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
Rule: Under
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