People v. Sanchez

• Decision Date: 27 August 2001
• Docket Number: No. S088025.,S088025.
• Citation: 111 Cal.Rptr.2d 129,29 P.3d 209,26 Cal.4th 834
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Julio Cesar SANCHEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

111 Cal.Rptr.2d 129

26 Cal.4th 834

29 P.3d 209

The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Julio Cesar SANCHEZ, Defendant and Appellant.

No. S088025.

Supreme Court of California.

August 27, 2001.

Melvyn Douglas Sacks, Los Angeles; Solomon, Saltsman & Jamieson, Ralph Barat Saltsman and Stephen Warren Solomon, Los Angeles, for Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, David P. Druliner, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Keith I. Motley, Garrett Beaumont and Warren P. Robinson, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

BAXTER, J.

Defendant Julio Cesar Sanchez and his codefendant, Ramon Gonzalez, were each charged with first degree murder in connection with the shooting death of Reynaldo Estrada. Defendant, a gang member, was the passenger in a car that drove by a house outside of which Gonzalez, a rival gang member, and a friend were standing. Both defendants had armed themselves for the confrontation. As defendant's car made its third pass by the house in the course of several minutes, shots were exchanged and Mr. Estrada, an innocent bystander, was hit and killed by a single stray bullet.

The evidence adduced at trial did not establish whether defendant or Gonzalez fired the shot that killed Estrada because the real evidence probative on the point, specifically the guns and bullet casings used in the shooting, was not recovered. Similarly, evidence regarding the trajectory of the fatal bullet was inconclusive in that it supported a finding that either defendant or Gonzalez could have fired the fatal shot.

The district attorney prosecuted defendant for first degree murder on two theories: premeditated first degree murder (Pen.Code, § 189)¹ and first degree murder perpetrated by means of intentionally discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle with specific intent to inflict death. (Ibid.) As to Gonzalez, the only theory of first degree murder advanced was premeditation. If all the elements of first degree murder were otherwise established, both defendants could be held liable for the unintended death of innocent bystander Estrada by operation of the doctrine of transferred intent.

The jury convicted defendant and Gonzalez of first degree murder. The Court of Appeal reversed defendant's² conviction, concluding "there are no theories under which the jury could have found both defendant and Gonzalez guilty of first degree murder." The court believed the undisputed circumstance that only one bullet hit and killed Estrada eliminated concurrent causation as a theory of liability for the murder. The court went on to conclude that the jury's verdict finding Gonzalez guilty of first degree murder necessarily reflected he was found to be the actual shooter of the single fatal bullet, that consequently defendant must have been found guilty under the provocative act murder theory³ on which the jury was also instructed, and that defendant's murder conviction, so based, was invalid because Gonzalez's premeditation as the actual shooter precluded or cut off defendant's provocative act murder liability.

We granted the People's petition for review to determine whether defendant was properly convicted of first degree murder on these facts. As will be explained, the Court of Appeal erred in concluding concurrent causation cannot be established in a single-fatal-bullet case. The circumstance that it cannot be determined who fired the single fatal bullet does not undermine defendant's conviction under either of the two first degree murder theories advanced against him at trial—premeditation (§ 189), and murder by means of intentionally discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle with specific intent to inflict death. (Ibid.) Defendant's act of engaging Gonzalez in a gun battle and attempting to murder him was a substantial concurrent, and hence proximate, cause of Estrada's death through operation of the doctrine of transferred intent. Sufficient evidence supports defendant's first degree murder conviction under either theory, and contrary to the conclusion of the Court of Appeal, the record does not affirmatively suggest the jury relied on any improper or unsubstantiated theory in convicting defendant of the charge.⁴ Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeal shall be reversed.

Facts and Procedural History

Defendant is a member of a Fontana gang named TDK (Diablo Klicka).⁵ Gonzalez is a member of a rival Fontana gang, the Headhunters. On the date in question Gonzalez lived on Poplar Avenue; the Headhunter graffition the curb in front of his house plainly marked the location as Headhunter gang territory. Sometime during the afternoon of September 3, 1996, defendant and Gonzalez, each in the company of a fellow gang member, engaged one another in a gang-related gun battle in front of Gonzalez's house, during which Estrada, an innocent neighbor who was working on his car with his sons a few doors down, was shot in the head and killed by a single stray bullet.

Christopher Draper, a friend of Gonzalez's who was himself associated with another gang named TMK, testified that on the afternoon in question three Hispanic males whom he recognized from their clothes and shaved heads as rival gang members drove by his (Draper's) home, stopped, and got out of their vehicle. Draper became scared; when the group left he took a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol he had stolen from his mother and got a ride to Gonzalez's home on Poplar Avenue.

Later that afternoon, as Gonzalez and Draper were standing in front of Gonzalez's home, a black Ford Escort drove slowly by. Defendant, who owned the vehicle but was not driving because he had a suspended driver's license, was the passenger. Fellow TDK gang member Omar Mendez was the driver. Draper recognized the black Escort as one that had been involved in an incident several months earlier in which Draper had been shot at by the vehicle's occupants, one of whom had yelled out "TDK."⁶ As the Escort drove past Gonzalez's home, Draper believed its occupants were TDK members.

The Escort left and returned to Gonzalez's street 15 or 20 minutes later. According to Draper, as it drove by the second time the occupants "mad-dogged" or stared down Draper and Gonzalez. Feeling threatened, Draper took the gun he had brought with him, placed it next to a bush on Gonzalez's front lawn, covered it with a T-shirt, and showed Gonzalez where he had put it.

The Escort drove off and returned yet a third time, approaching from the south. According to Draper, the Escort stopped about two houses away from Gonzalez's house, and the passenger (defendant), who was sitting on the window frame of the passenger door, fired one shot over the roof of the Escort towards Draper and Gonzalez. Gonzalez retrieved the gun Draper had placed next to the bush and fired back at defendant and Mendez about four times. Defendant fired three or four more rounds over the roof of the Escort as it sped off. Draper recognized the passenger as defendant, whom he knew from middle school, although he did not tell that to police when they arrived. Indeed, at first Gonzalez and Draper told the police they had been fired at by the occupants of the Escort, and said nothing of Gonzalez's having returned the fire.

At the time of the gun battle, Reynaldo Estrada, his wife, and their son Miguel were visiting their married son Rene who lived on Poplar Avenue close to Gonzalez's house. The men were working on the father's truck in the driveway when the shooting erupted. Rene had noticed a dark-colored car driving slowly by his home, and saw Christopher Draper in front of Gonzalez's house making a pointing motion, possibly in the direction of the car. Two sets of shots rang out, the second series louder than the first, and Mr. Estrada fell to the ground. The sons called 911; Mr. Estrada died in the hospital from a single gunshot wound to the head after remaining on life support for several days.

Gonzalez's sister Yolanda was at the Gonzalez house on the date in question. She testified that the first time the Ford Escort drove by she saw the vehicle's occupants flash gang hand signs at them. When the car drove slowly by the Gonzalez house the second time, she heard Gonzalez and Draper yell to the occupants, "Come back."

Omar Mendez, also a member of the TDK gang, testified he drove defendant's black Ford Escort during the drive-by shooting. When first driving down Poplar Avenue, he and defendant noticed Draper and Gonzalez standing in front of Gonzalez's house. Believing they had possibly thrown gang hand signs at them, Mendez and defendant made a U-turn to investigate. According to Mendez, Gonzalez started shooting at them and defendant returned the fire. Mendez claimed to have been unaware defendant was armed with a gun, although his preliminary hearing testimony was to the contrary. Afterwards, Mendez drove to Cesar Padilla's house on Athol Street where other TDK members were known to congregate. Juan Ramirez, a TDK member present at the house, heard Mendez state that he and defendant had just been involved in a shooting with the Headhunters. Another TDK member, Anthony Castellanos, heard Mendez state they had been involved in a "shoot-out" with "some fools." Police arrived at the Padilla residence in short order and recovered a nine-millimeter semiautomatic Ruger pistol from Ramirez's person. The Ruger was a "gang gun" that belonged to the members of TDK as a group. Expert ballistics testimony established that the shot that killed Estrada had not been fired from the Ruger.

The fatal bullet recovered from Estrada's body was found to be consistent in size with .38-caliber and .357-caliber ammunition. No bullets or shell casings were recovered from the murder scene. Police arriving on the scene observed Draper and others picking up things from the street in front of Gonzalez's house; the prosecution theorized that bullets and/or shell casings were being retrieved to...