What is the test for a charge of felony murder?

We are satisfied that society is entitled to no lesser degree of protection when the charge is felony murder, involving as it does an attempt to commit a felony that by settled judicial definition must be "inherently dangerous to human life." (See, e.g., People v. Williams (1965) 63 Cal.2d 452, 457, 47 Cal.Rptr. 7, 406 P.2d 647.) As long as the trier of fact is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intended to commit a crime and was in the process of attempting to carry out that intent, no public purpose is served by drawing fine distinctions between those who have managed to satisfy some element of the offense and those who have not. ¹