SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — The appeal of an arsonist facing the death penalty in California reached the state’s highest court on Wednesday, as attorneys battled over intent and the legal definition of a killer.
Raymond Oyler, 54, is on death row for the 2006 Esperanza Fire near Cabazon, California, which took the lives of five firefighters. Authorities arrested Oyler days after the Riverside County blaze broke out. A jury in 2009 convicted Oyler and sentenced him to death on charges including murder and arson. Because it’s a death penalty case, the 54-year-old man’s appeal was automatic.
Oyler’s attorney, Michael Clough, argued that the high court should consider Senate Bill 1437 when ruling on the appeal. The 2018 law tweaked the requirements for a murder conviction. Someone must be the actual killer, have helped the actual killer with intent, or have been a major participant and acted with reckless indifference to human life.
The law enables people who don’t meet that criteria but have a murder conviction to petition a court to have their conviction vacated and be resentenced.
“The issue, then, is very specifically the meaning of the term ‘actual killer,’” Clough said.
The attorney argued that the law requires specific intent and reckless indifference, questioning whether the act of arson resulted in the deaths.
Some justices appeared to push back on Clough’s argument.
Associate Justice Leondra Kruger questioned how the jury in its verdict didn’t also find that Oyler was, in fact, the actual killer.
Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero noted there was only one person identified as the arsonist, Oyler, and there were no accomplices.
“If the person who started the Esperanza Fire isn’t the actual killer, who is the actual killer?” she asked.
According to Clough, the jury never received an instruction from the judge to determine whether Oyler was the actual killer or consider if he caused the deaths.
Associate Justice Carol Corrigan said the jury decided that Oyler started the Esperanza Fire.
“The jury’s verdict means that train left the station,” she added.
Deputy Attorney General Meredith White argued that performing an act causing a death is sufficient to make someone an actual killer. In Oyler’s case, there were 20 arsons within five months, though he wasn’t criminally charged with all of them. The Esperanza Fire grew to over 40,000 acres and swept over a fire engine and the five firefighters.
In order to convict, the jury had to find that Oyler’s actions caused their deaths.
“They were literally burned alive,” White said.
Oyler had training as a volunteer firefighter and would have known a fire he started would be dangerous, she said.
White said the definition of an “actual killer” is someone who commits an act that proximately causes another person’s death.
“And nothing else is required,” White added.
The deputy attorney general noted that the state’s law on murder, revised in 1977, was superseded the following year at the ballot box. That initiative increased the offenses that could lead to the death penalty.
White argued that adopting Oyler’s definition of an actual killer would be against the will of the voters.
She also questioned where the line would be if starting the Esperanza Fire didn’t make Oyler the actual killer. She asked if lighting a house on fire with someone inside, and they died, would qualify.
“But he did light a fire that released a devastating force,” White added, comparing it to someone firing a bullet that kills a person.
Kruger questioned if any argument was made at Oyler’s trial about whether something other than the fire caused the firefighters’ death. Clough said that they were defending a house that stood no chance against the blaze.
That led Corrigan to ask if he was arguing the firefighters’ decision to fight the blaze led to their deaths.
“I’m trying to figure out what argument you are making,” she said.
The California Supreme Court made no decision on Wednesday in the appeal.