People v. Yoder

100 Cal. App. 3d 333, 161 Cal. Rptr. 35, 1979 Cal. App. LEXIS 2426
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 24, 1979
DocketCrim. 34664
StatusPublished
Cited by60 cases

This text of 100 Cal. App. 3d 333 (People v. Yoder) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Yoder, 100 Cal. App. 3d 333, 161 Cal. Rptr. 35, 1979 Cal. App. LEXIS 2426 (Cal. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinion

Opinion

ALLPORT, J.

Following trial by jury Harvey Yoder was convicted of first degree burglary in violation of Penal Code section 459 and sentenced to state prison. He appeals from the judgment. 1

Facts

At approximately 8:30 p.m. on May 27, 1978, defendant was apprehended while admittedly burglarizing the residence of Paul de Fonville in the Silver Lake area of the City of Los Angeles. The arresting officer testified defendant had a mild odor of alcohol on his person but exhibited no evidence of being under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Defendant testified in his own defense to being under the influence of alcohol and drugs to the extent that he was unable to recall any of the evening’s events after being ordered off a bus in the Glendale or Burbank area except for hearing some glass breaking and being handcuffed by the police. 2

Contentions

It is contended on appeal that the trial court committed reversible error in refusing to instruct the jury properly and fully as to the defense of diminished capacity in a specific intent crime. While it is suggested that the error resulted from the refusal to give requested instruction CALJIC No. 3.35 and one on the less serious offense of trespass resulting from an unlawful entry in violation of Penal Code section 602.5, we note that CALJIC No. 3.35 was not requested until after the jury had retired to deliberate and that no specific instruction was ever prepared and tendered to the court on the subject of unlawful entry. However, on *336 the record before us, the jury was required to be properly instructed on the defense of diminished capacity, sua sponte or otherwise. (People v. Juarez (1968) 258 Cal.App.2d 349, 356 [65 Cal.Rptr. 630].) For that reason, except as hereinafter noted, we find it unnecessary to address the issue of timely and procedurally adequate requests for jury instructions and will endeavor to determine whether the jury was in fact properly and fully instructed on the defenses available to defendant under the facts in the instant case.

Discussion

The jury was instructed, inter alia, that entry of an inhabited dwelling house with the specific intent to steal is burglary (CALJIC No. 14.50) and that in the absence of the required specific intent to steal the crime is not committed. (CALJIC Nos. 2.72, 3.31.) The court then instructed generally that voluntary intoxication from the willing partaking of intoxicating liquor or drugs is not a defense (CALJIC Nos. 4.20, 4.22) but that “there is an exception to this rule, in the crime of burglary of which the defendant is accused a necessary element is the existence in the mind of the defendant of the specific intents to steal the property of another and to deprive the owner permanently of his property. [If] If the evidence shows that the defendant was intoxicated at the time of the alleged offense, the jury should consider his state of intoxication in determining if defendant had such specific intents. [IT] If from all the evidence you have a reasonable doubt whether defendant was capable of forming such specific intent, you must give the defendant the benefit of that doubt and find that he did not have such specific intent and then should acquit the defendant.” (CALJIC No. 4.21 as modified.) While there appears to be a conflict between 4.20 and 4.21, 3 nevertheless when read together it is clear that if defendant was determined to lack the specific intent to steal as a result of intoxication, he should be acquitted. See People v. Rhodes (1971) 21 Cal.App.3d 10, 21-22 [98 Cal.Rptr. 249], wherein it is said: “The third defect alleged is that the trial court improperly used CALJIC No. 319 (Rev.) in order to instruct the jury on the issue of voluntary intoxication. Specifically, defendant objects to the first sentence 7 of that instruction. The first sentence used in CALJIC No. 319 (Rev.) is taken from the first sen *337 tence of California Penal Code section 22. This sentence has been the focus of prior judicial attention. In People v. Ford, 60 Cal.2d 772 [36 Cal.Rptr. 620, 388 P.2d 892], the California Supreme Court ruled that this sentence, when used in the context of the other language in CALJIC instructions Nos. 78 and 319, caused those instructions to have the potential ‘to leave the jury in a state of confusion.’ A single sentence, however, may or may not be confusing, depending upon the context in which the sentence lies. In People v. Hunter, 146 Cal.App.2d 64, 67 [303 P.2d 356], the court stated: ‘“Error cannot be predicated upon an isolated phrase, sentence or excerpt taken from the instructions. .. since, in order to determine the correctness... in their relations to and with each other and in the light of the instructions as a whole and whether a jury has been correctly instructed is not to be determined from a consideration of a part of an instruction or one particular instruction, but from the entire charge of the court.”’ Specifically, People v. Conley, 268 Cal.App.2d 47, 53 [73 Cal.Rptr. 673] holds: ‘When there is an issue of diminished capacity due to intoxication, an instruction in the language of Penal Code section 22 is not necessarily error.’ In People v. Asher, 273 Cal.App.2d 876, 902 [78 Cal.Rptr. 885], the court held that ‘[a] review of the instructions. .. reveals that the trial court emphasized and reiterated that intoxication could occasion diminished capacity which would negate the existence of the requisite mental state for either robbery or murder. By no stretch of the imagination could the jury have been confused by the reading of the first sentence of [Penal Code] section 22 in connection with the other instructions.’”

The argument is made that it was error not to give CALJIC No. 3.35 instead of No. 4.21. CALJIC No. 3.35 reads as follows: “When a defendant is charged with a crime which requires that a certain specific intent or mental state be established in order to constitute the crime or degree of crime, you must take all the evidence into consideration and determine therefrom if, at the time when the crime allegedly was committed, the defendant was suffering from some abnormal mental or physical condition, however caused, which prevented him from forming the specific intent or mental state essential to constitute the crime or degree of crime with which he is charged.

“If from all the evidence you have a reasonable doubt whether defendant was capable of forming such specific intent or mental state, you must give defendant the benefit of that doubt and find that he did not have such specific intent or mental state.”

*338 It is said that the failure to advise the jury that there was a mandatory duty to consider all the evidence in determining mental capacity requires reversal.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
100 Cal. App. 3d 333, 161 Cal. Rptr. 35, 1979 Cal. App. LEXIS 2426, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-yoder-calctapp-1979.