Parties to Crime: California Law

Parties to Crime

• Common law distinguishes between:
  • Principal in the first degree: the direct perpetrator of the crime
  • Principal in the second degree: one who aids and abets the commission of the crime
  • Accessory before the fact: one who aids and abets but is not present during the crime
  • Accessory after the fact: one who helps or harbors the principal, knowing they committed a felony
• California law consolidates the first three common law categories into "Principals."
• California defines an accessory as someone who:
  • Has knowledge that the principal committed a felony
  • Harbors, conceals, or aids the principal
  • Intends for the principal to avoid or escape arrest, trial, conviction, or punishment
• Aiding and abetting in California includes all individuals who directly commit the crime, aid in its commission, or advise/encourage its commission even if not present.
• To be guilty of aiding and abetting, one must act with:
  • Knowledge of the perpetrator's unlawful purpose
  • Intent or purpose to commit, encourage, or facilitate the crime
  • Actions or advice that aid, promote, encourage, or instigate the crime

Vicarious Liability

• Generally, a defendant is guilty only if their criminal liability is based on voluntary conduct or a voluntary omission of which they are physically capable.
• A defendant may be liable for the unlawful killing of both the intended victim and any unintended victim.
• A defendant may be liable for murder if they have the required mens rea and either they or an accomplice causes an unlawful death.

Provocative Act

• Involves a killing during the commission of a crime, where an intermediary (usually a cop or victim) is provoked by a defendant's conduct, resulting in someone's death.
• The degree of murder depends on each individual defendant's mens rea.
• This doctrine is invoked when a cop or victim kills a felon, not when the felon perpetrates the murder to begin with.
• The provocative act must be sufficiently provocative to support a finding of implied malice.
• Implied malice means acting with conscious disregard for human life, knowing the conduct's natural and probable consequences are dangerous and have a high probability of resulting in death.
• The provocative act must be more than just mere participation in the crime.
• A defendant is generally not liable for provocative act murder when the provocateur is the one killed; in that situation, the provocateur essentially caused his own death.

Crimes Against Life: Murder

• Elements of murder include:
  • Unlawful killing of a human being or fetus
  • With malice aforethought
• Malice can be:
  • Express (intent to kill)
  • Intent to cause serious bodily injury
  • Implied (conscious disregard for life)
• Murder is any shortening of life
• Homicide is death at the hands of another, but not all homicides are murder or manslaughter as defenses may exist.
• California law states that death beyond three years and a day after the act creates a rebuttable presumption that the killing was not criminal.

Killing of a Fetus

• Common law did not consider the killing of a fetus as homicide unless the fetus was born alive.
• California initially did not include a fetus. However, the legislature amended PC 187 to include a fetus.
• Viability, defined as the chances of survival, is not an element.

Malice Aforethought

• Different types of malice include:
  • Intent to kill (express malice)
  • Intent to commit serious bodily injury (SBI)
  • Depraved, abandoned, or malignant heart (implied malice)
• Implied malice requires a defendant's subjective awareness that their conduct endangers the life of another and a conscious disregard for human life.
• It does not require awareness of a high probability of death or awareness of the risk of causing SBI.
• Examples include shooting into a moving train, playing Russian roulette, driving under the influence, selling pure heroin resulting in an overdose, and severe child abuse.

Felony Murder Rule

• Any killing during the commission or attempted commission of a felony can be considered murder.
• In California, this applies to certain listed felonies.
• This applies even if the killing is accidental or unintentional.
• California felony murder is automatically first degree murder.
• Applies to arson, rape, carjacking, robbery, burglary, mayhem, kidnapping, train wrecking, aggravated mayhem, certain sex crimes, or shooting from a vehicle at a person outside the vehicle with intent to kill.

Degrees of Murder According to California PC 189

• First-degree murder includes:
  • Willful, deliberate, and premeditated (WDP) killing
  • Killing by certain methods (explosives, weapon of mass destruction, armor-piercing ammo, poison, lying in wait, torture, or drive-by shooting)
  • Killing during certain crimes (arson, robbery, carjacking, certain sex crimes, burglary, mayhem, kidnapping, or train wrecking)
• Second-degree murder includes all other murders.
• Willful, deliberate, and premeditated means:
  • Premeditated: Considered beforehand
  • Deliberate: Formed or arrived at as a result of careful thought and weighing of consideration for and against the proposed course of action. Can occur quickly.
• Sufficiency of WDP evidence test:
  • Planning activity
  • Motive to kill, considering prior relationship
  • Manner of killing (may show preconceived design to kill)
• A WDP will be upheld if all present; or strong evidence of planning; or motive plus either planing or manner of killing.

Manslaughter

• Common law did not distinguish manslaughter.
• It was developed later to delineate more heinous killings.
• The dividing line from murder is malice, which can be negated by:
  • Heat of passion: Sufficient provocation to cause someone to act on impulse and not reflection
  • Imperfect self-defense: Honest but unreasonable belief in need to defend

Voluntary Manslaughter (VMS)

• Voluntary manslaughter is an unlawful killing without malice and is considered a lesser included offense of murder.
• An intentional killing is reduced to VMS if evidence negates malice, such as heat of passion or imperfect self-defense.
• Provocation must be done by the victim or reasonably believed to have been done by the victim.
• Heat of passion has both objective (reasonable person) and subjective (reasonable provocation) elements.
• Provocation can occur over time, even with a cooling-off period, if another act serves as the final straw.
• Can be any violent, intense, high-wrought, or enthusiastic emotion

Imperfect Self-Defense

• D holds an actual subjective belief in the need to defend.
• Even if unreasonable, it negates malice and reduces 187 to VMS.
• If belief is both honest and reasonable, it constitutes a complete defense (not guilty).

Involuntary Manslaughter

• Involuntary manslaughter occurs in two ways:
  • Criminal negligence by creating a highly unreasonable risk of death that kills the victim
  • Committing a misdemeanor resulting in death (committing an unlawful act not amounting to a felony)

Vehicular MS

• Requires recklessness or criminal negligence.
• Reckless conduct involves a conscious disregard of a risk that conduct will cause such a result.
• Criminal negligence involves a failure to be aware that the conduct will cause such a result.
• Both are a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the same situation.