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Criminal Law Keyed to LaFave
Keeler v. Superior Court
Citation:
2 Cal.3d 619, 87 Cal.Rptr. 481, 470 P.2d 617 (1970)Facts
In 1969, Robert Keeler encountered his ex-wife Teresa, who was pregnant by another man. According to the evidence, upon noticing her pregnancy, Keeler became enraged, stating, “I’m going to stomp it out of you.” He then struck her in the abdomen multiple times. Teresa later underwent medical examination which revealed that her fetus, estimated at 28-36 weeks of development and viable, had died from a fractured skull. The autopsy showed the fetus had a severely fractured head, with the fracture extending through the skull into the brain cavity. Keeler was subsequently charged with murder under California Penal Code § 187, which at that time defined murder as the “unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.”
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