## Facts

- Gregory Fred Zielesch arranged a murder-for-hire plot targeting Doug Shamberger, who was having an affair with Zielesch’s wife.
- Zielesch bailed Brendt Volarvich out of jail and asked Volarvich to kill Shamberger in return.
- Volarvich agreed but said he needed a gun.
- Zielesch supplied Volarvich with a .357 Magnum revolver and gave him $400 intended for methamphetamine.
- Zielesch knew Volarvich was unstable, used methamphetamine, had recently been released from jail, and was on searchable probation.
- The next day, while driving back to Zielesch’s house, Volarvich was stopped by California Highway Patrol Officer Andrew Stevens for a traffic violation.
- High on methamphetamine and afraid of returning to custody if discovered with drugs and a gun, Volarvich shot and killed Officer Stevens using the revolver Zielesch provided.
- Zielesch was not present at the traffic stop; the prosecution relied on conspiracy-based liability for the officer’s killing.
- A jury convicted Zielesch of first-degree murder of Officer Stevens and conspiracy to murder Shamberger (plus other counts/enhancements not material here), and he received an indeterminate term of 50 years to life plus a consecutive determinate term of seven years.
- During the first six days of trial, some courtroom spectators wore buttons displaying a color photograph of Officer Stevens.

## Issues

1. Whether substantial evidence supported first-degree murder liability on the theory that Volarvich’s killing of Officer Stevens was a natural and probable consequence of the conspiracy to murder Shamberger, despite Zielesch’s claim it was not in furtherance of the conspiracy and was unforeseeable.
2. Whether permitting spectators to wear buttons with the victim-officer’s photograph for several days violated due process and the presumption of innocence, requiring reversal.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the murder conviction, holding the jury could reasonably find the officer’s killing was a natural and probable consequence of the murder conspiracy.
- The court rejected the argument that the killing had to be “in furtherance” of the conspiracy to support liability under the natural-and-probable-consequences doctrine.
- The court affirmed the judgment against the fair-trial challenge, concluding the limited use of memorial buttons did not render the trial fundamentally unfair and did not warrant reversal.

## Legal Principles

- A conspirator may be held criminally liable for offenses committed by a co-conspirator that are the natural and probable consequences of the agreed-upon criminal objective, assessed by objective foreseeability from the standpoint of a reasonable person in the defendant’s position.
- Foreseeability may be supported where the defendant arms an unstable, drug-using co-conspirator and provides funds for drugs while knowing the co-conspirator’s recent release status and probation conditions, making a violent encounter with law enforcement during an intervention reasonably predictable.
- Allowing some spectators to wear memorial buttons depicting a victim is not a per se due process violation; courts evaluate whether the practice, in context, created actual prejudice or a fundamentally unfair proceeding.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Zielesch’s first-degree murder conviction because a reasonable jury could find that arming and supplying an unstable, methamphetamine-using probationer made the killing of a detaining officer an objectively foreseeable outgrowth of the murder conspiracy, and it found no due process violation from spectators wearing the victim’s-photo buttons for a limited period absent a showing of prejudice.


People v. Zielesch, 179 Cal. App. 4th 731, 101 Cal. Rptr. 3d 628 (Cal. Ct. App. 2009)