CREATIVE MURDER CHARGE

By Bob Walsh

PACOVILLA Corrections blog
February 7, 2014

Lake County [California] is the focus of a really creative use of the felony murder rule involving four suspects and a woman who died nowhere near the basic crime scene.

Gabriela Rivas Garcia, 26, of Clearlake is the unfortunate dead person. She died in a head-on collision with a Sheriff's vehicle last October. The Deputy was responding to a home invasion call in Lower Lake at the time of the collision, eight miles from the scene of the collision. The DA's take on it is that the robbery was the direct cause of the collision and that it was a reasonably foreseeable result of the robbery. Therefore the suspects are guilty of the death of Ms. Garcia.

Two of the suspects were caught by deputies fleeing the original scene of the home invasion. Two others were arrested several days later. The DA is waiting for the CHP report before going ahead with the murder charge.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Creative it is, but I do not think it’s going to fly. I doubt this will ever go to trial, but if it does, any guilty verdict for the death of that unfortunate woman will be overturned upon appeal. Besides that, if the deputy was on the wrong side of the road at the time of the crash, I do not see how the felony murder rule can be applied. Robbery yes, murder no.

For those who are not familiar with the felony murder rule:

The felony murder rule allows defendants to be convicted of murder if a death happens as the result of an inherently dangerous crime, even if the defendants didn't intend to kill anyone. The law has been used to convict robbers for the deaths of accomplices who were gunned down by the robbery victim or by the police.

From the February 7 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle:

Despite the distance [8 miles], Lake County prosecutor Sharon Lerman-Hubert said the defendants are responsible for the death.

"Their actions played a substantial role in this woman's death," she said. "If it wasn't for the robbery, the crash never would've happened."

The district attorney's office is waiting for the results of a CHP investigation into the crash to determine whether [Sheriff's Deputy] Lewis, who was also injured, will face charges.

Evan Zelig, a defense attorney representing 29-year-old defendant Jesse Gilbert Moncivaiz of Clearlake, said the murder indictment was "a bit of a stretch," and that he would seek to dismiss it once the CHP investigation was done.

"I understand how the felony murder rule works, but this death was so far removed from the crime that the result was not foreseeable," Zelig said. "I don't think this is how the law was meant to be applied."