People v. Wells

Citation50 Cal.Rptr.2d 699,911 P.2d 1374,12 Cal.4th 979
Decision Date21 March 1996
Docket NumberNo. S045352,S045352
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court (California)
Parties, 911 P.2d 1374, 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 1948, 96 Daily Journal D.A.R. 3291 The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Guy V. WELLS, Defendant and Appellant.

Mary G. Swift, Mill Valley, under appointment by Supreme Court, for Defendant and Appellant.

Jaffe, Trutanich, Scatena & Blum, Fred M. Blum and R. Allan Payne, San Francisco, as amici curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant.

Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General, George Williamson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Ronald A. Bass, Assistant Attorney General, Ann K. Jensen, Donna B. Chew and Jeremy Friedlander, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

BAXTER, Justice.

Subdivision (c)(1) of Penal Code section 192 1 (section 192(c)(1)) defines one of the three kinds of vehicular manslaughter described in section 192 as "driving a vehicle in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to felony, and with gross negligence; or driving a vehicle in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death, in an unlawful manner, and with gross negligence." In this case we are asked to decide if the "unlawful act" to which the statute refers must be an offense that is inherently dangerous to human life or safety, and if so, whether exceeding the maximum speed limit is such an unlawful act.

The Court of Appeal held that the killing "in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to felony" element of vehicular manslaughter in section 192(c)(1) requires that the unlawful act be an offense that is inherently dangerous, and reversed the conviction of defendant because the trial court instructions had permitted conviction on a finding that the death occurred as the result of defendant's commission of an offense that was not inherently dangerous.

Contrary to the understanding of the Court of Appeal, however, we conclude that the offense which constitutes the "unlawful act" need not be an inherently dangerous misdemeanor or infraction. 2 Rather, to be an "unlawful act" within the meaning of section 192(c)(1), the offense must be dangerous under the circumstances of its commission. An unlawful act committed with gross negligence would necessarily be so. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

I Background

Defendant Guy Wells was convicted by a jury in the Napa County Superior Court of violating section 192(c)(1) while driving on the Petrified Forest Road outside Calistoga on January 10, 1992. The evidence established that defendant's car, which at times had been traveling at speeds estimated as being between 50 and 80 miles per hour on a curving, hilly road, struck another car that had slowed to turn into a driveway. Defendant lost control of his car, which began to skid as it rounded a curve. Defendant's out-of-control car slid against the victims' car, spinning it around. The driver of the second car was injured; a passenger was killed. Prior to the accident, defendant's car had passed other vehicles in places where passing was unsafe, crossing double yellow lines to do so, and had almost caused a head-on collision while passing a car about 3.8 miles from the accident scene.

The trial court instructed the jury that several Vehicle Code violations could constitute the "unlawful act" element of section 192(c)(1). Those were violation of Vehicle Code sections 21650 (failure to keep to the right side of a roadway), 21662 (failure to obey "mountain roadway" rules), 22107 (unsafe turning movement), 22349 (failure to obey maximum speed limit), 22350 (failure to obey basic speed law), and 23103 (reckless driving). The trial court instructed the jury in the language of CALJIC No. 8.90 that an unlawful act is one inherently dangerous to human life or safety, and also told the jurors that violation of each of those misdemeanors and infractions was an act inherently dangerous to human life and safety.

On appeal, relying principally on People v. Stuart (1956) 47 Cal.2d 167, 302 P.2d 5 (Stuart ) and People v. Burroughs (1984) 35 Cal.3d 824, 829, 201 Cal.Rptr. 319, 678 P.2d 894, a felony-murder case, defendant contended that the court had erred by including violation of Vehicle Code section 22349 3 among the offenses that would support conviction under section 192(c)(1) because the failure to obey the maximum speed limit was not, in the abstract, an offense inherently dangerous to human life. Therefore, he argued, because the record did not establish that the jury had convicted him on a proper theory, reversal of the conviction was required under People v. Guiton (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1116, 17 Cal.Rptr.2d 365, 847 P.2d 45.

The Court of Appeal rejected the People's argument that the unlawful act element of section 192(c)(1) need not be an inherently dangerous misdemeanor or infraction. The court observed that the phrase "commission of an unlawful act" was also used in section 192, subdivision (b) (section 192(b)), which codifies the traditional common law form of involuntary manslaughter, as the predicate for finding that a homicide committed without malice was involuntary manslaughter. When that phrase was construed in Stuart, this court had stated that to support an involuntary manslaughter conviction under section 192(b) the "unlawful act" must be dangerous to human life and safety and committed with criminal intent or criminal negligence pursuant to section 20. (Stuart, supra, 47 Cal.2d at p. 173, 302 P.2d 5.) Although Stuart had said only that the unlawful act must be dangerous to human life and safety, the Court of Appeal understood the holding of Stuart to be that the underlying misdemeanor offense must be one that is inherently dangerous in the abstract. The court then concluded that the same meaning must be ascribed to the term "unlawful act" as used in section 192(c)(1). This, the court reasoned, would be consistent with People v. Wright (1976) 60 Cal.App.3d 6, 131 Cal.Rptr. 311 and People v. Ramsey (1971) 17 Cal.App.3d 731, 95 Cal.Rptr. 231, as well as this court's statement in People v. Williams (1975) 13 Cal.3d 559, 562, 119 Cal.Rptr. 210, 531 P.2d 778, that the trial court must instruct on "inherently-dangerous-to-human-life-misdemeanors." 4

This court granted the People's petition for review to consider whether the Court of Appeal properly construed section 192(c)(1).

II

Meaning of "Unlawful Act"

The People argue that the unlawful act element of both section 192(b) and section 192(c) may be any misdemeanor or infraction and that the Court of Appeal erred in its reading of Stuart. The People observe that the Court of Appeal's construction of section 192(c)(1) overlooks the relationship between section 192(c)(1) and the alternate type of vehicular manslaughter defined in section 192(c)(2) 5 and leads to anomalous results that could not have been intended by the Legislature. As construed by the Court of Appeal, the act of extremely reckless and factually dangerous driving which proximately results in a death is not an unlawful act under section 192(c)(1) if the grossly negligent conduct that caused the death occurred in the commission of a misdemeanor violation of the Vehicle Code, but that misdemeanor was not inherently dangerous.

Defendant, as did the Court of Appeal, relies in part on past rulings made in the context of involuntary manslaughter under section 192(b). Section 192(b) defines the traditional, common-law-derived form of involuntary manslaughter as the unlawful killing of a human being without malice "in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to felony." Defendant argues that this court held in Stuart that the unlawful act to which section 192(b) referred had to be a misdemeanor that was inherently dangerous. Therefore, he reasons, the misdemeanor predicate for conviction under section 192(c)(1) also must be inherently dangerous in the abstract. In his view, the circumstances of the commission of the particular misdemeanor are not a consideration.

Defendant relies also on decisions in which this court restricted operation of the felony-murder rule to inherently dangerous felonies. (See, e.g., People v. Burroughs, supra, 35 Cal.3d 824, 829, 201 Cal.Rptr. 319, 678 P.2d 894; People v. Nichols (1970) 3 Cal.3d 150, 163, 89 Cal.Rptr. 721, 474 P.2d 673; People v. Phillips (1966) 64 Cal.2d 574, 582, 51 Cal.Rptr. 225, 414 P.2d 353; People v. Williams (1965) 63 Cal.2d 452, 458, 47 Cal.Rptr. 7, 406 P.2d 647; People v. Ford (1964) 60 Cal.2d 772, 795, 36 Cal.Rptr. 620, 388 P.2d 892.)

The issue in this case is one of statutory construction. The legislative intent underlying section 192(c) must be ascertained and, to the extent the plain language of that section permits, any judicial construction must be consistent with and further that purpose. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1859; Walnut Creek Manor v. Fair Employment & Housing Com. (1991) 54 Cal.3d 245, 268, 284 Cal.Rptr. 718, 814 P.2d 704.) The language of section 192, and our decision in Stuart construing identical language in section 192(b), support the People's argument that, when an involuntary manslaughter charge under section 192(c)(1) is based on a theory that the victim's death was caused by the defendant driving a vehicle "in the commission of an unlawful act," the unlawful act element of the offense that must be dangerous to human life or safety is not the misdemeanor itself in the abstract, but the conduct of the defendant in the circumstances in which the violation occurred. To support a conviction of violating section 192(c) the circumstances of the violation, not the offense in the abstract, must be dangerous to human life and safety.

The Court of Appeal recognized that the use of the term "in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to felony" in both section 192(b) and section 192(c)(1) reflects legislative intent that the same meaning be accorded the term in each subdivision. However, the Court of Appeal concluded that in...

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