People v. Swain

Supreme Court of California
12 Cal. 4th 593, 909 P.2d 994, 49 Cal. Rptr. 2d 390 (1996)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

The crime of conspiracy to commit murder requires a finding of a specific intent to kill, which is the functional equivalent of express malice. A conviction for conspiracy to commit murder cannot be sustained on a theory of implied malice.

Facts:

Around 2 a.m. on January 13, 1991, a brown van passed through San Francisco's Hunter's Point neighborhood.
Multiple gunshots were fired from the van toward a group of people on the street.
Hagbom Saileele, a 15-year-old boy in the group, was shot twice from behind and later died from his injuries.
Defendant Jamal K. Swain, while later in jail, boasted to inmates that he shot Saileele from the van while it was moving at 30 miles per hour.
Swain's fingerprint was found on the interior of the van's driver's side window.
The .380-caliber handgun that fired the fatal shots was traced through various transactions to defendant David Chatman.
Chatman admitted to police that he was in the van and fired shots to retaliate against a rival gang for a car theft, but claimed he fired wildly in self-defense and that Swain was not present.
Swain intimidated the van's owner and other witnesses into providing false information to police to conceal his involvement in the crime.

Procedural Posture:

A jury in the trial court found defendant Chatman guilty of second-degree murder and conspiracy.
The jury found defendant Swain not guilty of murder but guilty of conspiracy and of attempting to dissuade a witness by threats.
For both defendants, the jury made a specific finding that the target offense of the conspiracy was murder in the second degree.
The trial court sentenced Swain to 15 years to life for the conspiracy conviction.
Chatman was sentenced to 15 years to life for second-degree murder, and an identical sentence for conspiracy was stayed.
Both defendants appealed to the Court of Appeal, as did the People on the issue of sentencing.
The Court of Appeal affirmed the convictions and sentences in their entirety.
The Supreme Court of California granted petitions for review from both the defendants and the People on the issues of the required intent for murder conspiracy and the proper punishment.

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Issue:

Does the crime of conspiracy to commit murder require proof that the conspirators specifically intended to kill (express malice), or can a conviction be based on a theory of implied malice, where no intent to kill is required?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice Baxter

Yes, the crime of conspiracy to commit murder requires proof that the conspirators specifically intended to kill. A conviction cannot be based on a theory of implied malice. Conspiracy is an inchoate crime focused on the agreement to commit an offense, requiring the specific intent to commit every element of that offense. Implied malice murder, by contrast, does not require an intent to kill; instead, the malice is legally 'implied' from the commission of an intentional act dangerous to human life that results in a death. It is illogical to conspire to achieve an unintended result. Therefore, because a killing is a necessary component for malice to be 'implied,' one cannot be guilty of conspiracy to commit implied malice murder, as the crime of conspiracy is complete upon agreement and an overt act, without the target offense ever being committed.

Concurring - Justice Mosk

Yes, the crime of conspiracy to commit murder requires an intent to kill. The court should go further and overrule its prior decision in People v. Horn, which improperly recognized a crime of 'conspiracy to commit second-degree murder.' An agreement to murder, by its nature, involves the deliberation and premeditation that defines first-degree murder, as held in the older case of People v. Kynette. The foundations of Horn—the defense of diminished capacity and a prior definition of premeditation—have since been abolished by the legislature. Therefore, there is only one crime of conspiracy to commit murder, and it should be punished as first-degree murder.

Concurring - Justice Kennard

Yes, an unlawful intent to kill is a required element of conspiracy to commit murder. However, the majority should have also decided the issue of degrees. The court should adhere to its precedent in People v. Horn, which correctly recognized that conspiracy to commit murder is divided into degrees. The punishment language of Penal Code section 182 authorizes a jury to determine the degree of the murder conspired to. This structure distinguishes between a conspiracy with a premeditated and deliberate intent to kill (first degree) and one with a bare, unpremeditated intent to kill (second degree), preventing the unjust result of punishing a second-degree conspiracy more harshly than the completed crime of second-degree murder itself.

Analysis:

This decision definitively establishes that implied malice is insufficient to support a conviction for conspiracy to commit murder, resolving a conflict in lower court opinions. By requiring express malice (intent to kill), the court aligns the mental state for conspiracy to murder with other inchoate offenses like attempted murder, creating a consistent doctrinal standard for crimes of preparation. The ruling underscores the conceptual nature of conspiracy as an agreement to achieve a specific criminal result, making it logically impossible to 'agree' to an unintended outcome like an implied malice killing. By declining to resolve the related issue of whether murder conspiracy has degrees, however, the court left significant questions about punishment and retrial for another day, ensuring future litigation on the matter.

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