## Facts

- Larry H. Roberts, a prisoner at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, was tried jointly with co-defendant Archie Menefield for a prison stabbing incident on August 17, 1980.
- Inmate Charles Gardner was attacked in a first-floor corridor and suffered 11 stab wounds that proved fatal.
- After being stabbed, Gardner grabbed a knife left on the floor, pursued Menefield up stairs, and stabbed correctional officer Albert Patch in the chest.
- Patch died within about an hour; Gardner died shortly thereafter.
- The prosecution’s theory was that Roberts participated in a planned attack and was Gardner’s killer; the case relied on eyewitness and circumstantial evidence, including indications of ambush and weapon possession.
- The defense argued (among other points) that inadequate medical care could have been the true cause of Gardner’s death and that Patch’s death was too remote or unforeseeable to attribute to Roberts.
- A jury convicted Roberts of: first-degree murder of Gardner, first-degree murder of Patch, conspiracy to commit murder, assault by a life prisoner resulting in death (Pen. Code § 4500), and possession of an inmate weapon.
- The jury found special circumstances true, including prior murder conviction, multiple-murder, and lying in wait as to Gardner’s killing.
- The trial court imposed a death sentence for Gardner’s murder (and sentenced on the § 4500 count) and imposed life without parole for Patch’s murder.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court was required to instruct that “grossly improper” medical treatment could be an unforeseeable intervening cause and the sole cause of Gardner’s death, negating homicide liability.
2. Whether the jury was improperly instructed on proximate cause for Patch’s death by being told that it was “immaterial” that Roberts could not reasonably have foreseen Patch’s death.
3. Whether the lying-in-wait special circumstance finding for Gardner’s murder was supported by adequate instructions and evidence.
4. Whether the multiple-murder special circumstance could stand if Patch’s murder conviction was reversed.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court affirmed Roberts’s conviction for Gardner’s murder and affirmed the associated death judgment, along with the related convictions tied to Gardner’s killing.
- The court held the trial court properly refused an intervening-medical-negligence instruction because the record contained no evidence of “grossly improper” treatment that was the sole cause of death.
- The court reversed Roberts’s conviction for Patch’s murder because the proximate-cause instructions improperly removed reasonable foreseeability from the jury’s determination and the error was not harmless.
- The court set aside the multiple-murder special circumstance because reversal of Patch’s murder eliminated the statutory basis for “multiple murders.”
- In all other respects, the judgment was affirmed.

## Legal Principles

- A defendant who inflicts a dangerous wound ordinarily remains criminally liable for homicide even if inadequate medical treatment contributes to death.
- Medical treatment can break the causal chain only if it is grossly improper, is the sole cause of death, and is an unforeseeable intervening cause; absent supporting evidence, a court need not instruct on that theory.
- Criminal proximate cause generally requires that the death be a natural and probable consequence of the defendant’s act (or not so extraordinary as to be outside the chain of causation).
- Jury instructions may not categorically declare foreseeability “immaterial” where foreseeability is part of the proximate-cause inquiry; removing that element from the jury’s consideration violates the prosecution’s burden of proof.
- A multiple-murder special circumstance cannot stand when one of the predicate murder convictions is reversed.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the death judgment for Gardner’s murder because the causation evidence supported liability and no instruction on grossly improper medical treatment was warranted, but it reversed Patch’s murder conviction because the jury was told foreseeability was irrelevant to proximate cause, and it set aside the multiple-murder special circumstance once the second murder conviction was undone.


People v. Roberts, 2 Cal. 4th 271 (Cal. 1992)