People v. Fuller

Court of Appeal, Fifth District, 1978.

86 Cal.App.3d 618, 150 Cal.Rptr. 515.

Dressler, pp. 286-287

 

Facts: Some guys were stealing tires by breaking into cars and got spotted by the cops.  They tried to get away in their car and got into an accident, killing a bystander.  They were charged with felony murder based on the felony of burglary.  The trial court struck down the murder count.

 

Issue: Under California law, can the defendants be charged with first degree murder under the felony-murder rule?

 

Rule: Under California law, all murder that is committed while committing another felony is considered first degree murder.

 

Analysis: The court is very reluctant to apply the felony-murder rule here, but they do so “[s]olely by force of precedent”.  It is rather simple for the court to find that this case falls under the felony-murder rule, but the court thinks this is the wrong result.  The court believes that the defendants should not be held responsible for murder because their illegal activity, stealing tires, is not inherently “dangerous to human life”.

 

Conclusion: The trial court’s dismissal of the murder charge is reversed.

 

Notes and Questions

 

1.     Presumably not, because then they would not have been committing burglary.

2.     The further this court stretches the plain language of the law, the more likely it is to get reversed.  Judges hate getting reversed.  But I think the best shot for the defendants at trial would be to argue that this wasn’t murder in the first place based on § 187 because there was no malice.  The felony-murder statute in California is just that: a murder statute, not a felony-homicide statute.  If the defendants could argue that they did not have an “abandoned and malignant heart”, and that thus this wasn’t murder, then it can’t be felony murder.

 

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