Assault With Intent To Commit Specified Felonies

California Penal Code section 220 (Assault with Intent to Commit a Specified Felony):

As itemized above, this statute includes numerous serious felonies, most particularly those involving egregious sex crimes. In general, however, this statute is broken down into the following categories:

1. You will be prosecuted hereunder of you allegedly assaulted someone while intending to commit mayhem against, or to rape, sodomize, or orally copulate him/her/them, or for assaulting them while violating the following Penal Code sections:

• Penal Code section 264.1 (“Gang Rape” — Forcible Rape Act in Concert) or Sexual Penetration in Concert);
• Penal Code section 288 (Lewd Acts);
• Penal Code section 289) (Forcible Sexual Penetration).

See Pen. Code § 220(a)(1).

1. You allegedly assaulted someone who was a minor (i.e., 17 years of age or younger) with the intent to commit any of the foregoing offenses. Pen. Code § 220(a)(2).
2. You allegedly committed the foregoing offenses while also committing First-Degree Residential Burglary as codified in California Penal Code section 460(a); California Penal Code section 459.

See Pen. Code § 220(b).

Assault and Battery Crimes — Assault With Intent to Commit Specified Crimes — Convictions

Convictions for the various categories described above will result in the following prison sentences (assuming the judge requires you to go to prison, which is typically the case):

Twenty-four (24) months, forty-eight (48) months, or seventy (70) months – i.e., the low term, mid term, or high term (Pen. Code § 220(a)(1));

Sixty (60) months, eighty-four (84) months, or one hundred and fourteen (114) months (Pen. Code § 220(a)(2));

An automatic life sentence although with the potential for early release (Pen. Code § 220(b)).

In addition, you will lose your right to own, possess, carry, transport, sell, or use firearms for at least a decade.

Assault and Battery Crimes – Assault With Intent to Commit Specified Crimes — Sentencing Enhancements

In addition to the base-line prison sentences above, as well as any enhancements for Strike Offense (Penal Code section 667(a)&(b); Penal Code section 667.5(c) (“Violent Felonies”); Penal Code section 1192.7(c) (“Serious Felonies”)), you can also receive additional prison terms – ranging anywhere from an extra three to twenty years – if the following circumstances apply to your case:

Personal Discharging of a Firearm During the Commission of a Serious Felony (California Penal Code section 12022.53(c));

Personal Use of a Firearm During a Felony (California Penal Code section 12022.5)

Personal Use of a Dangerous Weapon During the Commission of a Felony (California Penal Code section 12022);

Inflicting Great Bodily Injury (GBI) (California Penal Code section 12022.7). Serious injury is defined as “great bodily injury” (same);

Inflicting Great Bodily Injury (GBI) On A Child Under the Age of Five Years (Penal Code section 12022.7(d));

Gang Enhancement (California Penal Code section 186.22);

Hate Crime (California Penal Code section 422.55);

Injuring an Elderly Person (California Penal Code section 368(b)(2)).

Defenses to Assault and Battery Criminal Charges — Assault With Intent to Commit Specified Crimes

In the vast majority of criminal cases in California, the presiding judge will provide your jury with instructions prepared by the Judicial Council of California. These “CALCRIM” instructions allow your jury to acquit you of the foregoing charges based on the following defenses:

1. You didn’t commit an act that would naturally, directly, & likely cause the “application of force” to the purported victim;
2. You didn’t act deliberately or intentionally (e.g., you accidentally “assaulted” the purported victim, or someone else’s act or acts caused you to “assault” them);
3. When you committed the act, you weren’t aware of facts that would reasonably cause you to understand that the natural, direct, and probable result of that act would cause said application of force;
4. When you committed the act, you didn’t have the “present” capacity to cause the application of said force;
5. When you committed the act, you didn’t intend to engage in any of the proscribed offenses set forth in Penal Code section 220(a), including First-Degree Residential Burglary (California Penal Code section 460(a); California Penal Code section 459) and Mayhem (California Penal Code section 203 & California Penal Code section 205);
6. The purported victim consented to the assault (though they may not have consented to the specified felony, in which case this will serve as mitigation for your sentence as opposed to a complete or “perfect” defense);
7. You did commit the assault but you have a valid defense to the alleged specified felony (please see the appropriate pages elsewhere on this website pertaining to these specified felonies).

See CALCRIM number 890 (“Assault with Intent to Commit Specified Crimes [While Committing First Degree Burglary] — Pen. Code § 220(a), (b)”).

See also CALCRIM number 891 (“Assault with Intent to Commit Mayhem — Pen. Code § 220(a)”).

Keep in mind that if you commit the assault but thereafter decide not to commit the specified felony, you will nevertheless be culpable for Assault with Intent to Commit a Felony (Pen. Code section 220) so long as you intended to commit that felony.

See People v. Trotter (1984) 160 Cal.App.3d 1217.

See also People v. Meichtry (1951) 37 Cal.2d 385.

Examples of Assault and Battery Crimes – Assault With Intent to Commit Specified Crimes

Anaheim Sex Offender Gets More than a Century in Prison for Three Sex-Crime Assaults

In the fall of 2015, Anaheim resident Christoph Moore (age 39 at the time) entered a retail establishment in DTLA, flashed an apparently fake detective’s shield at the female employee therein, and announced himself as a police detective. He instructed her to produce the establishment’s business permits and to close and lock up the store until he completed his “investigation”.

At that point, he instructed her to enter a restroom and to remove her clothing. After she refused to do so, he showed her the firearm holstered at his side. She then did as he ordered, but before Moore could sexually assault her, her spouse suddenly knocked on the locked exterior door, forcing Moore to hightail it out the back.

Thirty days later, in November 2015, Moore struck twice – two different Hollywood locations in less than seven days – with the same M.O. These times, however, he actually did sexually assault the victims.

The first was a foreigner here on an educational visa. When she paused to give an unhoused person some food, Moore accosted her, showed her his “detective’s shield”, then threatened to arrest her for providing the man narcotics. Moore thereafter shoved her up against a wall then squeezed her intimate body parts. When she struggled against him, he shoved his gun in her face and threatened to kill her. Unfortunately for Moore, the entire assault was filmed by a CCTV camera.

Approximately 48 hours later, he accosted another victim as she pulled into her driveway. He showed her his shield and explained that he was going to cite her for an expired DMV tag. He instructed her to exit the vehicle, shoved her up against it, then proceeded to fondle her intimate body parts before fleeing the scene.

LAPD sent all the local TV stations the CCTV footage from the previous assault, which resulted in several anonymous callers phoning in Moore’s ID. As a result, Anaheim PD arrested him three months after the first incident.

Moore was no novice to the California criminal justice system, having previously been convicted of the following felonies:

Assault with Intent to Commit Rape (Pen. Code sec. 220(a)(1)); and

Robbery (California Penal Code section 211).

As a result of the first conviction, he was forced to register for life as a sexual predator under California’s Sex Offender Registration law (California Penal Code section 290). This, of course, meant that all his pertinent information was publicly posted on the state’s Megan’s Law website.

In addition, both of these convictions were for Strike Offenses (California Penal Code section 667(a)&(b)).

Moore went to trial and lost spectacularly. He was convicted of the following felonies:

Assault with Intent to Commit Sexual Assault (Pen. Code section 220(a)(1)) – a Third Strike (Penal Code section 667(e)(2));

Making a Criminal Threat (California Penal Code section 422) – a Fourth Strike;

Grand Theft (California Penal Code section 487) (though it’s unclear what he stole);

Second-Degree Commercial Burglary (California Penal Code section 460(b)) (as a result of the first incident, where he entered a business with the intent to commit a felony – i.e., a sexual assault); and

False Imprisonment (California Penal Code section 236).

He was also found guilty of having committed the following misdemeanors:

Impersonating an Officer (California Penal Code section 538d); and

Sexual Battery (California Penal Code section 243.4(e)(1)).

In late July 2017, he received more than 110 years in prison (including all the Strike enhancements), which effectively resulted in a life sentence.

See: latimes.com.

Convicted Felon Gets No Additional Prison Time for Shanking His Informant in Jail

In late Dec. 2014, Douglas Lopez (age 22) was found guilty of having committed the following felonies:

Deliberate and Premeditated Attempted Murder (“First-Degree Attempted Murder”) (California Penal Code section 664 & California Penal Code section 187(a));

Attempted Robbery (California Penal Code section 211; Penal Code § 664);

Attempted Extortion (California Penal Code section 518; Pen. Code § 664);

Special Allegation for Personal Use of a Firearm During a Felony (California Penal Code section 12022.5); and

Special Allegation for Gang Enhancement (California Penal Code section 186.22).

In late April 2015, while awaiting transfer to prison at the Orange County Men’s Central Jail, Lopez spotted the man who had ratted him out to the police for the foregoing crimes. He slashed him in the face with a homemade shank but the informant did not sustain any serious injuries.

Just over two years later, in early June 2017, Lopez pled guilty to the following felonies:

Assault with Intent to Commit Mayhem (Pen. Code § 220(a)(1));

Assault with a Deadly Weapon (ADW) (California Penal Code section 245(a)(1)); and

Intimidating/Dissuading a Witness or Victim (California Penal Code section 136.1).

As a result, he received a seven-year prison sentence. Fortunately for him, however, the judge ordered that term to run concurrently with his original sentence for all the foregoing crimes. It remains unclear exactly how many years that term consisted of, but it was likely 25-to-life. In other words, Lopez got a “freebie”, most likely due to the minor injuries inflicted.

See: ocregister.com.