People v. Kelley CA1/5

BACKGROUND

A.

To be convicted of murder, a jury must ordinarily find that the defendant acted with the requisite mental state, known as malice aforethought. (People v. Chun (2009) 45 Cal.4th 1172, 1181, quoting § 187, subd. (a).) Until 2019, the felony murder rule provided an exception that made “a killing while committing

1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code. 1 certain felonies murder without the necessity of further examining the defendant’s mental state.” (Chun, at p. 1182.) Under a separate rule known as the natural and probable consequences doctrine, a person who knowingly aids and abets the criminal conduct of another person is guilty of not only the intended crime but also of any other crime the other person actually commits that is a natural and probable consequence of the intended crime. (People v. Chiu (2014) 59 Cal.4th 155, 161, superseded by statute as stated in People v. Lewis (2021) 11 Cal.5th 952, 958-959 & fn. 3 (Lewis).)

Senate Bill No. 1437 (2017–2018 Reg. Sess.) (Senate Bill 1437), effective January 1, 2019, changed the law relating to accomplice liability for murder to better align punishment with individual culpability. (Stats. 2018,…