official capacity, and in such assumed character ...: [¶] ... [¶] 3. Does any other act whereby, if done by the person falsely personated, he might, in any event, become liable to any suit or prosecution, or to pay any sum of money, or to incur any charge, forfeiture, or penalty, or whereby any benefit might accrue to the party personating, or to any other person; [¶] Is punishable by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by imprisonment in the state prison, or in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment." The statutory language first appeared in the Statutes of 1850, chapter 99, section 90, page 241, apparently having been derived from the New York Revised Statutes of 1828 (2 N.Y. Rev. Stats. (1828) 676, § 48). The California Legislature codified section 529 in 1872 and has not changed it in any relevant respect since that time. Unsurprisingly, given the antiquity of the statute, there is no available legislative history to assist us in its interpretation.

At issue here is whether, as defendant urges, paragraph 3 of section 529 requires, for conviction, that defendant impersonated Chris Laughrey, specifically intending to cause Laughrey to become liable to any suit or prosecution or to pay any sum of money, or specifically intending to benefit himself or another. The Court of Appeal so construed the statute and, because the jury was not so instructed, reversed defendant's burglary conviction.³

"Specific and general intent," we have cautioned, "have been notoriously difficult terms to define and apply...." (People v. Hood (1969) 1 Cal.3d 444, 456, 82 Cal.Rptr. 618, 462 P.2d 370.) The standard formulation of the two concepts appears in Hood: "When the definition of a crime consists of only the description of a particular act, without reference to intent to do a further act or achieve a future consequence, we ask whether the defendant intended to do the proscribed act. This intention is deemed to be a general criminal intent. When the definition refers to defendant's intent to do some further act or achieve some additional consequence, the crime is deemed to be one of specific intent." (Id. at pp. 456-457, 82 Cal.Rptr. 618, 462 P.2d 370.)

Resolution of this case does not require us to fit the offense of false personation into either the specific or the general intent category. Such classification of offenses is necessary "only when the court must determine whether a defense of voluntary intoxication or mental disease, defect, or disorder is available; whether evidence thereon is admissible; or whether appropriate jury instructions are thereby required. [Citation.]" (People v. Hering (1999) 20 Cal.4th 440, 446-447, 84 Cal.Rptr.2d 839, 976 P.2d 210.) In this case, defendant does not defend on any such ground; rather, "[he] simply contends that in addition to instructions that tracked the statutory language, the trial court should have included one on specific intent.... This case aptly illustrates the general principle that—other than circumstances involving a mental state defense— `the characterization of a crime as one of specific intent [or general intent] has little meaningful significance in instructing a jury. The critical issue is the accurate description of the state of mind required for the particular...