# People v. Dillon

> California Supreme Court · September 1, 1983 · 34 Cal. 3d 441

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9793327

## Case

- **Full name:** The PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. NORMAN JAY DILLON, Defendant and Appellant
- **Court:** California Supreme Court
- **Decided:** September 1, 1983
- **Citations:** 34 Cal. 3d 441; 194 Cal. Rptr. 390; 668 P.2d 697; 1983 Cal. LEXIS 226
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Kingsley
- **Judges:** Mosk, Reynoso, Kingsley, Bird, Richardson, Broussard
- **Cited by:** 843 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Red flag:** Abrogated on other grounds by People v. Chun, 45 Cal. 4th 1172 (2009).
- Negative treatments: 2
- Distinguished by: 3
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9793327

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that first-degree felony murder includes “a variety of unintended homicides resulting from reckless behavior, or ordinary negligence, or pure accident; it embraces both calculated conduct and acts committed in panic or rage, or under the dominion of mental illness, dru…
- holding a seventeen year-old's sentence of life imprisonment for felony murder was unconstitutional as applied where the offender fatally shot his victim out of fear for his life in the course of trying to steal marijuana plants from the victim's farm when the victim-who had p…
- holding the felony-murder rule does not create a conclusive presumption of the existence of an element of the crime in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment since malice aforethought is not an element of felony murder
- concluding that the plainer the intent to commit the offense, the more likely that steps taken in the early stages of the commission of the crime will satisfy the overt act requirement
- holding that the imposition of a true life sentence on a minor convicted of felony murder was cruel and unusual based on the specific circumstances surrounding the offense

## Opinion text

KINGSLEY, J. *
I concur in Justice Mosk’s opinion.
I have read with interest the scholarly opinion by Justice Kaus on the subject of “jury nullification,” but do not agree that that doctrine has anything to do with the case at bench. The concept of “jury nullification” is one that permits a jury to ignore the plain letter of the law and administer what those 12 persons, as a body, regard the socially more appropriate verdict in a particular case. The doctrine represents what Dean Pound called a “soft spot” in the law, which permitted the law to yield in a special case rather than cast doubt on the justice of the applicable law in general.
*494 Here, however, the majority of the court is not ignoring the law. The constitutional provision against cruel and unusual punishment is, itself, a vital part of the law which we apply in the case of young Mr. Dillon. It is now settled that that provision in both the federal and California Constitutions prohibits the application of an otherwise valid sanction to a particular person under particular circumstances. We are not ignoring the law of California; we are applying the whole law.
Assigned by the Chairperson of the Judicial Council.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9793327. Public record. Not legal advice.