People v. Sands CA1/5

BACKGROUND

A.

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, ch. 1015, § 1(b), (f).) To that

1 All undesignated statutory references are to the Penal

Code. 1 end, Senate Bill 1437 eliminated the natural and probable consequences doctrine as to murder and narrowed the felony- murder exception to the malice requirement. (People v. Mancilla (2021) 67 Cal.App.5th 854, 862.)

Specifically, Senate Bill 1437 amended section 189, which defines the degrees of murder, to limit murder liability based on felony murder or a natural and probable consequences theory to a person who: (1) was an actual killer; (2) aided and abetted the killer with the intent to kill; or (3) was a major participant in the underlying felony and acted with reckless indifference to human life, as those terms are used in the statute defining felony-murder special circumstances. (§ 189, subd. (e); Stats. 2018, ch. 1015, § 3; accord, People v. Strong (2022) 13 Cal.5th 698, 707-708 (Strong).) The definition of malice in section 188 was also…