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People v. Wiley10/4/1976
tances are not only consistent with the theory that the defendant is guilty of the crime, but cannot be reconciled with any other rational conclusion and each fact which is essential to complete a set of circumstances necessary to establish the defendant's guilt has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
"Also, if the evidence is susceptible of two reasonable interpretations, one of which points to the defendant's guilt and the other to his innocence, it is your duty to adopt the interpretation which points to the defendant's innocence, and reject the other which points to his guilt."
It is the duty of the trial court to instruct on general principles of law relevant to the issues raised by the facts of the case before it. (People v. Sedeno (1974) 10 Cal. 3d 703, 715-716 [112 Cal. Rptr. 1, 518 P.2d 913].) This obligation includes the duty to instruct on the effect to be given circumstantial evidence but only when circumstantial evidence is "substantially relied on for proof of guilt." (People v. Yrigoyen (1955) 45 Cal. 2d 46, 49 [286 P.2d 1].) The instruction should not be given "when the problem of inferring guilt from a pattern of incriminating circumstances is not present." (People v. Gould (1960) 54 Cal. 2d 621, 629 [7 Cal. Rptr. 273, 354 P.2d 865].) Extrajudicial admissions, although hearsay, are not the type of indirect evidence as to which the instructions on circumstantial evidence are applicable. (Id.)
In People v. Yrigoyen, supra, 45 Cal. 2d 46, there was conflicting evidence with respect to the intent of a defendant charged with issuing a check without sufficient funds in violation of section 476a to defraud the payee. We held that in those circumstances, because the evidence was also consistent with a rational conclusion that the defendant was
innocent, failure to give the instruction was error that had resulted in a miscarriage of justice. The fact that the elements of a charged offense include mental elements that must necessarily be proved by inferences drawn from circumstantial evidence does not alone require an instruction on the effect to be given such evidence however. The contrary is usually the rule. Thus, in People v. Malbrough (1961) 55 Cal. 2d 249 [10 Cal. Rptr. 632, 359 P.2d 30], we held that the instruction was not necessary where the evidence of the defendant's guilt of grand theft was primarily direct evidence given by eyewitnesses who observed defendant as he restrained the victim while his codefendant reached first into the victim's pockets and then into his own pocket in which a wad of bills was later found. There was no suggestion in Malbrough that instructions on circumstantial evidence were necessary because the defendant's intent to permanently deprive the victim of his property had to be inferred from the circumstances of the taking. Similarly, in People v. Gould, supra, 54 Cal. 2d 621, the defendant who had been convicted of burglary contended on appeal that such instructions should have been given because his identification was based in part on an extrajudicial admission. We held the instructions on circumstantial evidence to be unnecessary because they were inappropriate and thus inapplicable to extrajudicial admissions, and affirmed the judgment even though intent to commit a felony or petty theft at the time of the entry is an element of burglary (§ 459) that necessarily had to be proved by inference drawn from the direct evidence of defendant's conduct. (See a
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