Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
A Sacramento County jury convicted Valen Adams Morris for two September 5, 2022 incidents at a convenience store. During the first, employee Robin R. confronted Morris over two sodas and two sandwiches; the men pushed each other, Morris hit Robin in the head, and left, then returned to kick and break the front door. Surveillance footage captured the confrontation and Morris leaving with a sandwich. Several hours later he returned holding a sandwich, pulled out a knife, and swung it at employee Jagdeep C.'s stomach; Jagdeep hid behind the cash register. Officers detained Morris about half a mile from the store and found a folding knife in his pocket and a store sandwich wrapper in his car.
The People charged two counts of second degree robbery (counts one and three) and vandalism (count two), plus a prior serious-felony allegation and, by amendment, a deadly-or-dangerous-weapon allegation. Before trial the prosecution requested CALCRIM No. 372, the flight instruction. Morris objected for lack of evidence of flight, but the trial court found the record supported a flight argument and gave the instruction to tell the jury how to assess that evidence.
The jury found Morris guilty on count two, guilty of misdemeanor vandalism on count three, and guilty of petty theft as a lesser included offense on count one; it found true the deadly weapon use allegation, and the court found the prior strike true. The court sentenced Morris to an aggregate four years in state prison. He timely appealed, arguing insufficient evidence supported the flight instruction and that it prejudicially allowed an inference of consciousness of guilt.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal rejected Morris's federal due process challenge, noting the California Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected similar permissive-inference arguments. On state law, a flight instruction is proper when the circumstances of a defendant's departure logically permit an inference that the movement was motivated by guilty knowledge; flight requires a purpose to avoid observation or arrest, though not running or reaching a distant haven, and merely leaving the scene is insufficient. Instructional-error claims are reviewed de novo, viewing the instruction in the context of the instructions as a whole and the trial record.
The court found no error. CALCRIM No. 372 did not assume flight occurred; it left the jury to decide whether Morris fled and what meaning and importance to give that conduct, and it stated flight cannot prove guilt by itself. CALCRIM No. 200 told jurors not to assume the giving of an instruction suggested anything about the facts and to follow only the instructions that applied to the facts as they found them. The court called these correct statements of law: there was no error.
In any event, the court saw no reasonable probability Morris would have fared better without the instruction, given the conditional language of the instructions and the surveillance video capturing his conduct, which made the evidence of guilt strong. The judgment was affirmed.
Key Takeaways
- A flight instruction requires substantial evidence from which a jury could infer the defendant departed to avoid observation or arrest, not merely that he left the scene.
- The court rejected the federal due process challenge based on repeated California Supreme Court decisions rejecting similar permissive-inference arguments.
- CALCRIM No. 372 left both the existence and significance of flight to the jury and stated that flight cannot prove guilt by itself.
- CALCRIM No. 200 told jurors not to treat any instruction as the court's suggestion about the facts and to follow only instructions applicable to their findings.
- Because the instructions were correct and the video evidence strong, the court found no error and no reasonable probability of a better result, and affirmed.
Why It Matters
The decision shows a two-step appellate response to a flight-instruction challenge: rejection of the constitutional theory and a finding of no state-law error, with an alternative prejudice analysis. The court examined the instructions as a whole and the strength of the record rather than resting on flight evidence alone.
For similar appeals, the opinion underscores that conditional instruction language and surrounding instructions such as CALCRIM No. 200 matter, and that video evidence of the underlying conduct can independently defeat any claim of prejudice.