He didn’t pull the trigger. California Supreme Court sides with accomplice in felony murder case

Hundreds of people convicted of murder in California didn’t kill anyone. They were handed long sentences because they drove a getaway car or kicked down a door in a robbery that ended in murder  — and the state used to allow prosecutors to charge accomplices with first-degree felony murder. 

That changed in 2018, when California legislators required a higher standard for an accomplice’s murder conviction.

This week, the first case stemming from that law came before the California Supreme Court, and the ruling is expected to lead to a prisoner’s resentencing. 

The court held that a man who was at the scene of a 2012 shooting death in San Jose should be resentenced under the new law. While he was present at the scene of a robbery and murder, the court found his conduct did not reflect “a reckless indifference to human life” — the standard for convictions of first-degree felony murder. 

The decision reverses rulings by both a trial judge and an appeals court, and sends the case back down to the trial court for resentencing.  

Louis Emanuel and Jacob Whitley set up a fake deal to buy a pound of marijuana from John Sonenberg. In reality, they had plans to rob him, and police later said the pair had likely robbed other people of drugs before who didn’t report the crimes.  

They met next to a park in San Jose in the middle of the afternoon on Dec. 11, 2012. According to court records, Emanuel didn’t know Whitley had a gun. The pair pulled up next to Sonenberg’s pick up truck. Emanuel later allegedly told his ex-girlfriend that, in the confusion during the robbery, Whitley shot Sonenberg. 

“The guy started fighting back and (Whitley) pointed the gun,” said Breanna Santos, Emanuel’s former girlfriend and the mother of his son, according to court records quoted in the ruling. “He was trying to aim down, but the guy hit his hand, it went up and (Whitley) pulled the trigger and he said he shot him in his neck.”

Sonenberg died at the scene. 

At trial in 2015, Emanuel was convicted of first-degree felony murder. Though he didn’t pull the trigger, California law at the time equated his actions to murder while committing a robbery. The Sixth Appellate District Court of Appeal upheld his sentence. 

Then, California legislators passed a law which prohibited prosecutors from pursuing felony murder charges against accomplices unless they “aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, solicited, requested, or assisted the actual killer in the commission of murder in the first degree, or the person was a major participant in the underlying felony and acted with reckless indifference to human life.” 

U.S. Supreme Court on felony murder

The U.S. Supreme Court has handed down mixed rulings on comparable cases.

In a 1982 case, they found that a getaway driver in an armed robbery that led to someone’s death could not be given a death sentence. 

But on the other end of the spectrum was a 1987 case in which the people accused of murder broke two people out of prison, armed them, held a family at gunpoint then abandoned the victims in the desert after the escapees shot them. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that those suspects, even though they didn’t pull the trigger, could indeed face the death penalty. 

Those two cases are the opposite ends of the spectrum for defining the culpability of an accomplice to murder, wrote California Supreme Court Associate Justice Kelli Evans in the Emanuel opinion.

“This Court has thus made clear that participation in a “ ‘garden-variety armed robbery’ … is insufficient without more to establish reckless indifference,” Evans wrote.

But when Emanual filed for a resentencing under the 2018 law, the trial court judge ruled that he should have acted to prevent the shooting. 

“In the trial court’s view, Emanuel ‘created’ the situation by participating in the robbery, and thus, had an affirmative obligation to do more than withdraw his aid and support from a murderous cohort,” Evans wrote in the Supreme Court opinion. 

Perhaps most critically, the trial court found that Emanuel acted with reckless indifference to human life. The court of appeal agreed with that decision. 

Focus on Emanuel’s mental state

The California Supreme Court, in reversing both courts, found that Emanuel didn’t have a duty to prevent the robbery. They also pointed to other circumstances, like time of day and location. 

If someone plans to rob a house where methamphetamine is being manufactured by “several armed occupants” at 3 a.m., the person committing the robbery should anticipate violence, the court found. On the other hand, if a person intends to rob an unarmed marijuana dealer in a public park in the middle of the day, “the objective risk of violence posed by the crime and reasonably anticipated by the perpetrator is far less grave.” 

The court also noted that Emanuel tried to dissuade Whitley from robbing Sonenberg and walked away after the shooting. 

“The focus should not be on the ultimate efficacy of his actions, but on what his actions reveal about his mental state,” Evans wrote. “The (trial and appeal) courts did not carefully consider evidence bearing on Emanuel’s state of mind but rather simply judged that he had not employed an adequate measure of restraint.” 

When reached by CalMatters, Emanuel’s attorney, Solomon Wollack, declined to comment. 

The California Supreme Court vacated Emanuel’s murder conviction and sent the case back down to trial court for resentencing.