In People v. Emanuel, the Supreme Court today holds that Senate Bill 1437, 2018 legislation that limited accomplice liability for murder, mandates eliminating a felony-murder conviction for a defendant who participated in a fatal robbery but whose accomplice was the killer. It’s one of those rare cases when an appellate court, reviewing the record in the light most favorable to the judgment, disagrees with a trial court factual determination.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Kelli Evans concludes the evidence did not support the revised statutory requirement of Penal Code section 189(e)(3) that the defendant not only was a major participant in the underlying felony but also “acted with reckless indifference to human life.” When the defendant was convicted, the earlier law was different, the court states — “felony-murder liability could be imposed if a jury found the defendant committed or attempted to commit an inherently dangerous felony, such as robbery, and an accomplice killed someone during the commission of the felony.”
The court holds that the statutory change requires judges “to distinguish between defendants who participate in a violent felony posing only the foreseeable risk of death inherent in any such crime (who are not liable for deaths that may occur during its commission) from those who knowingly engage in criminal activities known to carry a grave risk of death (who are liable).”
SB 1437 cases have occupied, and continue to occupy, a significant part of the court’s docket, but, the court says, “We have not yet had occasion to interpret the felony murder rule as amended by section 189, subdivision (e)(3).”
The court reverses the Sixth District’s unpublished opinion.
