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People v. Rizo4/24/2002
gests the ultimate crime was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the criminal act originally aided and abetted, but a lesser crime committed by the perpetrator during the accomplishment of the ultimate crime was such a consequence." (Id., at p. 1577.) Based on Woods, defendants contend the court should have instructed the jury it could find defendants guilty of involuntary manslaughter rather than murder or voluntary manslaughter, the lesser included offense on which the court did instruct.
It appears no published decision has considered the validity of Woods's holding that an aider and abettor may be convicted of a lesser offense than that committed by the perpetrator. The Supreme Court in People v. Prettyman (1996) 14 Cal.4th 248, discussed Woods but found it unnecessary to decide whether its holding was correct, because any error in failing to give a lesser included offense instruction in that case was clearly harmless. (Prettyman, supra, at p. 276.)
Assuming, without deciding, that Woods correctly analyzed the law, it does not support reversal here. In Woods, the defendants, Woods and Windham, went to an apartment and assaulted the two women living there to retaliate for a shooting of the defendants' friend by an acquaintance of the women. After the defendants left the apartment, while they were loading stolen items into their car, Woods shot and killed an occupant of another car a few parking stalls away, apparently out of fear that the victim could identify him and Windham. Both Woods and Windham were convicted of first degree murder. (Woods, supra, 8 Cal.App.4th at p. 1577.)
The Woods court concluded the trial court should have instructed the jury they could convict Windham of second degree murder as an aider and abettor even though they found Woods guilty of first degree murder. Significantly, however, the court found the trial court was not required to instruct on included offenses less than second degree murder, such as voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. (Woods, supra, 8 Cal.App.4th at p. 1578.)
The court reasoned that an aider and abettor is only entitled to instructions on lesser included offenses "where the facts would support a determination that the greater crime was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence but the lesser offense was such a consequence." (Woods, supra, 8 Cal.App.4th at p. 1588.) The determination whether a particular lesser offense was foreseeable "is not founded on the aider and abettor's subjective view of what might occur" but on "an `objective analysis of causation'; i.e., whether a reasonable person under like circumstances would recognize that the crime was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the act aided and abetted." (Id., at p. 1587.)
Applying this reasoning to the facts, the court in Woods concluded only instructions on second degree murder were required. The jury could have determined it was not reasonably foreseeable Woods would commit premeditated murder of an innocent bystander, but it was foreseeable he might kill intentionally without premeditation, or as a result of an intentional dangerous act without due caution. (Woods, supra, 8 Cal.App.4th at p. 1590.) However, "no evidence suggested that second degree murder ensuing from the armed onslaught was unforeseeable . . . ." (Id., at p. 1593.) Therefore, no instructions on voluntary or involuntary manslaughter were required. (Ibid.)
If, as the Woods court held, no instructions on involuntary manslaughter were required in that case, a fortiori none were required here. Woods, in fact, presented a much stronger case for involuntary manslaughter instructions than this case did. In Woods, the car occupant was an innocent bystander unr
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