Forden v. Joseph G.

Opinion

MOSK, J.

Joseph G., a minor, was charged in a juvenile court petition to declare him a ward of the court (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 602) with murder (Pen. Code, § 187) and aiding and abetting a suicide (Pen. Code, § 401). At the contested adjudication hearing, the court sustained the petition as to the murder count but dismissed the aiding and abetting charge as inapplicable; the court further found that the murder was in the first degree.

In the case before us a genuine suicide pact was partially fulfilled by driving a car over a cliff; the primary issue is whether the survivor, who drove…