Case Title: Bouwkamp v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: 90-57

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1992-06-02T00:00:00Z

Document:
Bouwkamp v. State1992 WY 62833 P.2d 486Case Number: 90-57Decided: 06/02/1992Supreme Court of Wyoming
Marvin Jay BOUWKAMP, II, 

Appellant 
(Defendant),

v.

STATE of 
Wyoming,

 Appellee (Plaintiff).

Appeal from District 
Court of Johnson County, William A. Taylor, J.

Public Defender 
Program: Leonard D. Munker, State Public Defender, Steven E. Weerts, Sr. Asst. 
Public Defender, David Gosar, Appellate Counsel, Cheyenne, for 
appellant.

Joseph B. Meyer, 
Atty. Gen., John W. Renneisen, Deputy Atty. Gen., Karen A. Byrne, Sr. Asst. 
Atty. Gen., Hugh Kenny, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Cheyenne, for appellee. 

Before 
URBIGKIT, C.J., and THOMAS, CARDINE, MACY and GOLDEN, JJ.

GOLDEN, Justice.

[¶1]      Marvin J. 
Bouwkamp appeals from his conviction of first degree murder in the death of 
Lucien Millox on May 25, 1989, near Buffalo, Wyoming. Bouwkamp received a 
sentence of life in prison. He was tried on both premeditation and felony murder 
theories, and the jury returned a general verdict of guilty. We affirm 
Bouwkamp's conviction. The state's premeditation argument, however, does not 
adequately distinguish the elements of first and second degree murder. The court 
will comment on this distinction to provide guidance in this critical area of 
the law.

[¶2]      Bouwkamp presents 
three issues in his appeal:

I. By refusing to give 
appellant's theory of the case instruction to the jury, the trial court violated 
his constitutional right to due process.

II. Instruction 15 should 
not have been given in this case, and should no longer be the Wyoming rule of 
law, because:

1] the rationale 
supporting the felony murder doctrine is not served by this 
instruction;

2] a strict application 
of this rule led to a harsh and incorrect verdict in this case; and

3] this rule has the 
effect of imposing punishment beyond the defendant's culpability.

III. There is 
insufficient evidence to support the verdict and therefore the trial court erred 
in not entering a judgment of acquittal for the appellant.

The state 
responds to these three assertions, rephrasing them as:

I. The trial court 
properly refused to instruct the jury regarding a crime with which appellant was 
not charged.

II. Instruction 15 was a 
proper statement of the law and was supported by the facts in this 
case.

III. There was sufficient 
evidence to support the verdict.

FACTS

[¶3]      In the early 
morning hours of May 25, 1989, Lucien Millox, a 63-year-old Buffalo area ranch 
hand, was savagely battered and left to die at a location north of Buffalo known 
as the Rock Creek interchange. The beating took place on the roadway, and Millox 
was then stripped partially naked and thrown over a concrete barrier and out of 
the sight of travellers on the road; he died an hour or two later from brain 
swelling caused by multiple blunt trauma. On May 26, 1989, a local farmer 
noticed a large amount of dried blood on the road and a blood trail leading to 
and apparently over the barrier and stopped to investigate. Following the blood 
trail he discovered the body, which he immediately reported to the Johnson 
County sheriff's office. Millox's face was so badly battered that the body was 
unrecognizable, and fingerprints were needed to identify him. The Johnson County 
sheriff's office investigated the homicide with assistance from the Wyoming 
Division of Criminal Investigation and the Wyoming State Crime Lab.

[¶4]      Millox was last 
seen leaving Buffalo with Bouwkamp and Bouwkamp's employee, D.J. Lennick, after 
the bars closed early on May 25, 1989. Bouwkamp and Lennick first encountered 
Millox in a Buffalo bar on the evening of May 24. Bouwkamp, Lennick and Stagner, 
another employee, had come into Buffalo after work to drink beer and play pool; 
the three men were staying in the area while building a pole barn a short 
distance outside of Buffalo. Initially, they went to the 21 Club; it was there 
they met Millox. Stagner left the 21 Club and crossed the street to the Buffalo 
Club where a woman he knew was tending bar. Some time later, Lennick and Millox 
got into a dispute which was resolved without violence. Bouwkamp claimed that 
Millox pulled a knife on Lennick during this confrontation, but others present 
did not see one. At Bouwkamp's suggestion, Lennick also went to the Buffalo Club 
where he remained until it closed.

[¶5]      Some time before 
the 21 Club closed Bouwkamp and Millox struck up a conversation at the bar and 
bought each other drinks. Millox paid for drinks from a pile of bills he had 
placed on the counter in front of him. When the bar closed Millox asked Bouwkamp 
for a ride home. Bouwkamp, followed by Millox, went to the Buffalo Club to get 
Lennick; it was there that Bouwkamp heard about an after-hours party. Millox 
claimed he knew where to find the party and offered to guide Bouwkamp there. The 
three left Buffalo in Bouwkamp's shop truck. Millox was killed shortly 
thereafter.

[¶6]      Bouwkamp admitted 
he was present when Millox was killed, but claimed he had nothing to do with the 
killing. In Bouwkamp's version of the subsequent events, the three men left 
Buffalo in Bouwkamp's truck, with Bouwkamp driving, Millox riding with him in 
front, and Lennick lying in back on the flatbed. They looked for the party, but 
could not find it. Bouwkamp testified that after slowly driving a couple of 
miles out of town while searching for the party, he stopped the truck at the 
Rock Creek interchange at Millox's request so that Millox could relieve himself. 
Lennick climbed off the truck and Millox immediately attacked Lennick, again 
pulling a knife, which Bouwkamp was forced to wrestle from him. Lennick struck 
Millox several times during this struggle. Bouwkamp testified that, although 
words were still being exchanged, he believed the incident was over and the 
other two were under control, and he walked up the ramp to the interstate above 
to orient himself. However, as he returned he saw the other two exchange blows, 
Millox fall to the ground, and Lennick stomp on Millox's face.

[¶7]      Bouwkamp 
testified he then tried to pull Lennick off Millox, but when he grabbed Lennick 
from behind, the younger and stronger man simply shrugged him off, flinging him 
to the ground. Lennick, who was intoxicated and in a rage, then threatened 
Bouwkamp as well, until finally recognizing him and calming down. After calming 
Lennick, Bouwkamp knelt and checked Millox's condition. He could see that Millox 
was badly battered and could not find a pulse, leading him to believe that 
Millox was dead.

[¶8]      Bouwkamp admitted 
that he decided to attempt to cover up the killing. He and Lennick partially 
stripped Millox and took his knife, checkbook, watch and belt buckle and some of 
his clothing, planning to destroy these items to cover up the victim's identity 
and their involvement in his death. They then dumped what they believed was a 
dead body over the barrier at the side of the road and tried to remove evidence 
of their presence from the crime scene. Bouwkamp recalled trying to hide next to 
his truck during this time when a vehicle drove by. Bouwkamp testified that he 
did these things out of shock, fear of what would happen to him because he was 
on probation for a felony car theft, and a desire to protect 
Lennick.

[¶9]      At about the time 
the murder occurred, the same farmer who subsequently discovered the body drove 
through the crime scene as he returned home from a bull sale in South Dakota. He 
saw what was later identified as Bouwkamp's vehicle, a flatbed truck with 
Montana plates and a missing taillight, parked in the road under the interstate 
at the interchange. He also observed a man in a Stetson type hat crouched 
alongside the truck, apparently hiding his face from view. He did not see anyone 
else and thought at the time the man might have been relieving himself. He 
reported this observation to investigators after he discovered the 
body.

[¶10]   Bouwkamp and Lennick placed 
Millox's clothing and some of the bloodstained clothing they had been wearing in 
plastic bags, which they hid in the travel trailer they stayed in at the 
jobsite. They finished the barn the following day, packed up and returned to 
their homes in Billings, Montana. Lennick then took Millox's personal items and 
all the clothing the two had gathered, except for Bouwkamp's boots, from the 
trailer. He burned the clothing, but gave Millox's knife, watch and belt buckle 
to his father, apparently after his father asked for them in order to turn them 
over to Lennick's attorney.

[¶11]   Investigators with a search warrant 
seized Bouwkamp's truck and travel trailer in Billings. Lennick was arrested on 
May 29, 1989, and Bouwkamp turned himself in to authorities the following day. 
Investigators also received Millox's knife from Lennick's attorney, and his 
watch and belt buckle from another law enforcement agency that had recovered 
them after they had been stolen from Lennick's father. Bouwkamp's bloodstained 
boots were found in the trailer and dried blood samples were collected from the 
spatters found on Bouwkamp's truck. The blood from the boots and truck matched 
that of the victim, as did hair fragments found in the dried blood on Bouwkamp's 
boots.

[¶12]   Codefendant Lennick pled guilty to 
first degree murder before trial and received a life sentence. He testified at 
Bouwkamp's trial, although he was unable to recall much about the incident 
apparently because of what was described as an alcoholic blackout. Bouwkamp 
testified on his own behalf. The jury returned a general verdict of guilty of 
murder in the first degree.

THEORY OF THE CASE 
INSTRUCTION

[¶13]   Bouwkamp correctly asserts that due 
process considerations entitle criminal defendants to affirmatively stated 
theory of the case instructions when two conditions are met. Murray v. State, 
776 P.2d 206, 209 (Wyo. 1989); Best v. State, 736 P.2d 739, 744 (Wyo. 1987). The 
instruction must sufficiently inform the court of the defendant's theory and 
must be supported by competent evidence. Id. However, there is another 
fundamental condition precedent which was not met by the offered instruction. 
The instruction must in the first instance be a proper theory of the case, or 
theory of defense, instruction. That is, the offered instruction must present a 
defense recognized by statute or case law in this jurisdiction. The instruction 
Bouwkamp contends was improperly refused did not present such a 
defense.

[¶14]   Bouwkamp's offered instruction 
describes the crime of accessory after the fact. Suggestion of an alternative 
charge is not a defense to the crime being prosecuted. It may offer the jury a 
different way to interpret the facts, but does not present a defense against the 
murder charge. Like the defendant in Ellifritz v. State, 704 P.2d 1300 (Wyo. 
1985), Bouwkamp contends the evidence did not prove his guilt of the crime 
charged. In Ellifritz, 704 P.2d  at 1301, this court said, "[a] theory of the 
case is more than a comment on the evidence. What appellant suggests in his 
proposed instructions is comment on the evidence - in effect, telling the jury 
how * * * to consider the evidence." Ellifritz, 704 P.2d  at 1301. This approach, 
we went on to say, does not state a theory of defense. Id. at 1302.

[¶15]   Theory of defense instructions are 
to be derived from and address criminal defenses provided for by statute or 
acknowledged by this court. "Common-law defenses are retained unless otherwise 
provided by this act." Wyo. Stat. § 6-1-102(b) (June 1988). Additionally, this 
court has discussed acceptable defenses, notably in Keser v. State, 706 P.2d 263, 269 (Wyo. 1985). See also 1 Paul H. Robinson, Criminal Law Defenses § 21, 
70 n. 1 (1984); 1 Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law § 39 (14th ed. 
1978). Bouwkamp's "theory of defense" does not state a defense recognized in 
Wyoming by statute or judicial decision.

[¶16]   We note the disputed instruction is 
apparently taken verbatim from Wyoming Pattern Jury Instructions - Criminal, 
WPJIC § 3.302, Elements of Accessory After the Fact. While reiterating that the 
WPJIC serves only as a guide for counsel, we observe that it includes two 
separate parts labelled Defenses and Excused Action and that this instruction 
was not taken from either, but instead simply states the elements of an 
offense.

[¶17]   Bouwkamp did not rely on a defense 
recognized by Wyo. Stat. § 6-1-102 or this court that would merit a theory of 
the case instruction. Instead, his true defense was the simplest and most direct 
of all: he denied guilt of the crime charged. He argued he was not guilty of 
killing Millox, although he was willing to admit that he helped cover up the 
murder. In other words, he defended by claiming to be innocent of the crime 
charged. On this argument he received adequate instructions.

[¶18]   Bouwkamp points out that this court 
apparently considered an accessory after the fact argument as a theory of 
defense in Miller v. State, 755 P.2d 855 (Wyo. 1988). We reject that 
interpretation. However the Miller instruction may have been labelled, it 
adequately covered that which Miller wished instruction on, while his offered 
instructions were rejected because they were argumentative and confusing. Id. at 
865. The Miller opinion does not hold that an accessory after the fact argument 
is a theory of defense to a murder charge, and the opinion should not be so 
read.

[¶19]   Bouwkamp's offered instruction, 
which was refused by the court, cannot be considered a theory of the case 
instruction. Without this characterization it is seen as essentially an attempt 
to amend the charges. However, as the state asserts, the charging decision lies 
with the prosecutor and the defendant cannot alter or amend the charges. The 
refused instruction listed the elements of our accessory after the fact 
statute1 and provided for a jury 
determination of defendant's guilt for that crime. It is a comment on the 
evidence designed to persuade the jury that while Bouwkamp was guilty of another 
crime, he was not guilty as charged.

[¶20]   The trial court correctly chose to 
reject the instruction because it described a crime not charged and one which 
was not a lesser included offense of murder in the first degree. "It would have 
been confusing to the jury to be instructed on a crime not charged, and one on 
which they could not convict." Miller, 755 P.2d  at 865. Additionally, the trial 
court had no obligation to give a "correct" version of the proposed instruction 
as it did not apprise the jury of a recognized theory of defense that would 
entitle Bouwkamp to an instruction.

[¶21]   While Bouwkamp was not permitted 
this instruction, he was not compromised in arguing his alternative 
interpretation of the facts to the jury. He did so vigorously, both through his 
counsel's efforts and through his own testimony as to the events of Millox's 
death. The jury chose not to believe him. As the rejected instruction did not 
present a theory of defense to the charge of murder, the trial court did not err 
in refusing to give it. The court gave the following instruction:

INSTRUCTION 
15

     For the purposes of 
establishing the crime of felony murder, a killing which occurred in the 
perpetration of a robbery, the sequence of events is unimportant and the killing 
may precede, coincide with or follow the robbery and still be committed in its 
perpetration.

[¶22]   Bouwkamp argues that this 
instruction should not have been given and should no longer be the rule of law 
in Wyoming. He reasons it does not further the felony murder rationale, it led 
to an incorrect verdict against Bouwkamp, and its effect is to impose punishment 
disproportionate to a defendant's culpability. We disagree. The instruction as 
given accurately states the law, and Bouwkamp has not demonstrated the dire 
consequences that he alleges flowed from its use.

Felony-murder is an 
unusual offense in that the death arising out of the robbery is purely an 
incident of the basic offense. It makes no difference whether or not there was 
an intent to kill. The statutory law implies all of the malevolence found and 
necessary in the crime of first degree murder alone.

Richmond v. 
State, 554 P.2d 1217, 1232 (Wyo. 1976). Consequently, a defendant convicted 
under this language faces the same penalties as one convicted of premeditated, 
that is, coolly calculated murder. The element of deliberation is established by 
the defendant's presumed consideration of the high degree of risk of causing 
death involved in the commission of one of the inherently dangerous felonies 
expressly incorporated into our first degree statute. Richmond, 554 P.2d  at 
1232. 

[¶23]   In its brief the state acknowledges 
there may be merit in Bouwkamp's claim that the felony murder rule should not be 
applied in the instance where the felony arises as an afterthought and is 
committed subsequent to the murder. The rationale underlying this claim is that 
the purpose of the rule is to deter homicides in the course of felonies, 
including those resulting from negligence or accident, by holding the 
perpetrators strictly responsible. Richmond, 554 P.2d  at 1232. This purpose does 
not logically reach the circumstance where the felony is conceived of and 
executed after the killing has occurred. However, the state then argues that the 
issue of misapplication of the felony murder rule does not arise from the trial 
court's giving of Instruction 15 in this case. We agree with both 
contentions.

[¶24]   The key phrase in the instruction, 
"in the perpetration of," relied on by the state is found in Cloman v. State, 
574 P.2d 410, 418-21 (Wyo. 1978). "Perpetration," as used here, is the act or 
process of commission of a specified crime. Webster's Third New International 
Dictionary 1684 (1971). To occur in the perpetration of a felony the killing 
must occur in the unbroken chain of events comprising the felony. See Cloman, 
574 P.2d  at 419-22. In Cloman we framed the concept in this way: "the time 
sequence is not important as long as the evidence, including the inferences, 
point to one continuous transaction." Cloman, at 420. This means that, for a 
finding of felony murder, the killing must occur as part of the res gestae or 
"things done to commit" the felony. If the felony was not conceived of before 
the victim's death but occurs after the murder, the chain is broken, and the 
murder is a separate act which cannot have occurred "in the perpetration of" the 
underlying felony. See United States v. Mack, 466 F.2d 333, 338 (D.C. Cir. 1972) 
cert. denied sub nom. Johnson v. United States, 409 U.S. 952, 93 S. Ct. 297, 34 L. Ed. 2d 223; see also Grigsby v. State, 260 Ark. 499, 542 S.W.2d 275, 280 
(1976).

[¶25]   While the sequence of events is not 
significant, their interrelationship is. A specific connection is required: the 
murder must occur in the performance of the felony for conviction of felony 
murder under Wyo. Stat. § 6-2-101 (June 1988).

[¶26]   Instruction 15 requires that, 
before Bouwkamp could be found guilty of felony murder, the murder must be 
proved to have occurred in the perpetration of, or during transaction of, the 
robbery of Millox. Consequently, it does not dictate application of the felony 
murder rule where both the intent to commit the felony and the act itself follow 
the murder as a separate transaction, as Bouwkamp contended happened 
here.

[¶27]   Whether the killing and the felony 
were part and parcel of one transaction is a jury question. Annotation, What 
Constitutes Termination of Felony for Purpose of Felony Murder Rule, 58 A.L.R.3d 
851 § 5 (1974). Without doubt it may be difficult to persuade a jury on facts 
such as these that there were two separate criminal transactions. The jury is 
not bound to accept a defendant's version of events, Grigsby, 260 Ark. at 508, 
542 S.W.2d  at 280. This jury chose not to believe Bouwkamp's story. We note that 
the evidence and inferences satisfy the one continuous transaction test imposed 
by the directive that the murder occur "in the perpetration of" the 
felony.

[¶28]   We expressly reject the suggestion 
that Cloman may be read to permit a conviction for felony murder where intent to 
commit the felony cannot be inferred before the murder and the chain of events 
is apparently broken. When a reasonable doubt remains as to whether the felony 
may have occurred as an afterthought that followed the killing, the killing 
cannot have been "in the perpetration of the felony," and the homicide may not 
be elevated to murder in the first degree by application of the felony murder 
rule. This is our understanding of the legislature's intent. Although the 
proposition of law may perhaps be stated more plainly, Instruction 15 presents a 
correct statement of the law, and the trial court did not err in giving it. 

SUFFICIENCY OF THE 
EVIDENCE

[¶29]   Bouwkamp's final contention is that 
the evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to support his conviction 
of murder in the first degree under either the premeditation or felony murder 
theories argued by the state. Bouwkamp directs most of his argument to the 
felony murder theory, claiming that there was not sufficient evidence of robbery 
in light of his alternative explanation of how the victim's body came to be 
stripped and Lennick's possession of some of Millox's personal 
effects.

[¶30]   Bouwkamp claimed that Millox's body 
was stripped of clothing and property after his death only to cover up his 
identity. However, our reading of the record reveals that the jury had enough 
evidence and reasonable inferences available to it on which to find that Millox 
was murdered only after the intent to commit robbery was formed and to effect 
that purpose.

[¶31]   To determine whether sufficient 
evidence of a crime exists, "[w]e examine all the evidence in the light most 
favorable to the State." Mendicoa v. State, 771 P.2d 1240, 1243 (Wyo. 1989). See 
also Broom v. State, 695 P.2d 640, 642 (Wyo. 1985). In so doing, we note the 
testimony of Bouwkamp's drinking with Millox while the victim placed his stack 
of bills on the bar, the travel of the trio to a remote location, the ultimate 
disappearance of the victim's cash without any explanation, and Lennick's 
retention of Millox's personal items having utility or value. Our standard of 
review is not whether the evidence is sufficient for us, but whether, when 
viewed favorably to the state, it was enough on which a jury could form a 
reasonable inference of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Mendicoa, 771 P.2d  at 
1243. That test is satisfied in this case.

[¶32]   Likewise, we find the evidence of 
premeditation sufficient. We are somewhat troubled with the evidence of 
premeditation offered by the state. It is apparent that the hedgerow separating 
the offenses of first and second degree murder has fallen into some disrepair, 
requiring that we do some pruning to restore the boundary.

[¶33]   Wyo. Stat. § 6-2-101 defines murder 
in the first degree as a killing committed "purposely and with premeditated 
malice" [or one occurring in the course of a felony or attempted felony]. Wyo. 
Stat. § 6-2-104 (June 1988) defines murder in the second degree as a killing 
committed "purposely and maliciously, but without premeditation." As second 
degree murder is a lesser included offense of first degree murder, State v. 
Selig, 635 P.2d 786, 791 (Wyo. 1981), a distinction obviously exists between the 
charges, which is the element of premeditation required for a finding of murder 
in the first degree. Another apparent distinction is that first degree murder is 
a specific intent crime, requiring proof of the element of intent, while second 
degree murder is a general intent crime, requiring only proof of the element of 
voluntariness. Crozier v. State, 723 P.2d 42, 52 (Wyo. 1986). We conclude 
premeditation is the specific intent element which distinguishes the two types 
of murder.

[¶34]   Premeditation, or premeditated 
malice, should be accorded its ordinary meaning, which has been applied in our 
decisions for some time. It is the "thinking over, deliberating upon, weighing 
in the mind beforehand, resulting in a deliberate intention to kill which 
constitutes the killing murder in the first degree." Parker v. State, 24 Wyo. 
491, 502, 161 P. 552, 555 (1916). Premeditation may be inferred from the facts 
and circumstances. Murry v. State, 713 P.2d 202, 206 (Wyo. 1986); Goodman v. 
State, 573 P.2d 400, 407 (Wyo. 1977).

[¶35]   This court's recent discussions of 
premeditation have focused on the passage of time required to establish 
premeditation. See generally, Murry, 713 P.2d  at 206-07. While it is true that 
no specific or substantial time period is required, there must be evidence of 
cool calculation beyond the mere opportunity to deliberate, such as a 
demonstrated motive, State v. Williams, 285 N.W.2d 248, 268 (Iowa 1979),2 or leaving an altercation to arm 
oneself. Murry, 713 P.2d  at 207. Otherwise, having said an instant is 
sufficient, we have inadvertently eliminated any principled distinction between 
the evidentiary requirements for the two degrees of homicide. See State v. 
Ollens, 107 Wn.2d 848, 733 P.2d 984, 987 (1987). "The question is not only, did 
the accused have time to think, but did he think?" Williams, 285 N.W.2d  at 268 
(quoting State v. Wilson, 234 Iowa 60, 94, 11 N.W.2d 737, 754 (1943)).3

[¶36]   The state does not make a 
compelling case for premeditation. We are simply reminded of the number of blows 
delivered, the inference that a weapon of some sort was used, and informed that 
it would be obvious to anyone that such a brutal attack directed at the head 
would inevitably cause death. Repeated blows with a weapon evidence purpose and 
demonstrate malice, but "repeated blows" evidence does not establish 
premeditation.

[¶37]   The state erroneously argues that 
premeditation can be inferred from the use of a weapon. As we said earlier, this 
court has held that premeditation may be inferred from the circumstances 
surrounding the killing. Murry, 713 P.2d  at 206. This court has never said that 
the circumstance of a deadly weapon is by itself enough to infer premeditation. 
What we have said is that "malice may be inferred by the use of a deadly 
weapon." Braley v. State, 741 P.2d 1061, 1069 (Wyo. 1987).

[¶38]   Neither can the brutality of a 
fatal attack, in itself, support an inference of premeditation. State v. 
Lacquey, 117 Ariz. 231, 234, 571 P.2d 1027, 1030 (1977); People v. Hoffmeister, 
394 Mich. 155, 229 N.W.2d 305, 307 (1975). See 2 Wayne R. LaFave & Austin W. 
Scott, Jr., Substantive Criminal Law § 7.7(a) at 240 (1986). We have examined 
decisions from other jurisdictions which appear to bootstrap malice in the form 
of savagely administered wounds into premeditation by characterizing it as 
circumstances attending the killing. See Heiney v. State, 447 So. 2d 210 (Fla. 
1984); and Tooley v. State, 1 Tenn.Cr. App. 652, 448 S.W.2d 683 (1969). This is 
inappropriate, and we decline to align Wyoming with these jurisdictions. A sure 
hazard devolving from the difficulty of establishing premeditation when 
confronted with a factually heinous crime is that malice tends to assume 
excessive significance, while the requirement of evidence of preexisting 
reflection becomes indistinct. We affirm that premeditation remains the defining 
crux and the distinction which this court will require to uphold a first degree 
murder conviction.

[¶39]   We have taken this opportunity to 
carefully review our premeditation jurisprudence. We find that heretofore we 
have not identified and articulated a method for evaluating evidence of 
premeditation. To clarify what is required on appeal to sustain a conviction of 
first degree murder and to analyze the evidence presented in this instance, we 
adopt the three-part framework articulated by the California Supreme Court, 
applied in California and other jurisdictions. See People v. Bloom, 48 Cal. 3d 1194, 774 P.2d 698, 705-07, 259 Cal. Rptr. 669, 676-78 (1989); Williams, 285 N.W.2d  at 268; Longoria v. State, 99 Nev. 754, 670 P.2d 939, 941 (1983). See 
also, 2 LaFave & Scott, supra, § 7.7(a) at 239. We offer the framework 
verbatim:

     Evidence sufficient to 
sustain a finding of premeditation and deliberation "falls into three basic 
categories: (1) facts about * * * what defendant did prior to the actual killing 
which show that the defendant was engaged in activity directed toward, and 
explicable as intended to result in, the killing - what may be characterized as 
`planning' activity; (2) facts about the defendant's prior relationship 
and/or conduct with the victim from which the jury could reasonably infer a 
`motive' to kill the victim, which inference of motive, together with facts of 
type (1) or (3) would * * * support an inference that the killing was the result 
of `a pre-existing reflection' and `careful thought and weighing of 
considerations' rather than `mere unconsidered or rash impulse hastily 
executed'; (3) facts about the nature of the killing from which the jury could 
infer that the manner of killing was so particular and exacting that the 
defendant must have intentionally killed according to a `preconceived design' to 
take [the] victim's life in a particular way for a `reason' which the jury can 
reasonably infer from facts of type (1) or (2)."

People v. 
Crandell, 46 Cal. 3d 833, 760 P.2d 423, 441, 251 Cal. Rptr. 227 (1988) (quoting 
People v. Anderson, 70 Cal. 2d 15, 447 P.2d 942, 949, 73 Cal. Rptr. 550, 557 
(1968)) (citations omitted).

[V]erdicts of first 
degree murder typically [are sustained] when there is evidence of all three 
types and otherwise require at least extremely strong evidence of (1) or 
evidence of (2) in conjunction with either (1) or (3).

People v. 
Anderson, 70 Cal. 2d 15, 447 P.2d  at 949, 73 Cal. Rptr.  at 557.

[¶40]   With reference to the foregoing 
three basic categories, the first type of evidence we consider is that 
characterized as planning activity. The evidence is questionable regarding 
"activity directed towards, and explicable as intended to result in, the 
killing." Initially, Bouwkamp did not initiate Millox's fatal trip. Instead, 
Millox left town with Bouwkamp because he had asked Bouwkamp for a ride home. 
Subsequent travel to an unpopulated stretch of rural road may be explicable as 
intended to result in the killing, but the location as readily explained by 
Bouwkamp's knowledge of, and search for, the after-hours party.

[¶41]   The state points to the inferred 
use of a weapon and relies on Cloman to make the argument that this is a 
circumstance from which premeditation can be inferred. However, this is a 
substantially different case. First, the use of a weapon is only inferred, as no 
weapon was discovered or even specifically described. We are being asked to 
endorse an inference upon an inference. Second, the state's suggestion is that 
the weapon used on Millox was probably a tool or stake taken from the back of 
the shop truck. Use of a weapon of this nature is not, by any reasonable 
stretch, evidence of planning. Such an instrument is normally found on a vehicle 
used in construction, and if such a weapon were used, it is at least as 
suggestive of spontaneity as of planning. Consequently, the state is not asking 
this court to infer, but to speculate. People v. Rowland, 134 Cal. App. 3d 1, 8, 
184 Cal. Rptr. 346, 349 (1982). This is distinctly different from the weapon in 
Cloman, a knife apparently concealed on the person of one of the defendants 
before encountering the victims, and then used to commit the murders. We find no 
evidence of planning activity.

[¶42]   The second category of evidence is 
that related to the prior relationship of the accused and the victim that 
suggests a motive or motives to murder the victim. This court has discussed the 
significance of motive evidence in several earlier first degree murder cases. 
Jones v. State, 568 P.2d 837, 844 (Wyo. 1977); Buckles v. State, 500 P.2d 518, 
523 (Wyo. 1972); Keffer v. State, 12 Wyo. 49, 69-70, 73 P. 556, 561 
(1903).

[¶43]   There is little that suggests 
animosity between Bouwkamp and Millox. The two interacted for the first time the 
evening of the murder. They spoke to each other only briefly, near closing time, 
and that was a friendly conversation, in the course of which they bought each 
other drinks. At the conclusion of that conversation Millox asked Bouwkamp for a 
ride home, evidence of their mutual comfort level. Lennick did have some sort of 
brief altercation with Millox earlier that evening, but Bouwkamp was only 
peripherally involved.

[¶44]   However, there is evidence of 
motive for robbery, or avoiding detection for robbery, based on Bouwkamp's 
observation at the bar of Millox's roll of bills. Robbery is sufficient motive 
to justify an inference of premeditation. Keffer, 73 P.  at 561; State v. Gordon, 
354 N.W.2d 783, 784 (Iowa 1984); Ollens, 733 P.2d  at 987.

[¶45]   The final category is evidence of 
the "nature of the killing from which the jury could infer that the manner of 
killing was so particular and exacting that the defendant must have 
intentionally killed according to a `preconceived design.'" Here there is merit 
in the state's argument regarding the blows administered to Millox. The exacting 
application of repeated, severe blows across the face is evidence supporting the 
inference of a deliberate intent to kill.

[¶46]   Returning to the analytical 
framework, evidence of the nature of the killing to support a finding of 
premeditation must be supported by reasons reasonably inferred from category (1) 
or category (2) facts. As robbery is sufficient motive, here support for the 
evidence of the nature of the killing exists from category (2) evidence, 
motive.

[¶47]   While the evidence is not 
overwhelming, we again employ our standard of review for sufficiency of the 
evidence in a criminal case and find the verdict adequately supported. We 
consider only whether the jury could find as it did, and not whether we would 
have reached the same result. Mendicoa, 771 P.2d  at 1243. Doing so, we find the 
evidence of premeditation sufficient to support an inference of guilt beyond a 
reasonable doubt. Our analysis does not reveal evidence from all three 
categories since we do not identify evidence of planning activity. However, the 
motive of robbery is present and may properly be coupled with the exacting 
nature of the fatal blows to Millox's skull to support an inference of 
premeditation.

[¶48]   We hold that the evidence 
considered by the jury was sufficient to sustain Bouwkamp's conviction on both 
felony murder and premeditation theories. As this court recently held in Price 
v. State, 807 P.2d 909 (Wyo. 1991), where the evidence is sufficient to support 
the jury's determination of guilt under either a premeditation or a felony 
murder theory, we will sustain a general verdict of guilt.

[¶49]   Bouwkamp's arguments are not 
persuasive, and his conviction is affirmed.

URBIGKIT, Chief Justice, 
dissenting.

I.

ISSUES PRESENTED - BASIC 
FALLACY OF THE MAJORITY OPINION

[¶50]   This case presents broad and basic 
issues of Wyoming law: (a) availability of a theory of defense instruction for a 
criminal defendant; (b) basic nature and application of felony murder; (c) 
nature of the crime of accessory after the fact; and (d) requirement for jury 
unanimity in determining its verdict.

[¶51]   Marvin Jay Bouwkamp, II, now 
serving a life sentence for first degree murder, was convicted for commission of 
the offense of accessory after the fact, which he admitted and for which he was 
not prosecuted, and was denied proper opportunity to present his defense of 
innocence to the charge of aiding and abetting in commission of a homicide, 
which he emphatically denied. Whether completely innocent or totally guilty of 
criminal responsibility for the first degree murder, Bouwkamp was denied the 
constitutional right to adequately defend his claimed innocence of homicide 
participation.

[¶52]   Errors in conception and 
misapplication of firmly based criminal principles properly presented by 
Bouwkamp during his trial, and now considered on appeal, include: (1) denial of 
a theory of defense instruction in his admission of participation in cover-up 
activities after the homicide with denial of any actual participation in the 
death; (2) misapplication of his accessory after the fact admission and 
testimony to create presumptive proof of guilt of premeditated and felony 
murder; (3) trial theory development, procedural application and jury 
instruction which eliminated the requirement that the homicide result from 
commission of a felony and consequently justified felony murder conviction when 
the only crime was conduct as an accessory after the fact following a homicide 
committed and admitted by his employee; and (4) usage of a single crime jury 
verdict form for the alternative crimes of either felony murder or premeditated 
murder eliminating the requirement that the jury reach unanimous agreement on 
the essential elements proving first degree murder.

II.

INTRODUCTION

[¶53]   Bouwkamp's involvement in a 
terrible tragedy totally unnecessary and absolutely unjustified is not at issue 
in this appeal. What is presented is his constitutional right and litigative 
opportunity to properly defend in order that a homicide by another person does 
not, through presumption from court instruction, result in his incarceration for 
life for that crime. In my analysis, Bouwkamp was denied an adequate opportunity 
at trial to defend against the first degree murder charge.

[¶54]   Consequently, I 
dissent.

[¶55]   In first issue, Bouwkamp asked for 
a theory of defense instruction which defined his admitted responsibility as an 
accessory after the fact. He was denied that instruction on the basis now 
represented by the majority that he was not entitled to such a defense after 
admitting post-death involvement by denied contributory responsibility when his 
companion admitted to and pled guilty to the homicide. In my opinion, the 
claimed instructional error in applying a presumption of participation in the 
homicide by the occurrence of post-death misconduct improperly contains a 
presumption of guilt as a basis for conviction. I continue in further 
disagreement to be disenchanted with the Cloman v. State, 574 P.2d 410 (Wyo. 
1978) dictum to justify alternative guilty jury decision conceptualizations, 
which elements no longer need unanimity in jury decision. Price v. State, 807 P.2d 909 (Wyo. 1991), Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting; Prime v. State, 767 P.2d 149 
(Wyo. 1989), Urbigkit, J., dissenting.

[¶56]   The entire basis of Bouwkamp's 
defense was in denial that he caused or assisted in the homicide; but that by 
being present thereafter, he admittedly participated in a cover up which 
established his criminal activity to be an accessory after the fact. Wyo. Stat. 
§ 6-5-202 (1988). The majority takes Bouwkamp's admitted conduct of being an 
accessory after the fact and, by use of the transference of time instruction 
from Cloman, "what happened when does not matter," proves guilt of an offense 
which was denied by the accused. At the same time, Bouwkamp is not permitted to 
define his theory of defense in jury instruction. The Wyoming Supreme Court 
comes to this status of prosecutorial preeminence by three interesting 
observations. The first is guilt admission within the course of events to 
participation only in post-murder wrongdoing, it is not a defense to the crime 
prosecuted. The second is "`[i]t would have been confusing for the jury to be 
instructed on a crime not charged, and one on which they could not convict.'" 
Maj. op. at 491 (quoting Miller v. State, 755 P.2d 855, 865 (Wyo. 1988)). And 
then finally, the sequence of events is unimportant whether the killing 
precedes, coincides with or follows the robbery to demonstrate required 
perpetration necessarily involved in felony murder guilt.

[¶57]   By sequential analysis, it is 
obvious that that course of reasoning reconstructs Wyo. Stat. § 6-5-202, 
accessory after the fact, into a preemptive co-participant stature in the 
homicide even though the actual facts in the particular case may be determinably 
contrary. Wyoming law is applied in a fashion contrary to the legislative intent 
determined in enactment of Wyo. Stat. § 6-5-202 in its explicit and easily 
understood and applied provisions. See Allied-Signal, Inc. v. Wyoming State Bd. 
of Equalization, 813 P.2d 214 (Wyo. 1991).

[¶58]   A hard look at the components of 
this majority's syllogism demonstrates it, in text, to be lacking in logic and 
shaky in foundational precedent. The majority announces that the jury could have 
convicted Bouwkamp of aiding and abetting in premeditated murder. The simple 
answer to that is the jury did not make that separate decision. It is more 
likely that the jury decided the case based upon the accessory after the fact 
establishing complicity in the robbery, which then related back to the prior 
homicide creating felony murder, and then provided the required proof of first 
degree murder. The second yet simple answer is that no one can actually 
determine from this record that the jury did not travel down that exact 
decisional pathway to the first degree murder verdict. This appeal presents 
anything but a jury decision beyond a reasonable doubt unanimously determining 
Bouwkamp's guilt of first degree murder.

[¶59]   In characterization, this is a case 
where Bouwkamp is told there is a constitution and a right to due process in 
providing the jury his theory of the defense, but not in his case. We recite 
regularly that for a jury trial, the litigant is provided the right to have jury 
instructions stating the theory of his case,1 but Bouwkamp is told, "not in your 
case." A fundamental rule of criminal conviction in this state is that the 
accused is entitled to a unanimous verdict as a principle of constitutional law 
under the Wyoming Constitution before the accused is convicted. W.R.Cr.P. 31 
(formerly W.R.Cr.P. 32) identifies "[t]he verdict shall be unanimous," and Wyo. 
Const. art. 1, § 9 provides the guarantee, but not in this case. Bouwkamp was 
convicted without requirement that the jury render a unanimous verdict on either 
his guilt or involvement in premeditated murder as one offense, or felony murder 
effectuated by intended robbery as another. Finally, the majority has not 
followed for Bouwkamp the Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S. Ct. 2450, 61 L. Ed. 2d 39 (1979) requirement that a criminal conviction cannot result from 
usage of a mandatory presumption. This is not a sufficiency of the evidence 
appeal; structured for consideration are the basic questions of instruction, 
presumption and verdict form.

[¶60]   Absolutely nothing in this record 
preclusively demonstrates that Bouwkamp desired, agreed, assisted or supported 
the homicide or, conversely, that he did not intend to do each and all; except 
his testimony, which was the only definitive evidence on the subject. People v. 
La Belle, 18 N.Y.2d 405, 276 N.Y.S.2d 105, 222 N.E.2d 727 (1966). Realistically, 
absolutely nothing in this record establishes, as the case was instructed and 
the jury verdict submitted, that the conviction was based on anything except the 
obvious and admitted accessory after the fact conduct following the unexpected 
and undesired alcoholic-induced blackout precipitated homicide committed by 
Donald Lennick without reason or pre-planning. In this case, perhaps Bouwkamp 
deserves a life confinement sentence for his participation in these events of 
tragedy and alcoholic dysfunctional behavior. I seriously question and 
comprehensively dissent from justification of the imposition of that retributory 
punishment by conviction of first degree murder for an event he may not have 
expected and, in fact, in its commission he may not have participated.2

III.

THEORY OF A 
DEFENSE

[¶61]   In order to address this and the 
following three appellate issues, a factual understanding of the case is 
required. Bouwkamp, a regularly employed Montana contractor who was working in 
the area, came to the town of Buffalo, Wyoming and engaged with his employee, 
Donald Lennick, in an afternoon and evening barroom drinking episode during 
which they met ranch hand, Lucien Millox. The three continued drinking through 
the evening and when the bar closed, despite an earlier argument, found 
themselves leaving to try to find a late night party. In driving away in 
Bouwkamp's pickup, complicated by their drunken state, the three men became 
confused and stopped at a highway interchange outside of town where they parked 
underneath the interstate highway for Millox to answer nature's call and 
Bouwkamp to try to determine where they were.

[¶62]   For whatever reason while then 
parked, Lennick and Millox got into a fight resulting in Millox being stomped to 
death. There were two actual witnesses who survived: Bouwkamp, who testified 
that he left the immediate scene before the fatal fight erupted to check on top 
of the highway exchange to determine their location, and Lennick, who testified 
that he had an alcoholic blackout and did not know what had happened. Bouwkamp 
testified that he tried to stop the killing when he came back to the vehicle, 
but was shoved aside by Lennick.

[¶63]   Bouwkamp then testified about his 
further participation in an effort to hide evidence that might implicate him. 
There was absolutely no evidence of a predisposition of either defendant to have 
committed a robbery in advance of the homicide, except subsequent events where 
Lennick took Millox's property for his use and Bouwkamp took items to conceal 
his own presence and participation.

[¶64]   It is within this factual scenario 
that the theory of defense instruction issue was created. With the decisional 
process utilized by the trial court and factual admissions of accessory after 
the fact, Bouwkamp's murder conviction, whatever may have been his guilt, was 
realistically guaranteed.3 There is no question about both 
defendants' responsibility for criminal conduct. What is at issue is Bouwkamp's 
right to have a properly instructed and directed jury determination whether he 
committed post-homicide concealment, felony murder, or actually participated in 
premeditated murder. Clark v. United States, 593 A.2d 186 (D.C.App. 
1991).

[¶65]   There is a strange phenomenon that 
has developed in recent cases in this jurisdiction where this court has been 
asked to examine requested theory of defense instructions. Apparently, the 
majority seems inclined to substitute oral argument for the constitutional and 
long defined procedural right under Wyoming law to have an instruction as to the 
litigant/defendant's theory of the case. I categorically reject the concept 
expressed that "[w]hile Bouwkamp was not permitted this instruction [theory of 
defense], he was not compromised in arguing his alternative interpretation of 
the facts to this jury." Maj. op. at 491. Appended to this error is the 
conception derived in discussion about Ellifritz v. State, 704 P.2d 1300 (Wyo. 
1985). The discussion simply seems to ignore or fails to understand what was 
meant in Ellifritz as the difference between theory of defense and a limiting 
instruction. Bouwkamp proposed no limiting instruction. His instruction was that 
he admitted committing an offense, but in no way intended that admission to 
prove another offense which had occurred earlier. It is just pragmatically 
untrue to suggest that the entire theory of defense in this case was anything 
other than recognition of criminal responsibility in an accessory after the 
fact, but categorical denial of accessory before the fact, aiding or abetting or 
principal participation in first degree murder. Consequently, the affirmative 
message of Ellifritz clearly demonstrates why the requested instruction in 
Bouwkamp should have been given. In Ellifritz, 704 P.2d  at 1302, we 
said:

     The trial court has a 
duty to instruct the jury on general principles applicable to the case. * * * A 
defendant has the right to have his theory of the case affirmatively presented 
to the jury. * * * The trial court has a duty to properly instruct the jury on 
defendant's theory of the case even though instructions offered by him are "not 
entirely correct," provided, of course, they are sufficient to apprise the court 
of the theory of the defense. * * *

     The principles that we 
have set out [above] are only applicable, of course, if there is competent 
evidence in the record to support defendant's theory of the case. The 
instructions offered by appellant are not theory of the case instructions. At 
trial, appellant did not offer these instructions as "theory of the case" 
instructions; rather, they were offered and refused as limiting instructions. On 
appeal appellant cannot elevate these offered instructions into "theory of the 
case" instructions by simply calling them such.

[¶66]   Factually contrary to Ellifritz, 
this is a case where a theory of defense instruction was requested and this 
majority now turns the request into something else by name redesignation. The 
instruction did not single out certain evidence, but instead defined a concept 
relative to the entire body of evidence presented. That is, after all, what a 
theory of defense instruction is intended to do. The comparable usage of a 
theory instruction for the benefit of prosecution in Keser v. State, 706 P.2d 263 (Wyo. 1985) is comparable and illustrative. It is not often when an 
affirmative defense instruction is utilized as it was in that case to benefit 
prosecution. Parental discipline justification in Keser is structurally no 
different than sole involvement as an accessory after the fact argued by 
Bouwkamp.

[¶67]   Without doubt, in the face of the 
majority's approach to felony murder, temporal relationship and one verdict form 
for either or both premeditated murder or felony murder, the denial of a theory 
of defense instruction foreclosed Bouwkamp from his constitutional right to 
defend. It belies belief that this court can assert that a defendant has a right 
to defend justifying a theory of defense instruction and then preclusively deny 
constitutional access to due process by rejection of that theory of defense 
instruction. The unjustifiable and unsupported assertion that a right to a 
theory of defense instruction can be replaced by oral argument at the close of 
the case cannot be authenticated in any other of our nation's courts. Here the 
constitutional right is denied, but even worse it is denied by an inappropriate 
and illogical justification for the oral argument substitution. Within the large 
body of national law involving instructions for the litigants' theory of the 
case, Wyoming goes alone down the oral argument pathway.

[¶68]   I do not suggest that the proposed 
instruction process pursued by Bouwkamp, adopted by the trial court, or 
authenticated by this majority considers an adequately and appropriately worded 
theory of defense instruction. Overtly, one phrased as: "It is the theory of the 
defense that the defendant, Marvin Bouwkamp, was guilty of conduct which is 
defined as the crime of accessory after the fact, which crime is not charged 
here, but claims innocence of either felony murder or premeditated murder, which 
are the charges prosecuted," could have been presented and should have been 
given. Clark, 593 A.2d 186; State v. Gelormino, 24 Conn. App. 556, 590 A.2d 476, 
cert. denied, 219 Conn. 913, 593 A.2d 138 (1991).

[¶69]   My most strenuous objection to the 
majority opinion would have been significantly ameliorated if the decision had 
been based on the argument that right to any theory of defense instruction was 
waived by failure of counsel to tender a properly phrased instruction for the 
trial court's consideration. Delaney v. State, 14 Wyo. 1, 81 P. 792 (1905). 
Surprisingly, no generic defendant's theory of defense (except not guilty by 
indirection) of any kind was actually given to the jury to aid and instruct 
their deliberation. That theory of defendant was, however, defined by the 
tendered instruction relating to the defense that Bouwkamp was only involved as 
an accessory after the fact. The concealment and flight instructions, which were 
given successively, then converted the contended status of accessory after the 
fact into instructed evidentiary proof of homicide guilt. Concealment and flight 
instructions as theories of prosecution were given; the countervailing theory of 
defense of accessory after the fact was denied. Cf. Lauderdale v. State, 555 So. 2d 799 (Ala.Cr.App. 1989).

[¶70]   It is clearly apparent that lack of 
understanding exists as portrayed in the majority about the difference between 
substantive instruction defining the legal constituency of a particular 
defense, e.g., self-defense in homicide, compared to a statement by 
instruction of the theory of defense, e.g., non-presence and alibi. The former 
defines the legal criteria of a proposed defense; the latter advances reason for 
defense and cause to consider non-conviction as a matter of guilt determination. 
Dice v. State, 825 P.2d 379 (Wyo. 1992); United States v. Felix-Gutierrez, 940 F.2d 1200 (9th Cir. 1991).

[¶71]   The theory of defendant's case in 
constructional concept was stated in People v. Sears, 2 Cal. 3d 180, 84 Cal. Rptr. 711, 717, 465 P.2d 847, 853 (1970) as "a defendant, upon proper request 
therefor, has a right to an instruction that directs attention to evidence from 
a consideration of which a reasonable doubt of his guilt could be engendered." 
See United States v. Goldson, 954 F.2d 51, 55 (2d Cir. 1992) and Lybarger v. 
People, 807 P.2d 570 (Colo. 1991). See also People v. Mickey, 64 Cal. 3d 612, 286 Cal. Rptr. 801, 818 P.2d 84 (1991). This is the difference between pinpointing 
and defining legal application. Best v. State, 736 P.2d 739 (Wyo. 1987). Cf. 
Goodman v. State, 573 P.2d 400 (Wyo. 1977). The separate and distinguishable 
subject of fact-directed argumentative instructions is not presented in this 
appeal. People v. Wharton, 53 Cal. 3d 522, 280 Cal. Rptr. 631, 809 P.2d 290 
(1991), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S. Ct. 887, 116 L. Ed. 2d 790 
(1992).

[¶72]   My overwhelming concern in this 
case is caused by the majority's failure in differentiation and consequent 
justification of why Bouwkamp was not entitled to an instruction on his theory 
of his case. Goldson, 954 F.2d  at 55; Lybarger, 807 P.2d  at 579. The simple 
instructional statement that Bouwkamp's theory of defense was that he did not 
participate in the homicide and only became involved as an accessory after the 
fact, which is a separate crime, would have been a clearly appropriate 
instruction as a theory of defense. A proper (or improper) proposed instruction 
has nothing to do with this court's comments:

     Bouwkamp did not rely 
on a defense recognized by either Wyo. Stat. § 6-1-102 or this court that would 
merit a theory of the case instruction. Instead, his true defense was the 
simplest and most direct of all: he denied guilt of the crime charged. He argued 
he was not guilty of killing Millox, although he was willing to admit that he 
helped cover up the murder. In other words, he defended by claiming to be 
innocent of the crime charged. On this argument he received adequate 
instructions.

Maj. op. at 
490-491.

     Theory of defense 
instructions are to be derived from and address criminal defenses provided for 
by statute or acknowledged by this court.

Maj. op. at 
490.

     Bouwkamp's offered 
instruction describes the crime of accessory after the fact. Suggestion of an 
alternative charge is not a defense to the crime being prosecuted.

Id.

[¶73]   These comments simply do not 
properly address the right of a defendant to a theory of defense instruction 
since apparently suggesting that only formal "defenses" can be communicated by a 
theory instruction. To the contrary, it is the reason for non-guilt that is 
properly included in the theory of defense instruction which, in this 
proceeding, is a denial of guilt and concurrent explanation of what admittedly 
happened - accessory after the fact.

[¶74]   The conjunctive confusion in lack 
of differentiation is highlighted by the further language used in the majority 
opinion: 

However, there is another 
fundamental condition precedent which was not met by the offered instruction. 
The instruction must in the first instance be a proper theory of the case, or 
theory of defense, instruction. That is, the offered instruction must present a 
defense recognized by statute or case law in this jurisdiction. The instruction 
Bouwkamp contends was improperly refused did not present such a 
defense.

Maj. op. at 490. 
By this language, which intermixed entirely different subjects, Bouwkamp was 
denied his constitutional right to have the jury advised about the strategical 
basis upon which his defense was organized and presented.4

[¶75]   I take even stronger exception with 
the stated justification of the majority opinion that oral argument is a proper 
or adequate substitute for an instruction providing a theory of 
defense:

     While Bouwkamp was not 
permitted this instruction, he was not compromised in arguing his alternative 
interpretation of the facts to the jury. He did so vigorously, both through his 
counsel's efforts and through his own testimony as to the events of Millox's 
death.

Maj. op. at 
491.

[¶76]   There are no cases cited to support 
this exceptional proposition regarding adequacy of oral argument as a substitute 
for proper instruction and none can be found nationwide except possibly in one 
prior Wyoming case. The real problem in this case is that the accessory after 
the fact admission, as the case was instructed, preclusively determined guilt, 
even though the jury might have believed nearly everything that Bouwkamp said in 
his testimony.

[¶77]   In linguistic terms, we are 
presented the monumental difference between instruction on the theory of defense 
presented by Bouwkamp or the presentation of the terms of a defense in legal 
character. One involves the overall approach and strategy, Dice, 825 P.2d 379; 
Sears, 84 Cal. Rptr. 711, 465 P.2d 847, and the second addresses legal aspects 
and application of rules of law to define conduct. Stevenson v. United States, 
162 U.S. 313, 16 S. Ct. 839, 40 L. Ed. 980 (1896). As an example of the 
explanation by defendant that he was not there would be the defense, but not a 
defense defined, created or matured by statute or rules of law.

[¶78]   The actuality of a defense to a 
criminal charge encompasses three different possibilities. First, in concept, is 
a simple denial of guilt, e.g., failure of the prosecution to prove the 
essential elements of the crime charged. The second is offense modification and 
the third is justification, excuses and non-exculpatory defenses. Within the 
totality of these categories, there may be a multitude of bars to conviction. A 
footnote in the well-established definitive text of 1 Paul H. Robinson, Criminal 
Law Defenses § 21, at 70 n. 1 (1984 & 1988 Supp.) lists more than fifty. 
That text further outlines appropriately the three categories of "defenses" 
involved in criminal cases:

     Failure of proof 
defenses are nothing more than instances where, because of the "defense," the 
prosecution is unable to prove all the required elements of the offense, the 
objective conduct, circumstance, and result elements and their corresponding 
culpability requirements. Offense modifications are similar in that they 
essentially modify or refine the criminalization decision embodied in the 
particular offense definition. The remaining three groups of defenses - 
justifications, excuses, and nonexculpatory defenses - are general defenses; 
they theoretically apply to all offenses, even when the required elements of an 
offense are satisfied. They represent principles of exculpation or defense that 
operate independently of the criminalization decision reflected in the 
particular offense. The conduct of a justified actor is not culpable because its 
benefits outweigh the harm or evil of the offense itself; an excused actor 
admits the harm or evil but nonetheless claims an absence of personal 
culpability; and an actor exempt under a nonexculpatory defense admits the harm 
or evil and his culpability but relies upon an important public policy interest, 
apart from blamelessness, that is furthered by foregoing the defendant's 
conviction.

Id. at 70-71 
(footnote omitted).

[¶79]   In simpler terms, Black's Law 
Dictionary 378 (5th ed. 1979) states a defense is a

response to the claims of 
the other party, setting forth reasons why the claims should not be granted. The 
defense may be as simple as a flat denial of the other party's factual 
allegations or may involve entirely new factual allegations. In the latter 
situation, the defense is an affirmative defense.

As an 
itemization of defenses to criminal charges, that resource only lists as samples 
about fifteen different subjects.

[¶80]   The intrinsic fallacy in the 
majority argument is contention that a theory of defense instruction is 
available only if it relates to a properly acceptable affirmative defense, but 
not if a general denial defense is presented:

     Bouwkamp did not rely 
on a defense recognized by Wyo. Stat. § 6-1-102 or this court that would merit a 
theory of the case instruction. Instead, his true defense was the simplest 
and most direct of all: he denied guilt of the crime charged. He argued he 
was not guilty of killing Millox, although he was willing to admit that he 
helped cover up the murder. In other words, he defended by claiming to be 
innocent of the crime charged. On this argument he received adequate 
instructions.

Maj. op. at 
490-491 (emphasis added). What the majority is stating is that Bouwkamp's theory 
of defense was unavailable because he denied guilt. That proposition is totally 
insupportable in either Wyoming or general law. It is just plain wrong. Equally 
invalid is the conceptualization that a lesser included offense is required to 
justify instruction instead of the accessory after the fact to defend against 
first degree murder. The majority seems to opine that if Bouwkamp's defense 
raised second degree murder or negligent homicide, a theory of defense 
instruction became appropriate; but since he denied homicide guilt completely 
and only recognized after occurrence criminal responsibility, the jury was not 
entitled to be appropriately instructed. Contrary to the logic of the majority 
decision, not guilty is always an "acceptable defense" in my opinion. A not 
guilty theory of defense should be accompanied by the right to have the jury 
properly instructed regarding the nature of events from which the defense is 
claimed.

[¶81]   This court, through confined 
construction and misunderstanding of the appropriate function of a theory of 
defense instruction, has continuously recognized the rule and simultaneously 
justified its non-application.5 This court has gone backwards a 
long way while continuing to state and then not apply the constitutional right 
defined in the obligation to permit the defendant to adequately defend by 
statement in instructions of a theory of defense. Stapleman v. State, 680 P.2d 73, 75 (Wyo. 1984).

[¶82]   The subject was well defined in 
Stapleman when this court comprehensively and correctly summarized the prior law 
of Wyoming and the constitutional concepts generally applied by all American 
jurisdictions for criminal law:

When an instruction has 
been offered presenting the defendant's theory of defense, that instruction or a 
similar instruction must be presented to the jury if it is supported by 
competent evidence. * * * It is the duty of the court to present to the jury the 
theory of the defense in his instructions when requested by the defendant. * * * 
Therefore, we must look at the record to see if there was competent evidence 
requiring an affirmative presentation of defendant's theory * * *. [In this 
case, specific intent to steal necessary to the conviction.]

Id. at 75. 
Justice Cardine, in writing the opinion in Stapleman, consistently followed the 
commanding criteria earlier set forth in Goodman, 573 P.2d 400 and Blakely v. 
State, 474 P.2d 127 (Wyo. 1970).

[¶83]   In more recent time, the occasion 
to apply this due process principle anchored in American law does not seem to 
find acceptance in this court. McInturff v. State, 808 P.2d 190 (Wyo. 1991), 
Urbigkit, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part; Ramos v. State, 806 P.2d 822 (Wyo. 1991). See contra Oien v. State, 797 P.2d 544 (Wyo. 1990); Thom 
v. State, 792 P.2d 192 (Wyo. 1990); Stuebgen v. State, 548 P.2d 870 (Wyo. 1976) 
and Murdock v. State, 351 P.2d 674 (Wyo. 1960). In accord with this court's 
immediate decision, see Price, 807 P.2d 909 and Prime, 767 P.2d 149.

[¶84]   Following denial to Bouwkamp of his 
theory of defense instruction, the second step in his conviction by presumptive 
instruction was the trial court's application of Instruction No. 15 to which 
objection was taken. That instruction stated:

    For the purposes of 
establishing the crime of felony murder, a killing which occurred in the 
perpetration of a robbery, the sequence of events is unimportant and the killing 
my precede, coincide with or follow the robbery and still be committed in its 
perpetration.

[¶85]   Since the defense argued by 
Bouwkamp was non-complicity in homicide which was followed by his admitted 
involvement as an accessory after the fact, the non-involvement defense was 
turned upside down to become a preclusive factor for conviction. In result, 
Instruction No. 15 took the accessory after the fact admission and defined that 
since a relative time relationship was unimportant, guilt of murder was 
established whether or not factually true or false. The instruction given turned 
into a Sandstrom presumption of guilt for the offense of first degree murder. 
That offense was presumed since the admitted robbery had subsequently 
occurred.

[¶86]   I reject the majority's approach to 
deny Bouwkamp the discussion of his theory of defense related to admitted 
responsibility as an accessory after the fact, which is the next subject to be 
addressed. We are left without any explanation why a theory of defense 
instruction in terms similar to what was given in Miller, 755 P.2d 855 would not 
have been appropriate here. Dice, 825 P.2d 379; Oien, 797 P.2d 544; Goodman, 573 P.2d 400; State v. Hickenbottom, 63 Wyo. 41, 178 P.2d 119 (1947).

[¶87]   Since it was the defendant's 
position that he was only an accessory after the fact, an instruction of that 
character or providing the same message should have been given as part of the 
proper instructional process, whether or not suitably requested by Bouwkamp, in 
order for the jury to understand the decision they were chosen to make. In 
result, Bouwkamp was denied any theory upon which his defense could be based. 
The guilt of one crime, which he then admitted, predetermined presumptive guilt 
for another crime, which he denied.

IV.

ACCESSORY AFTER THE 
FACT

[¶88]   Case authority on accessory after 
the fact, Wyo. Stat. § 6-5-202, reveals only one actual appeal where the statute 
was directly involved. In Stephens v. State, 734 P.2d 555 (Wyo. 1987), 
conviction was reversed on a basis of insufficiency of the evidence of criminal 
conduct by the defendant. The differentiated classification of participants in 
criminal responsibility was carefully defined in Jahnke v. State, 692 P.2d 911, 
920-21 (Wyo. 1984), although the case was prosecuted as an aiding and abetting 
case which is a category two in the enumeration provided in the 
opinion:

     Wyoming has abrogated 
the common-law distinctions between principal, aider and abettor, and accessory 
before the fact to felonies. At common law, the parties to a felony were divided 
into four categories: (1) principals in the first degree - the actor, or actual 
perpetrator, of the offense; (2) principals in the second degree - those who are 
present, aiding and abetting the commission of the offense; (3) accessories 
before the fact - those who are not present at the commission of the crime, but 
who have counseled, procured or commanded another to commit it; and (4) 
accessories after the fact - those who, knowing a felony has been committed, 
receive, relieve, comfort, or assist the felon. * * * Our statute with respect 
to the first three categories provides that each "may be indicted, informed 
against, tried and convicted in the same manner as if he were a principal." 
Section 6-1-114, W.S. 1977 * * *. The result is that differences in the manner 
of participation by the parties to the commission of a felony do not affect 
their individual culpability for the crime. Each, whether he is the principal, 
an aider and abettor, or an accessory before the fact, is treated as a principal 
for purposes of punishment. Section 6-1-114, W.S. 1977.

Jahnke further 
recognized in footnote that the fourth common-law classification, accessory 
after the fact, was a separate offense under the state statute. Id. at 921 n. 3. 
See also 1 William L. Burdick, Law of Crime § 224, at 301 (1946).

[¶89]   Miller, 755 P.2d  at 864-65 was 
similarly prosecuted as an accessory before the fact and the instruction given 
by the trial court stated:

"It is the Defendant's 
position that he was only an accessory after the fact. The defendant maintains 
that he did not knowingly counsel, encourage, hire, command or procure the 
killing of D. Lawrence [sic] DeGroff by Leland Duane Brown. However, once the 
killing had occurred, the Defendant concedes that he became an accessory after 
the fact.

"The Defendant is not 
charged with being an accessory after the fact. If you find that the Defendant 
did not aid and abet the homicide before the fact, you must find the Defendant 
not guilty."

[¶90]   In the decision of the Miller case, 
this court determined that the instructions given adequately explained the 
defendant's "theory of the case." A defense proposal for an additional paragraph 
defining the elements of accessory after the fact was rejected for being only 
"argument on the wisdom of the [charged crime]." Id. at 865. The instruction 
given in Miller was essentially what Bouwkamp requested and was denied in this 
case. Our decision in Miller would support the legitimacy of Bouwkamp's request 
to have an opportunity to define the theory of defense as an instruction in the 
case. The differentiated involvement of the accessory after the fact issue in 
Vialpando v. State, 494 P.2d 939 (Wyo. 1972), as a cause for the grant of a new 
trial, validates the Miller instructional process.

[¶91]   A review of the national precedent 
provides no basis for rejection of a request to advise the jury of the nature of 
this particular defense. No question existed about criminal conduct after the 
homicide had occurred; the question was participation by Bouwkamp as an actual 
perpetrator, an aider and abettor or an accessory before the fact which would 
provide a criminal responsibility identical with the principal. Conversely, an 
accessory after the fact within Wyoming law faces a far less severe punitive 
responsibility. First degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence while the 
penalty for violation of the accessory after the fact statute, if the principal 
offense was a felony, presents a maximum of three years imprisonment, a $3,000 
fine, or both. Wyo. Stat. § 6-5-202(b)(i).

[¶92]   The majority correctly assesses 
that accessory after the fact is a completely independent crime, Miller, 755 P.2d 855; Jahnke, 692 P.2d  at 921 n. 3; Vialpando, 494 P.2d 939; People v. 
Zierlion, 16 Ill. 2d 217, 157 N.E.2d 72 (1959), and also is not a lesser included 
offense for the principal perpetrator's crime. State v. Key, 411 S.W.2d 100 (Mo. 
1967). However, the majority does not recognize generally in its discussion that 
it is a question of fact whether the participation of the charged individual 
exposed him to the culpability level of punishment as a principal or only as an 
accessory after the fact. State v. Sullivan, 77 N.J. Super. 81, 185 A.2d 410 
(1962). It was that factual issue which was intrinsically woven into the 
defenses presented by Bouwkamp to deny guilt of either felony murder or 
premeditated murder, either as a principal, as a co-participant in being an 
accessory before the fact or for an aiding and abetting status. Id. See also 
State v. Nordahl, 208 Mont. 513, 679 P.2d 241 (1984). Cf. Lauderdale, 555 So. 2d 799.

[¶93]   Lacking an instruction on the 
subject similar to what was used and approved in Miller, there was no way the 
jury could understand the nature of Bouwkamp's defense. Furthermore, lacking the 
instruction, evidence proposed to support Bouwkamp's acquittal on first degree 
murder became prosecutorial ammunition to convict him for first degree murder. A 
theory of defense instruction was absolutely critical to even achieve jury 
consideration of his defense, whether then to be accepted or rejected, which is 
a matter for the jury's fact finding providence. A factual issue for his defense 
was foreclosed in effect by directed verdict from denied instruction and 
constitutional error, both preemptive in the nature of Sandstrom, 442 U.S. 510, 
99 S. Ct. 2450. Both were violative of due process, and denial of any realistic 
right to defend resulted. Guarantee of both state and federal constitutions were 
unrecognized and unafforded. Although derived from a somewhat different factual 
situation, the basic principle was well addressed in State v. Thomas, 325 N.C. 
583, 386 S.E.2d 555, 561 (1989):

     A defendant may always show 
by the evidence not only his innocence under the theory of prosecution chosen by 
the State but also his possible guilt of some lesser offense. If this lesser 
offense is included in the crime charged in the indictment and if there is 
evidence to support it, the defendant is entitled to have it submitted to the 
jury. These different theories of defense cannot be abrogated by the State's 
decision to prosecute nor the trial court's decision to submit the case on only 
one prosecutorial theory when under the indictment and the evidence adduced 
another is more favorable to the defendant. To hold otherwise would raise 
serious constitutional questions under at least the Due Process Clause in the 
federal document and its counterpart in our state constitution.

[¶94]   Of course, accessory after the fact 
is a completely different and sequentially distinct offense from conspiracy, 
aiding and abetting, or accessory before the fact participation in the principal 
crime. Key, 411 S.W.2d 100; Nordahl, 679 P.2d 241. Here, the initiating offenses 
were felony murder or premeditated murder. Further, it is clear that accessory 
after the fact would not be a lesser included offense of either felony murder or 
premeditated murder. 21 Am.Jur.2d Criminal Law § 174, at 332 (1981).

     The accessory after 
the fact is one who, with knowledge of the other's guilt, renders assistance to 
a felon in the effort to hinder his detection, arrest, trial or punishment. 
There are four requisites: (1) A felony must have been committed by another, and 
it must have been completed prior to the act of accessoryship, although it is 
not necessary that a formal charge shall have been filed against the principal 
felon before this time; (2) the accessory must not himself be guilty of that 
felony as a principal; (3) he must do some act to assist the felon personally in 
his effort to avoid the consequences of his crime; and (4) this assistance must 
be rendered with guilty knowledge of the felony.

Rollin M. 
Perkins & Ronald N. Boyce, Criminal Law ch. 6, at 748-49 (3d ed. 1982) 
(footnotes omitted).

Although an accessory 
after the fact is ordinarily not present when the felony was committed, his 
absence is not required. Thus, a person who was present when a felony was 
committed, but in no way aided or abetted its commission - and hence did not 
qualify as a principal in the second degree - may become an accessory after the 
fact by rendering aid to the felon thereafter in order to facilitate his 
escape.

     A person does not 
become an accessory after the fact merely by knowing and failing to disclose 
that another person has committed a felony; nor does he become an accessory 
after the fact by failing to apprehend the felon or by approving of the felony. 
It must be shown, in addition, that he rendered aid to the felon.

     Since an accessory 
after the fact renders aid to a felon after the underlying felony has been 
completed, he cannot be regarded as having caused the felony to be 
committed.

1 Charles E. 
Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law § 33, at 170-71 (14th ed. 1978) (footnotes 
omitted).

[¶95]   This case law is identically 
incorporated into the Wyoming accessory after the fact statute. Wyo. Stat. § 
6-5-202(a) states:

A person is an accessory 
after the fact if, with intent to hinder, delay or prevent the discovery, 
detection, apprehension, prosecution, detention, conviction or punishment of 
another for the commission of a crime, he renders assistance to the 
person.

[¶96]   The proposed instruction which had 
been submitted by Bouwkamp accurately reflected Wyoming statute, the state of 
the law, and his specific theory of defense relating to his contention in 
admission of what he did and defense that he did not participate by assistance 
or conduct in either the crime of premeditated murder or felony murder. The case 
law demonstrates that an aider or abettor may be tried and convicted as a 
principal, Tompkins v. State, 705 P.2d 836 (Wyo. 1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1052, 106 S. Ct. 1277, 89 L. Ed. 2d 585 (1986); Lisenby v. State, 260 Ark. 585, 543 S.W.2d 30 (1976); State v. Lashley, 233 Kan. 620, 664 P.2d 1358 (1983); People 
v. Bills, 53 Mich. App. 339, 220 N.W.2d 101 (1974), rev'd on other bases, 396 
Mich. 802, 238 N.W.2d 29 (1976), and conversely, any accessory after the fact 
commits an entirely different crime. Bouwkamp's proposed defense should have 
been recognized and submitted by instruction on that basis for jury decision. 
See State v. Rider, 229 Kan. 394, 625 P.2d 425, 432 (1981); Nordahl, 679 P.2d 241; and Sullivan, 185 A.2d 410. See, however, the mere presence rule in United 
States v. Zimmerman, 943 F.2d 1204 (10th Cir. 1991); United States v. Longoria, 
569 F.2d 422 (5th Cir. 1978); Gordon v. State, 533 P.2d 25 (Alaska 1975); State 
v. Sims, 99 Ariz. 302, 306-08, 409 P.2d 17, 20 (1965), cert. denied, 384 U.S. 980, 86 S. Ct. 1880, 16 L. Ed. 2d 691 (1966), "[u]nquestionably, in the absence of 
preconcert, the mere presence of a person at the time and place of a crime does 
not make an aider, abettor or a principal;" and James v. State, 144 Tex.Crim. 
126, 161 S.W.2d 285 (1942), which recognized a possibility of the innocence in 
the principal offense and sequentially subsequent involvement in another crime. 
See also State v. Truesdell, 620 P.2d 427 (Okla. Cr. 1980). Adequate and 
seemingly unanimous support for the validity of Bouwkamp's theory of defense is 
established in the relevant cases. Zierlion, 157 N.E.2d 72.

[¶97]   People v. Karst, 118 Mich. App. 34, 
324 N.W.2d 526, 529 (1982) provides the factual resolution content addressed by 
Bouwkamp as a component by which the jury should have been directed to consider 
his theory of defense:

To be convicted as an 
aider and abettor, a defendant must either himself possess the required intent 
to commit the substantive offense or participate while knowing that his 
co-participant possessed the requisite intent. People v. Triplett, 105 Mich. 
App. 182, 306 N.W.2d 442 (1981). Either a defendant's intent or his knowledge 
that his co-participant had the necessary intent may be inferred from 
circumstantial evidence. Id., [at] 188, 306 N.W.2d 442. However, a defendant's 
mere presence at the scene of a crime is not enough, in and of itself, to make 
him an aider and abettor[.]

* * * * * *

On the other hand, it is 
clear that an accessory after-the-fact is not an aider or abettor * * * 
[.]

* * * * * *

Further, it is error to 
instruct a jury that a defendant might be guilty as a principal of an offense if 
he was an accessory after-the-fact. * * *

     The distinction 
between aiders and abettors and accessories after-the-fact is not always clear, 
and, given the facts, even less so in this case. Acts undertaken subsequent to 
the commission of a breaking and entering do not necessarily limit a defendant's 
liability to that of an accessory after-the-fact, as consideration must be taken 
of the intent of the actors. It is a question of fact whether a particular act 
or crime committed was fairly within the intended scope of the common criminal 
enterprise or was concerned with the commission of the offense.

The accused 
cannot be convicted of being an accessory after the fact if actions consisted of 
acting as an accessory or accomplice to the offense. State v. Williams, 229 N.C. 
348, 49 S.E.2d 617 (1948); People v. Cooper, 53 Cal. 3d 1158, 282 Cal. Rptr. 450, 
811 P.2d 742 (1991).

[¶98]   This majority ignores and 
misapplies accessory after the fact theory and law by a distillation which 
denies Bouwkamp his opportunity to defend the first degree murder charge which 
he faced. La Belle, 222 N.E.2d 727. The standard that should be followed was 
recently stated in Davis v. State, 586 So. 2d 817, 819 (Miss. 1991):

It equally matters not 
that the evidence overwhelmingly establish that the defendant is guilty of other 
offenses. We may not affirm unless the evidence adequately undergirds conviction 
of the particular offense for which the accused has been indicted and 
tried.

See also State 
v. Jewell, 104 N.C. App. 350, 409 S.E.2d 757 (1991) (which determined that an 
accessory after the fact charge could be joined in criminal prosecution as a 
separate charge with the principal offense, but the defendant could not be 
convicted of both at the same time); Com. v. McFadden, 448 Pa. 146, 292 A.2d 358 
(1972); and Jones v. Com., 208 Va. 370, 157 S.E.2d 907 (1967). Cf. Gary E. 
Perlmuter, Note, Excluding an Accessory After the Fact From a Felony-Firearm 
Conviction, 37 Wayne L.Rev. 1951 (1991).

V.

CAUSAL AND TEMPORAL 
RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE FELONY AND RESULTING HOMICIDE

[¶99]   There is a further infirmity in the 
instructional process of this case and this majority's confirmatory decision. It 
arises from the Cloman, 574 P.2d 410 concept that temporal relationship is 
unimportant by instruction regarding the causal relationship between the felony 
and the homicide. The practical mistake is that, in fact, a causal connection 
constituting more than accident or coincidence is required and the 
temporal relationship is a relevant factor to the causal determination. To state 
otherwise is to ignore the fundamental basis of felony murder recently addressed 
by the United States Supreme Court in Schad v. Arizona, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S. Ct. 2491, 115 L. Ed. 2d 555 (1991), and even more recently by the New Mexico Supreme 
Court in State v. Ortega, 112 N.M. 554, 817 P.2d 1196 (1991). See John Calvin 
Jeffries & Paul B. Stephan, Defenses, Presumptions, and Burden of Proof in 
the Criminal Law, 88 Yale L.J. 1325, 1383 (1979) and Herbert Wechsler & 
Jerome Michael, A Rationale of the Law of Homicide: I, 37 Colum.L.Rev. 701, 723 
(1937).

[¶100] The case law and legal literature regarding 
felony murder is near endless. See Engberg v. Meyer, 820 P.2d 70 (Wyo. 1991), 
Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting in part and concurring in part. Perhaps as many as a 
hundred or more law journals could be listed and the individual cases number in 
the thousands.6 One of the most thoughtful cases 
comes from New Mexico in Ortega, 817 P.2d at 1201:

     "Few legal doctrines 
have been as maligned and yet have shown as great a resiliency as the 
felony-murder rule. Criticism of the rule constitutes a lexicon of everything 
that scholars and jurists can find wrong with a legal doctrine: it has been 
described as `astonishing' and `monstrous,' an insupportable `legal fiction' 
[citing State v. Harrison, 90 N.M. 439, 442, 564 P.2d 1321, 1324 (1977)], `an 
unsightly wart on the skin of the criminal law,' and as an `anachronistic 
remnant' that has `"no logical or practical basis for existence in modern 
law."'" 

Roth & Sundby, The 
Felony-Murder Rule: A Doctrine at Constitutional Crossroads, 70 Cornell L.Rev. 
446, 446 (1985) (footnotes omitted) * * *. As indicated in this passage, 
dissatisfaction with the felony-murder doctrine has been widely expressed by 
both courts and commentators.[7]

[¶101] Within the totality of the law, whether derived 
from Justice Souter writing for the plurality in Schad, Justice Scalia writing 
the special concurrence, or Justice White in dissent, or anywhere else in the 
ocean of words, there is a ratio decidendi for felony murder defined as 
transferred intent. Simplistically, commission of the felony provides the mens 
rea to substitute for the premeditation required otherwise for first degree 
murder. This is the reason that, dependent upon jurisdiction, the kind of felony 
- or in some states the kind of felony murder - determines the mens rea factor 
whether the felony commission is sufficient to make the felony murder into a 
capital or first degree murder offense. See Herbert Wechsler & Jerome 
Michael, supra, 37 Colum.L.Rev. 701 and Rollin M. Perkins, A Rationale of Mens 
Rea, 52 Harv.L.Rev. 905 (1939). See also People v. Lee, 234 Cal. App. 3d 1214, 286 Cal. Rptr. 117, 121 (1991) and People v. Phillips, 64 Cal. 2d 574, 51 Cal. Rptr. 225, 414 P.2d 353 (1966).

[¶102] The mens rea - intent - state of the mind in 
commission of the felony serves to transfer first degree murder guilt from the 
felony to any resulting homicide. This logical progression demonstrates why the 
dicta in Cloman or the cases cited in support do not provide a foundationally 
firm legal principle to be applied without relevancy and legitimacy in every 
case where there was a felony and there was a homicide and nothing more. The 
mens rea of the felony has to relate to the event of homicide in a relational 
fashion. Leslie G. Sachs, Note, Due Process Concerns and the Requirement of a 
Strict Causal Relationship in Felony Murder Cases: Conner v. Director of 
Division of Adult Corrections, 23 Creighton L.Rev. 629 (1990).

[¶103] The viciousness of any arbitrary and illogical 
rule is clearly demonstrable here. If we assume, as we should, for a theory of 
defense perspective that the only - and sole - criminal activity of Bouwkamp was 
committed as an accessory after the fact, then to approve conviction of first 
degree murder, we have to reconstruct what the offense of accessory after the 
fact really is in order to utilize its separation, both in time and conduct 
arbitrarily to create a mens rea for guilt of a potential capital offense first 
degree murder.

[¶104] If the time sequence is unimportant, then the 
unwitting activity of the innocent doctor in assisting John Wilkes Booth after 
the President Lincoln assassination properly created a death penalty 
responsibility. The harborer, assistor, and the family protector, if covered by 
the accessory statute, even though the conduct occurs some substantial time 
later - weeks or even years - then becomes guilty of the felony murder and 
consequently, at least academically, subject to the same punishment as the 
principal, which could be death. We regress by this illogical rationale to the 
totalitarian societal application of instant death for assistance in 
escape.

[¶105] In Cloman, the evidence demonstrated that the 
robbery and homicides were intrinsically related as a single cause of conduct 
initiated by intent to rob. Herein, within the theory of Bouwkamp's defense, the 
same single unit of behavior cannot similarly be applied. Consequently, the 
temporal, unimportant instruction in Cloman could not mislead the jury, although 
here it becomes a directed verdict on a factual issue against Bouwkamp. We have 
in effect a Sandstrom presumption by disregarding the otherwise proof of cause 
requirement.

[¶106] I have never believed that presumptions should 
ever constitutionally be used to replace proof of fact as a thesis of criminal 
law. Obviously, Sandstrom developed from the same recognition that the shortcut 
by presumption can obviate the proof of required element of the offense fits 
precisely into my dissenting objection in this case to a broad statement used to 
override requirement for a proper jury inquiry and consequent factual 
decision.8

[¶107] Within some jurisdictions, this status has been 
detailed within a res gestae structure of description. One of the excellent 
sources of discussion is State v. Fouquette, 67 Nev. 505, 221 P.2d 404, 416-17 
(1950), cert. denied, 341 U.S. 932, 71 S. Ct. 799, 95 L. Ed. 1361 (1951), cert. 
denied, 342 U.S. 928, 72 S. Ct. 369, 96 L. Ed. 691 (1952):

     When a killing is done 
in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate robbery, or any other of the 
enumerated felonies, it is not essential for the state to prove that it was 
willful, deliberate, and premeditated. * * *

* * * * * *

     When the homicide is 
within the res gestae of the initial crime, and is an emanation thereof, it is 
committed in the perpetration of that crime in the statutory sense. * * 
*

     The res gestae 
embraces not only the actual facts of the transaction and the circumstances 
surrounding it, but the matters immediately antecedent to and having a direct 
causal connection with it, as well as acts immediately following it and so 
closely connected with it as to form in reality a part of the 
occurrence.

[¶108] Differing from the theory of Bouwkamp that his 
participation was as an accessory after the fact, the Nevada Supreme Court 
further explained:

     In this case, the 
murder was clearly within the res gestae of the robbery, because it was so 
connected and associated with the robbery as to virtually and effectively become 
a part of it. Under no possible theory can it be properly said that the murder 
was committed as an independent act disassociated from the robbery. It is 
certain, therefore, that the murder was committed in the perpetration of the 
robbery, within the true intent and fair meaning of the statute[.] * * 
*

     It makes no difference 
in this case whether appellant unintentionally killed the deceased, as he 
claims, or whether the killing of deceased by appellant was intentional, as the 
jury might well have found, because one who kills another in the perpetration or 
attempt to perpetrate any arson, rape, robbery, or burglary, is guilty of murder 
in the first degree by force of the statute * * *, regardless of any question 
whether the killing was intentional or unintentional.

Id. See also 
State v. Wooten, 295 N.C. 378, 245 S.E.2d 699 (1978).

[¶109] Unfortunately, the Cloman rule, when applied in 
this case, essentially advertised that it is unimportant whether the felony is 
within the interrelated events causing the homicide. Use of the characterization 
res gestae may either create a play on words or present a concept without 
reality in definition. It all depends on how the res gestae in whichever 
characterization is to be defined. Is it time defined, cause defined, or even 
place defined? Or is it anything that just happened?

[¶110] As recognized in 2 Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's 
Criminal Evidence § 288, at 233 (14th ed. 1986): "It is clear, then, that there 
is no way whereby the scope of the res gestae rule may be defined with 
precision."

     Although the vagaries 
in the use of the term "res gestae" have been frequently criticized, as in 
United States v. Matot (1944, CA2 Vt) 146 F.2d 197, there seems to be little 
indication that its meaning will be clarified in the future, no doubt because of 
the academic character of the problem, and also because of the weight and 
influence of prior decisions.

Id. at 234 n. 
38. As the footnote further recognizes, this vagueness and imprecision in the 
term has caused its removal from modern rules of evidence as a definitional 
term. In evidentiary terms, the rule has been stated:

The res gestae has 
been defined as those circumstances which are the undesigned incidents of a 
peculiar litigated act and which are admissible when illustrative of such act. 
The incidents may be separated from the act itself by a lapse of time more or 
less appreciable. However, they must stand in immediate causal relation to the 
act. They are admissible, though hearsay, because, from the nature of things, it 
is the act that creates the hearsay, and not the hearsay the act.

Kuether v. 
Kansas City Light & Power Co., 220 Mo. App. 452, 276 S.W. 105, 110 (1925) 
(emphasis added).

[¶111] The invalidity of the characterization as a 
term for felony murder rules as derived from an evidentiary concept is certainly 
highly exacerbated when the term is applied to define the relationship of 
discreet events occurring within a continuum of time and complexity of causes 
and from differentiated intents. Judge Hand best explained in a case involving 
the accused's theory of defense where intent was an issue:

     The prosecution seeks to defend the 
exclusion on the theory that the testimony would have been "self-serving," and 
that it was not part of the "res gestae." What else but "self-serving" the 
testimony of an accused person on his direct examination is likely to be, we 
find it difficult to understand; and as for "res gestae," it is a phrase which 
has been accountable for so much confusion that it had best be denied any place 
whatever in legal terminology; if it means anything but an unwillingness to 
think at all, what it covers cannot be put in less intelligible 
terms.

United States v. 
Matot, 146 F.2d 197, 198 (2nd Cir. 1944) (emphasis added).

[¶112] Edward J. Imwinkelried, Paul C. Giannelli, 
Francis A. Gilligan & Fredric I. Lederer, Courtroom Criminal Evidence § 
1202, at 283 (1987) states: "Res gestae is such a vague expression that 
it would be better if neither attorneys nor courts used the expression." 
Consistent in this recognition, the Maine court after quoting from 6 Wigmore, 
Evidence § 1767 at 255 (Chadbourn rev. 1976) in State v. Hafford, 410 A.2d 219, 
220-21 (Me. 1980), recognized:

     Although many of our 
pre-Rules cases have in terms discussed the "res gestae exception," * * * 
and although Rule 803(2) [Maine's rule of evidence] was intended to codify the 
decisional law as developed in that line of cases, * * * the drafters of our 
Rules of Evidences specifically avoided using the term res gestae in order to 
expunge that phrase from our Maine law of evidence. * * * Continued use of that 
label by the bench and bar would serve only to confuse and mislead.

[¶113] The real issue for analysis in this case in 
accord with the theory of defense and the testimony of the defendant is how does 
an accessory after the fact fall into inclusion or exclusion of res gestae? The 
softness of the conceptional definition and its indefiniteness in application, 
as recognized above, generally caused abandonment of the term for use in 
criminal law as a specificity determinant. The term means whatever, or perhaps 
nothing really determinable. Judge Hand was emphatically correct in dissection 
in Matot, 146 F.2d  at 198. Res gestae technically, as converted from Latin to 
English, means "things done," Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 1003 
(1986), but is used to describe variably the facts that form the environment of 
a litigated issue to the whole of the transaction under investigation. Black's 
Law Dictionary, supra, at 1173. See also Case v. Vearrindy, 339 Mich. 579, 64 N.W.2d 670 (1954) and Knapik v. Edison Bros., Inc., 313 S.W.2d 335 (Tex.Civ.App. 
1958). See Kathryn Annette King, Comment, The Res Gestae Doctrine: 
Manifestations in the Common Law of Alabama and Its Role Under the Federal Rules 
of Evidence, 42 Ala.L.Rev. 1363 (1991).

[¶114] Perhaps the most rational description in 
understandable terms when considered for evidentiary admissibility purposes is 
that within the res gestae, a statement is part of the transaction and not about 
the transaction. Although res gestae is not now included as a term within W.R.E. 
803, the predecessor authority of the court in Johnson v. State, 8 Wyo. 494, 58 P. 761 (1899) found the delineation in having sprung out of the principal fact 
and under the direct and immediate influence of the transaction. It is patently 
obvious that an accessory after the fact criminal activity cannot be fit into 
these descriptions. In State v. Kump, 76 Wyo. 273, 301 P.2d 808, 815 (1956), 
this court quoted Chicago City Ry. Co. v. Uhter, 212 Ill. 174, 72 N.E. 195, 199 
(1904): "`That which occurs before or after the act is done is not a part of the 
res gestae, although the interval of the separation is very brief.'" In the Kump 
case, a bad attitude toward the victim in advance of the homicide, as repeated 
from prior statements, was not contemporaneous. "They did not illustrate that 
act of homicide. The transactions, or acts, were entirely separate and distinct 
and were erroneously admitted in evidence." Kump, 301 P.2d  at 815. I find the 
same principle still persuasive which serves to abjure usage of a res gestae 
temporal materiality principle espoused here. Causal relationship is absolutely 
required and the temporal status has a specific connection to the factually 
determined causal relationship.

[¶115] If the status of involvement is that of an 
accessory after the fact by definition, the conduct is separate and distinct. 
Otherwise, the conduct was either as a principal or in aiding and abetting with 
the responsibility as a principal. Wyo. Stat. § 6-1-201 (1988) is defined as 
accessory before the fact.9 Jewell, 409 S.E.2d 757. In looking 
at the required causal relationship between a homicide and a felony, we are not 
involved in Bouwkamp with the consideration of a cover-up homicide to conceal 
commission of a felony. That character of crime is illustrated by Conner v. 
Director of Div. of Adult Corrections, State of Iowa, 870 F.2d 1384 (8th Cir.), 
cert. denied, 493 U.S. 953, 110 S. Ct. 363, 107 L. Ed. 2d 350 (1989); Conner v. 
State, 362 N.W.2d 449 (Iowa 1985); and State v. Conner, 241 N.W.2d 447 (Iowa 
1976). In the cases, the contributory relationship is recognized as homicide 
committed in conjunction with the commission of a felony, Conner, 870 F.2d  at 
1387; aiding and abetting in the robbery and to conceal the rape and robbery, 
Conner, 241 N.W.2d 447; and murder committed in perpetration of the felony so 
that the killing was a material part of the felony, Conner, 362 N.W.2d 449.

[¶116] This majority now turns the principle 
illustrated by the Conner cases upside down in restating a later felony 
committed to have a res gestae relationship with the original homicide earlier 
completed. Within the theory of defendant's case and testimony, where he had no 
part in commission of the homicide at all, the subsequent accessory after the 
fact simply does not create the structure or the connexity required for felony 
murder.

[¶117] The basic support for the felony murder 
principle results from the transference of that mens rea from the felony to the 
resulting homicide and the thesis cannot be applied to a circumstance where a 
felony is committed without preplanning after the killing was completed. In 
simplistic terms, the inquiry is whether the homicide resulted from a commission 
of the felony and not whether a felony occurred after the homicide was 
completed. The Wyoming statute, in itself, would seem to be self-defined in 
clear terms:

     (a) Whoever * * * in 
the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any sexual assault, arson, 
robbery, burglary, escape, resisting arrest or kidnapping, kills any human being 
is guilty of murder in the first degree.

Wyo. Stat. § 
6-2-101 (1991 Supp.).

[¶118] This statute cannot be overlaid upon the 
accessory after the fact statute:

(a) * * * with intent to 
hinder, delay or prevent the discovery, detection, apprehension, prosecution, 
detention, conviction or punishment of another for the commission of a crime, he 
renders assistance to the person.

Wyo. Stat. § 
6-5-202. The actual test is homicide in perpetration of the felony. Moore v. 
Wyrick, 766 F.2d 1253 (8th Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1032, 106 S. Ct. 1242, 89 L. Ed. 2d 350 (1986). See also Spivey v. State, 114 Ark. 267, 169 S.W. 949 (1914) where the victim's written note, prehomicide, surmised that he was 
about to be invited to his own assassination. The note, in text, was not 
admissible as res gestae, even though, in fact, apparently accurate about the 
eventual result of his invitation to a nighttime visit to the home of his 
about-to-be-divorced and soon-to-be-widowed wife.

[¶119] The Pennsylvania court recognized in Com. v. 
Lark, 518 Pa. 290, 543 A.2d 491 (1988), as defined in Scadden v. State, 732 P.2d 1036 (Wyo. 1987), that res gestae sometimes accorded the complete story 
rationale by proving its immediate context of happening near the place and time. 
See State v. Williams, 454 So. 2d 1211, 1214 (La. App. 1984) (quoting State v. 
Haarala, 398 So. 2d 1093, 1097 (La. 1981)), "`close connexity in time and 
location * * *.'" The Oklahoma court likewise in Sevier v. State, 355 P.2d 1018, 
1023 (Okla. Cr. 1960), recognized: "Though the term `res gestae' is almost 
indefinable there are certain prerequisites necessary in identifying testimony 
as part of the res gestae." The relationship between the felony and the homicide 
which it precipitated was similarly recognized in definition and discussion in 
Smith v. State, 447 So. 2d 1327 (1983), aff'd, 447 So. 2d 1334 (Ala. 1984). In 
State v. Sherry, 233 Kan. 920, 667 P.2d 367 (1983), the principal occurrence was 
an intended drug sale about which the participant's comments constituted the res 
gestae.

[¶120] The recognition of the temporal relationship is 
demonstrated in the 1923 Illinois case of People v. Jarvis, 306 Ill. 611, 138 N.E. 102 (1923), where later events which may have constituted further criminal 
conduct which had no causal connection with the initial shooting of the deceased 
were not admissible as part of the res gestae. The entire inquiry is directed to 
the causal relationship between the subordinate event and the offense to which 
the connexity is attached. The test not being the closeness of time of such 
declarations or acts to the act charged, but their causal relation therewith. 
Id. 138 N.E.  at 103.

[¶121] The connexity or res gestae or applicability 
test for felony murder to relate the underlying felony to the resulting homicide 
is frequently stated in terms of "time, distance, and the causal relationship * 
* *." State v. Hearron, 228 Kan. 693, 619 P.2d 1157, 1160 (1980).

     Time, distance, and 
the causal relationship between the underlying felony and the killing are 
factors to be considered in determining whether the killing is a part of the 
felony and, therefore, subject to the felony-murder rule. Whether the underlying 
felony had been abandoned or completed prior to the killing so as to remove it 
from the ambit of the felony-murder rule is ordinarily a question of fact for 
the jury to decide.

Id. See also 
Rider, 625 P.2d 425. It is stated as time, place and causal connection, State v. 
Corneau, 109 N.M. 81, 781 P.2d 1159 (1989), in addressing the res gestae of the 
felony and further stated as felony continued in progress in regard to escape 
time, State v. Wayne, 169 W. Va. 785, 289 S.E.2d 480 (1982). See also State v. 
Lee, 13 Wn. App. 900, 538 P.2d 538, 542 (1975), where the causal connection was 
considered:

     This causal connection 
has been referred to as within the res gestae of the intended crime. In 
commenting on the historical background of the felony-murder doctrine, the court 
in State v. Suit, 129 N.J. Super. 336, 323 A.2d 541, 546 (1974), 
noted:

"The doctrine arose and 
is premised upon a theory of transferred intent, that is, that one perpetrating 
or attempting to perpetrate an inherently dangerous felony possesses a 
malevolent state of mind which the law calls malice. . . .

"It is this intent which 
transfers into that element of malice necessary to sustain a charge of 
first-degree murder and is imputed to the person who kills during the felony. 
Thus, when killing occurs in the commission of a robbery, it is murder in the 
first degree, even though death was not intended."

[¶122] The Montana court in State v. Weinberger, 206 
Mont. 110, 671 P.2d 567, 569 (1983) recognized a quote from 2 Charles E. Torcia, 
Wharton's Criminal Law § 149, at 221 (14th ed. 1978):

     "It is not the purpose 
of the felony-murder rule to foist authorship of a homicide upon a felon; the 
purpose is merely to clothe the felon's act of killing with malice."

The Montana 
court then quoted from Commonwealth v. Redline, 391 Pa. 486, 137 A.2d 472, 476 
(1958):

"In adjudging a 
felony-murder, it is to be remembered at all times that the thing which is 
imputed to a felon for a killing incidental to his felony is malice and 
not the act of killing. The mere coincidence of homicide and felony is 
not enough to satisfy the requirements of the felony-murder doctrine. `It is 
necessary . . . to show that the conduct causing death was done in furtherance 
of the design to commit the felony. Death must be a consequence of the felony . 
. . and not merely coincidence.' (Citing authority.)" (Emphasis in 
original.)

Weinberger, 671 P.2d  at 569. In application of the rule, the Montana court found inadequacy of 
proof, plan or design and insufficiency of the evidence to establish the 
underlying felony to be chargeable to the incident of homicide. The application 
of the Weinberger causal relation rule clearly applies to the theory of defense 
of Bouwkamp that his participation occurred only as an accessory after the fact. 
If that was true, he could not have been guilty of felony murder.

[¶123] The felony as the principal occurrence was 
recognized again by the Kansas court in State v. Peterson, 236 Kan. 821, 696 P.2d 387, 394 (1985):

     Res gestae is a 
broader concept than an exception to the hearsay rule. It actually deals with 
admissibility of evidence of acts or declarations before, during or after 
happenings of the principal event. Those acts done or declarations made before, 
during or after the happening of the principal occurrence may be admitted as 
part of the res gestae where those acts or declarations are so closely connected 
with the principal occurrence as to form in reality a part of the 
occurrence.

[¶124] A foundational case frequently referenced is 
State v. Diebold, 152 Wn. 68, 277 P. 394, 395-96 (1929) where it was 
stated:

     As to when a homicide 
may be said to have been committed in the course of the perpetration of another 
crime, the rule is laid down in 13 R.C.L. 845, as follows: "It may be stated 
generally that a homicide is committed in the perpetration of another crime, 
when the accused, intending to commit some crime other than the homicide, is 
engaged in the performance of any one of the acts which such intent requires for 
its full execution, and, while so engaged, and within the res gestae of the 
intended crime, and in consequence thereof, the killing results. It must appear 
that there was such actual legal relation between the killing and the crime 
committed or attempted, that the killing can be said to have occurred as a part 
of the perpetration of the crime, or in furtherance of an attempt or purpose to 
commit it. In the usual terse legal phraseology, death must have been the 
probable consequence of the unlawful act * * *."

[¶125] In Diebold, appellant was a taxi driver who 
illegally borrowed a vehicle and thereafter, upon becoming extremely 
intoxicated, ran the vehicle into the decedent. Felony murder was asserted based 
on the original unlawful taking of the vehicle, even though the defendant was in 
the process of vehicle return when the death resulted. The Washington court 
determined that felony murder could not be applied from the initial vehicle 
taking where nothing in the nature of pursuit or flight was involved. See, 
however, State v. Leech, 54 Wn. App. 597, 775 P.2d 463 (1989), where a 
firefighter died in fighting the defendant's arsonstarted fire.

[¶126] Likewise in King v. Com., 6 Va. App. 351, 368 S.E.2d 704 (1988), following the earlier case of Wooden v. Com., 222 Va. 758, 
284 S.E.2d 811 (1981), the death of the co-felon in an airplane crash while the 
duo were involved in transporting marijuana could not create a felony murder 
basis for conviction. Davis v. Com., 12 Va. App. 408, 404 S.E.2d 377 (1991) was 
directly contrary in factual status where the defendant was trying to escape 
from motor vehicular pursuit since he was a habitual offender. The illegal 
driving in attempt to escape and resulting death of an innocent person added up 
to felony murder. Likewise, the act of driving when forbidden to do so in order 
to avoid detection accrued felony murder liability where the police automobile 
chase followed burglary of a car in State in Interest of J.R., 234 N.J. Super. 
388, 560 A.2d 1279 (1988).

[¶127] Asportation and continuing transaction can be 
utilized to find the res gestae for application to a robbery homicide felony 
murder. The gravamen of the offense is the intent to commit the underlying 
felony, not the intent to commit the killing. State v. Lassen, 679 S.W.2d 363 
(Mo. App. 1984). The principle addressed in the case, although not factually 
found, is that larceny from the body of one killed as an afterthought does not 
constitute a capital felony. Although the killing may precede, coincide or 
follow the robbery and still be committed in the perpetration, initial felonious 
intent is required. Differentiating from some proximate cause authorities, the 
rule is also stated: "`A killing is committed . . . within the purview of a 
felony-murder statute "when there is no break in the chain of events leading 
from the initial felony to the act causing death, so that the homicide is linked 
to or part of the series of incidents forming one continual transaction."'" 
State v. Covington, 290 N.C. 313, 226 S.E.2d 629, 639-40 (1976) (quoting State 
v. Thompson, 280 N.C. 202, 185 S.E.2d 666, 673 (1972)).

[¶128] The issue is factual if the intent to commit 
the felony as the initiating event of the transaction is denied. Wooten, 245 S.E.2d 699. Obviously, if the facts impeach the denial testimony, presentation 
of the jury issue and approval of the resulting jury verdict appropriately 
results. The court in Wooten recognized that proof of intent to steal at the 
time of the homicide was required for conviction of first degree murder under 
the felony murder doctrine. Id. at 706. When the homicide is within the res 
gestae of the initial crime and is an emanation thereof, it is committed in the 
perpetration of that crime in the statutory sense. State v. Milentz, 547 S.W.2d 164 (Mo. App. 1977); State v. Adams, 339 Mo. 926, 98 S.W.2d 632 (1936). It was 
similarly stated in California: "It is sufficient that the homicide be related 
to the felony and have resulted as a natural and probable consequence thereof 
* * *." People v. Taylor, 112 Cal. App. 3d 348, 358, 169 Cal. Rptr. 290, 295 
(1980) (emphasis added). See also People v. Chavez, 37 Cal. 2d 656, 234 P.2d 632 
(1951).

[¶129] The appropriate resolution of the relationship 
required is fact sensitive under the circumstances presented which means the 
sequence of events is significant but may not be controlling on a temporal basis 
alone. The proper examination is whether a homicide occurred as a result of 
commission of a felony in order that the transferred intent from the commission 
of the felony creates the mens rea required where otherwise premeditation should 
exist to define a first degree murder offense. The juxtaposition and the lack of 
specificity in the language used for majority decision is just plain wrong. The 
dogma in Cloman which graduated to the supposed rule in Price is factually 
inapplicable and inappropriate for further application to this case. The 
singular logical fallacy resulted from this court's determination by applied 
characterizations rather than use of facts to reason to a logical conclusion. In 
philosophy, at least, a Sandstrom presumption was created.

[¶130] It is apparent that a temporal relationship is 
not meaningless, that the homicide is required to be a result of the intended 
commission of the felony and an accessory after the fact does not create the 
felony murder responsibility for an earlier homicide that may have occurred 
without the participation or assistance of the defendant. The majority's 
conception to the contrary is clearly and almost uniformly contrary to the 
established state of the law. The unimportant relationship instruction which was 
given under these circumstances should constitute reversible error. It 
presumptively and significantly misled the jury about the relationship between 
the charged crime and controverted conduct. That instruction is best consigned 
to the "never again to be used" file and a logically valid alternative should be 
given in replacement. In a Cloman circumstance, the instruction usage is 
harmless nonsense; where it matters in a case like this, it becomes a factual 
inaccuracy conceptualized into a legal presumption.

VI.

SINGLE OR SEPARATE 
VERDICTS FOR ENTRY OF THE JURY DETERMINATION OF GUILT FOR THE DIFFERENTIATED 
CHARACTER OF FIRST DEGREE MURDER, PREMEDITATED KILLING OR FELONY 
MURDER

[¶131] For this appeal, the patchwork verdict and not 
the special unanimous decision instruction is presented. However, the issues are 
essentially the same.10 This is the most complex and 
difficult aspect of the trilogy issues in this case. We are here presented the 
unitary verdict unanimous instruction decidendi which has created unlimited 
litigative review with frequently differentiated results and inconclusive 
justifications used to affirm possible non-unanimous jury decisions. See Schad, 
111 S. Ct. 2491, compared with People v. Lowe, 660 P.2d 1261 (Colo. 1983) and 
State v. Alford, 329 N.C. 755, 407 S.E.2d 519 (1991), followed by People v. 
O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164 (Colo. 1990); People v. Freeman, 668 P.2d 1371 (Colo. 
1983); State v. Boots, 308 Or. 371, 780 P.2d 725 (1989); and, in particular, 
Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S. Ct. 1881, 44 L. Ed. 2d 508 (1975) and In re 
Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S. Ct. 1068, 25 L. Ed. 2d 368 (1970).11

[¶132] The issue is not new in recent date to Wyoming 
since first presented in dictum in Cloman, 574 P.2d 410 and more recently 
applied in Price, 807 P.2d 909. In Cloman, the defendant and co-participant 
brutally murdered three good samaritan benefactors, robbed the bodies and took 
the vehicle to Chicago where the malefactors were apprehended. Neither 
premeditated homicide nor felony murder involvement was realistically in 
question. In what originally was a death penalty case, that result was only 
altered by the unconstitutionality of the Wyoming statute. Kennedy v. State, 559 P.2d 1014 (Wyo. 1977); Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 96 S. Ct. 2909, 49 L. Ed. 2d 859 (1976); Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238, 92 S. Ct. 2726, 33 L. Ed. 2d 346 
(1972).

[¶133] The sum and substance of the Cloman opinion was 
the evidentiary finding for the jury decision that the multiple homicides 
occurred in the perpetration of robbery and were premeditated and willful malice 
killings. A disjunctive unitary verdict had been used and this court applied the 
fact-finding substitutional evidence rule to affirm. Unfortunately, the opinion 
hypothesized an unknown about what the jury could have found, not what the 
evidence would have sustained. The substantiated evidence rule to be hereafter 
discussed in detail for the court justified a possible non-unanimous jury 
decision and a composite verdict result. Cloman was not remarkable in 
evidentiary clarity of murder theory where including both felony murder and 
premeditated murder. Overtly, problems would have been avoided for adjudication 
in Cloman if a standard had been established for usage of the bilateral verdict 
for premeditated and felony murder so the appellate court does not become 
required to act as the conceptional fact finder. Cloman also created the 
alternative problem of temporal relationship irrelevancy, again as unnecessary 
dictum. The Cloman unitary verdict dialectic use was then followed in Price 
where the real conflict presented was participation of the defendant in a felony 
to justify the felony murder component of the first degree murder conviction. 
Price, 807 P.2d 909, Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting.

[¶134] The historical Wyoming standard for unanimity 
started in early case law and was expressly stated by quotation from an even 
earlier Missouri case:

     "The defendant was 
entitled to a unanimous verdict of the jury upon the issues of his guilt or 
innocence of the particular offense for which he was on trial. Under this 
instruction and the general verdict returned, some of the jurors may have 
believed the testimony in support of the charge as to one of the gaming devices 
and disbelieved the testimony as to the other, while the remaining members of 
the jury may have found and believed conversely."

State v. Tobin, 
31 Wyo. 355, 371, 226 P. 681, 686 (1924) (quoting State v. Washington, 242 Mo. 
401, 409, 146 S.W. 1164, 1166 (1912)). It might be conceded now that justice has 
been permanently truncated by non-unanimous verdict adaptation in constitutional 
law in Wyoming, except the United States Supreme Court has been called to more 
recently examine the subject in Schad, 111 S. Ct. 2491, where that court decided, 
on a four plurality, one concurrence and a four dissent vote, whether the 
identical unitary verdict issue produced a constitutional misappropriation in 
process. Conversely, the national legal trend in all state courts is clearly in 
the opposite direction where now aimed to recapture unanimity as a function of 
jury decisions and undoubtedly to avoid unnecessary appeals and divisive doubt 
as to what the jury really determined.

[¶135] Schad came to the United States Supreme Court 
from the death penalty affirmation of the Arizona Supreme Court in State v. 
Schad, 163 Ariz. 411, 788 P.2d 1162 (1989), cert. granted, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S. Ct. 243, 112 L. Ed. 2d 202 (1990). See also State v. Schad, 129 Ariz. 557, 633 P.2d 366 (1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 983, 102 S. Ct. 1492, 71 L. Ed. 2d 693 
(1982) and State v. Schad, 142 Ariz. 619, 691 P.2d 710 (1984). Schad addressed a 
hitchhiker killing of his automobile ride host. In Schad, the Arizona court gave 
quick consideration to the unitary verdict issue in comment, including 
citations, of the Arizona cases of State v. Encinas, 132 Ariz. 493, 647 P.2d 624 
(1982) and State v. Axley, 132 Ariz. 383, 646 P.2d 268 (1982), and then quoted 
from Encinas:

In State v. Encinas, 132 
Ariz. 493, 647 P.2d 624 (1982), we stated:

"In Arizona, first degree 
murder is only one crime regardless whether it occurs as a premeditated murder 
or a felony murder. See State v. Axley, 132 Ariz. 383, 646 P.2d 268 (1982). 
Although a defendant is entitled to a unanimous jury verdict on whether the 
criminal act charged has been committed, State v. Counterman, 8 Ariz. App. 526, 
448 P.2d 96 (1968), the defendant is not entitled to a unanimous verdict on the 
precise manner in which the act was committed."

Id. at 496, 647 P.2d  at 
627.

Our decision in State v. 
Smith, 160 Ariz. 507, 774 P.2d 811 (1989), did not change the substantive rule 
that it was not error to have one form of verdict for first degree murder even 
though both premeditation and felony murder were being submitted to the jury. 
Smith does, however, strongly urge that alternate forms of verdict be submitted 
to a jury when a case is submitted on alternative theories of premeditated and 
felony murder. Id. at 507, 774 P.2d  at 811.

Schad, 788 P.2d  
at 1168.

[¶136] It is difficult to relate the litigative 
history of the unitary verdict for differentiated offense first degree murder in 
Arizona to the treatment by the United States Supreme Court plurality decision 
following further appeal. In first component, the special concurrence of Justice 
Scalia is simplistic and exact. Unfortunately, it tends to put in issue an 
entire universe of differentiated offense unitary verdict cases which are not 
felony murder/premeditated murder/first degree murder in nature. See, for 
example, the basic case on the subject, United States v. Gipson, 553 F.2d 453 
(5th Cir. 1977), which also was conceptualized by the plurality in 
statement:

     We are not persuaded 
that the Gipson approach really answers the question, however. Although the 
classification of alternatives into "distinct conceptual groupings" is a way to 
express a judgment about the limits of permissible alternatives, the notion is 
too indeterminate to provide concrete guidance to courts faced with verdict 
specificity questions.

Schad, 111 S. Ct. 
at 2498.12

[¶137] The special concurrence of Justice Scalia 
defined a historical justification for the unitary verdict for the 
differentiated offenses of these specific crimes, felony murder and premeditated 
murder. He finds only the single offense in first degree murder which may 
alternatively be committed by the entirely different activities of felony murder 
or premeditated killing. To differentiate the permissible treatment of first 
degree murder as a single offense, whether or not reached by entirely different 
offense activities from "umbrella" offenses, he examined historical 
justification to extract provided due process. Justice Scalia does not address 
requirements for unanimity, except in rejection of the requirement, he 
says:

     As the plurality 
observes, it has long been the general rule that when a single crime can be 
committed in various ways, jurors need not agree upon the mode of commission. * 
* * That rule is not only constitutional, it is probably indispensable in a 
system that requires a unanimous jury verdict to convict.

Id. at 2506. 
This becomes the epitome of pragmatic constitutionalism. For Schad and to define 
federal constitutional bases as the decisive route for history to create due 
process, Justice Scalia said:

It is precisely the 
historical practices that define what is "due." "Fundamental fairness" 
analysis may appropriately be applied to departures from traditional 
American conceptions of due process; but when judges test their individual 
notions of "fairness" against an American tradition that is deep and broad and 
continuing, it is not the tradition that is on trial, but the 
judges.

     And that is the case 
here. Submitting killing in the course of a robbery and premeditated killing to 
the jury under a single charge is not some novel composite that can be subjected 
to the indignity of "fundamental fairness" review. It was the norm when this 
country was founded, was the norm when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 
1868, and remains the norm today. Unless we are here to invent a Constitution 
rather than enforce one, it is impossible that a practice as old as the common 
law and still in existence in the vast majority of States does not provide that 
process which is "due."

     If I did not believe 
that, I might well be with the dissenters in this case.

Id. at 2507 
(emphasis in original).

[¶138] His further discussion is 
informative:

Certainly the plurality 
provides no satisfactory explanation of why (apart from the endorsement of 
history) it is permissible to combine in one count killing in the course of 
robbery and killing by premeditation. The only point it makes is that the 
depravity of mind required for the two may be considered morally equivalent. * * 
* But the petitioner here does not complain about lack of moral equivalence: he 
complains that, as far as we know, only six jurors believed he was 
participating in a robbery, and only six believed he intended to kill. 
Perhaps moral equivalence is a necessary condition for allowing such a 
verdict to stand, but surely the plurality does not pretend that it is 
sufficient. (We would not permit, for example, an indictment charging 
that the defendant assaulted either X on Tuesday or Y on Wednesday, despite the 
"moral equivalence" of those two acts.) Thus, the plurality approves the Arizona 
practice in the present case because it meets one of the conditions for 
constitutional validity. It does not say what the other conditions are, 
or why the Arizona practice meets them. With respect, I do not think this 
delivers the "critical examination," * * * which the plurality promises as a 
substitute for reliance upon historical practice. In fact, I think its analysis 
ultimately relies upon nothing but historical practice (whence does it derive 
even the "moral equivalence" requirement?) - but to acknowledge that reality 
would be to acknowledge a rational limitation upon our power, which bobtailed 
"critical examination" obviously is not. "Th[e] requirement of [due process] is 
met if the trial is had according to the settled course of judicial proceedings. 
Due process of law is process due according to the law of the land."[13]

Id. at 2507 
(emphasis in original and quoting Walker v. Sauvinet, 2 Otto 90, 92 U.S. 90, 93, 
23 L. Ed. 678 (1875)).

[¶139] Any analysis of Schad fails to make much sense 
unless first attention to the Justice Scalia position understands his 
recognition of the obvious. We deal with two totally different societal offenses 
necessarily having in common only a resulting homicide. Due process is the 
concern which he finds to be served in the unitary verdict - non-unanimous 
status by historical justification of continued use. Strangely enough for 
Wyoming, that historical perspective is a total void in adjudicated case law 
from date of statehood until 1978 when Cloman was authored by this 
court.

[¶140] To address then the plurality decision in 
Schad, it is found that after first disregarding Gipson and its whole universe 
of federal and state determinations, the author states:

We do not, of course, 
suggest that jury instructions requiring increased verdict specificity are not 
desirable, and in fact the Supreme Court of Arizona has itself recognized that 
separate verdict forms are useful in cases submitted to a jury on alternative 
theories of premeditated and felony murder. State v. Smith, 160 Ariz. 507, 513, 
774 P.2d 811, 817 (1989). We hold only that the Constitution did not command 
such a practice on the facts of this case.

Schad, 111 S. Ct. 
at 2504.

[¶141] Having said what is right but not required, the 
plurality directs itself to the conceptualization similar to the inquiry about 
the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin by addressing moral 
equivalency:

Whether or not everyone 
would agree that the mental state that precipitates death in the course of 
robbery is the moral equivalent of premeditation, it is clear that such 
equivalence could reasonably be found, which is enough to rule out the argument 
that this moral disparity bars treating them as alternative means to satisfy the 
mental element of a single offense.

Id. at 
2503-04.

[¶142] The problem with the concept of moral 
equivalency is that it ignores the requirement for the jury to unanimously find 
guilt within conduct constituting a criminal offense and leaves an ad hoc rule 
to be immediately applied. Obviously, courts and prosecutors have declined to 
adopt the "useful approach" involved in a jury unanimity finding provided by 
separate verdict forms for these two factually differentiated characters of 
criminal conduct. In the individual case, death may be the result of both 
(Cloman), or one (Price), or even on occasion neither, where the killing was 
done by someone else and a precipitative felony was not committed by the 
defendant. Conceptually, for the theory of defense for this defendant, the 
latter is what Bouwkamp argues and testified actually occurred.

[¶143] In his Schad opinion writing, Justice White, 
with the four Justice dissent, appropriately recognized that the decision of 
neither the plurality nor the special concurrence accommodated the due process 
mandates of In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S. Ct. 1068, which provided a 
fundamental tenant for this nation's criminal law. In declining to hide the 
actuality in either historical practice or moral equivalency, Justice White 
stated:

     It is true that we 
generally give great deference to the States in defining the elements of crimes. 
I fail to see, however, how that truism advances the plurality's case. There is 
no failure to defer in recognizing the obvious: that premeditated murder and 
felony murder are alternative courses of conduct by which the crime of 
first-degree murder may be established.

Schad, 111 S. Ct. 
at 2508.

[¶144] He appropriately recognized that the Arizona 
statute thus sets forth three general categories of conduct which constitute 
first degree murder (premeditated, during escape and felony murder). The Wyoming 
statute here at issue, Wyo. Stat. § 6-2-101, has only two components - 
premeditated murder and felony murder.

[¶145] Within that concept, Justice White then 
established:

     Here, the prosecution 
set out to convict petitioner of first-degree murder by either of two different 
paths, premeditated murder and felony murder/robbery. Yet while these two paths 
both lead to a conviction for first-degree murder, they do so by divergent 
routes possessing no elements in common except the fact of a murder. * * 
*

* * * * * *

Unlike premeditated 
murder, felony murder does not require that the defendant commit the killing or 
even intend to kill, so long as the defendant is involved in the underlying 
felony. On the other hand, felony murder - but not premeditated murder - 
requires proof that the defendant had the requisite intent to commit and did 
commit the underlying felony. State v. McLoughlin, 139 Ariz. 481, 485, 679 P.2d 504, 508 (1984). Premeditated murder, however, demands an intent to kill as well 
as premeditation, neither of which is required to prove felony murder. Thus, 
contrary to the plurality's assertion, * * * the difference between the two 
paths is not merely one of a substitution of one mens rea for another. 
Rather, each contains separate elements of conduct and state of mind which 
cannot be mixed and matched at will. It is particularly fanciful to equate an 
intent to do no more than rob with a premeditated intent to murder.

     Consequently, a 
verdict that simply pronounces a defendant "guilty of first-degree murder" 
provides no clues as to whether the jury agrees that the three elements of 
premeditated murder or the two elements of felony murder have been proven beyond 
a reasonable doubt. Instead, it is entirely possible that half of the jury 
believed the defendant was guilty of premeditated murder and not guilty of 
felony murder/robbery, while half believed exactly the reverse. To put the 
matter another way, the plurality affirms this conviction without knowing that 
even a single element of either of the ways for proving first-degree murder, 
except the fact of a killing, has been found by a majority of the jury, let 
alone found unanimously by the jury as required by Arizona law. A defendant 
charged with first-degree murder is at least entitled to a verdict - something 
petitioner did not get in this case as long as the possibility exists that no 
more than six jurors voted for any one element of first-degree murder, except 
the fact of a killing.

Id. at 2508-09 
(footnote omitted).

[¶146] Similarly well recognized by Justice White's 
dissent is that the problem with the statute

under a single heading, 
criminalizes several alternative patterns of conduct. While a State is free to 
construct a statute in this way, it violates due process for a State to invoke 
more than one statutory alternative, each with different specified elements, 
without requiring that the jury indicate on which of the alternatives it has 
based the defendant's guilt.

* * * Allowing the jury 
to return a generic verdict following a prosecution on two separate theories 
with specified elements has the same effect as a jury verdict of "guilty of 
crime" based on alternative theories of embezzlement or reckless 
driving.

Id. at 
2509-10.14

[¶147] I totally fail to find rational justification 
in the Schad plurality or special concurrence to deny a unanimous jury verdict 
requirement under the Wyoming Constitution, statutes, rules of criminal 
procedure or even historical case law. Tobin, 226 P. 681; First Nat. Bank of 
Rock Springs, Wyo. v. Foster, 9 Wyo. 157, 61 P. 466 (1901). It seems certain in 
bland and decisive logic that however we can evaluate historical precedent for 
the law to now reach moral equivalency instead of historical experience is just 
not the real fact. American law has long recognized the danger of a potentially 
non-unanimous jury verdict or verdict on an alternatively improper basis. 
Stromberg v. People of State of California, 283 U.S. 359, 51 S. Ct. 532, 75 L. Ed. 1117 (1931). The philosophical underpinnings of American law were provided by 
Justice Reed in Andres v. United States, 333 U.S. 740, 748, 68 S. Ct. 880, 884, 
92 L. Ed. 1055 (1948), where he clearly and succinctly stated: "Unanimity in jury 
verdicts is required where the Sixth and Seventh Amendments apply." Cf. Apodaca 
v. Oregon, 406 U.S. 404, 92 S. Ct. 1628, 32 L. Ed. 2d 184 (1972), non-unanimity in 
non-first degree murder criminal cases. The footnote provided in the Justice 
Reed composition of Andres, 333 U.S.  at 748 n. 13, 68 S. Ct.  at 884 n. 13 
contributed an even earlier thoughtful recognition of American Pub. Co. v. 
Fisher, 166 U.S. 464, 468, 17 S. Ct. 618, 619, 41 L. Ed. 1079 (1897): "Now 
unanimity was one of the peculiar and essential features of trial by jury at the 
common law. No authorities are needed to sustain this proposition."

[¶148] Fortunately, to address the kind of dilemma 
that has been created by Schad, there is available for review another recent 
case which justifies special evaluation. In the homicide prosecution in Boots, 
780 P.2d 725, accord State v. Murray, 308 Or. 496, 782 P.2d 157 (1989), the 
trial court instructed the jury in a fashion which accords with the plurality 
review of the unitary verdict issue in Schad:

     "With regard to this 
charge, it is not necessary for all jurors to agree on the manner in which 
Aggravated Murder was committed. That is, some jurors may find that it was 
committed during the course of and in furtherance of Robbery in the First 
Degree, and others may find it was committed to conceal a crime or its 
perpetrator. Any combination of twelve jurors agreeing that one or the other or 
both occurs is sufficient to establish this offense."

Boots, 780 P.2d  
at 727.

[¶149] An interesting comparison is provided by the 
Oregon court in the decision which directly relates to the effect of what 
occurred to Bouwkamp in this case. In Boots, the trial court instruction was 
based on the precedent of the earlier Oregon case of State v. Hazelett, 8 Or. 
App. 44, 492 P.2d 501 (1972), which is frequently found within the string 
citations used in other jurisdictions to justify unitary verdict system for the 
first degree murder conviction where premeditation and felony murder are not 
separately charged or determined in verdict.15

[¶150] The Oregon court said:

The challenged 
instruction explicitly tells jurors to return a verdict of aggravated murder 
even if some of them doubt that the defendant was a participant in the robbery 
but believe that he meant to conceal it and others believe that defendant was a 
robber but not that concealing the crime played a role in the 
killing.

     The implications go 
further. In another case, there could be several charges under different  subsections of ORS 163.095 in addition 
to a robbery and an intent to conceal, for instance, that the defendant was paid 
to commit the murder, that the victim was a police officer, and that the death 
resulted from defendant's intent to maim the victim. The instruction would tell 
jurors to return a verdict of aggravated murder, although some do not believe 
that the officer was present in an official capacity and others do not believe 
that defendant was paid, or intended to maim, or that there was a robbery or an 
intent to conceal it. In short, the instruction relieves the jury from seriously 
confronting the question whether they agree that any factual requirement of 
aggravated murder has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt, so long as each 
juror is willing to pick one theory or another.

Boots, 780 P.2d  
at 727-28.

[¶151] In recognizing and differentiating a Wisconsin 
case, Holland v. State, 91 Wis.2d 134, 280 N.W.2d 288 (1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 931, 100 S. Ct. 1320, 63 L. Ed. 2d 764 (1980), the Oregon court also quoted 
and then considered the substance of the Gipson rule:

The Gipson opinion comes 
closer to the present case than do cases like Holland under statutes defining 
who besides the primary actor is a principal. Nothing in ORS 163.095 or in ORS 
136.450 requires or supports an instruction that, as Gipson notes, creates 
serious constitutional doubts.

What led the Hazelett 
court astray was the simple error of counting and adding those jurors who are 
convinced of any one distinct statutory element rather than focusing, for each 
element, on the jurors who may not be convinced of that element, though they 
separately might convict on their own, equally nonunanimous, view of the 
decisive facts. Under the proper focus - the possible dissent of some jurors 
from any one factual finding - the principle of decision is evident. The 
instruction that the jury need not unanimously agree either on the charge under 
[premeditated murder] or on the charge under [homicide to conceal identity] was 
error.

Boots, 780 P.2d  
at 731.

[¶152] To adequately address Wyoming law regarding 
W.R.Cr.P. 31 (formerly W.R.Cr.P. 32), which provides the requirement of 
unanimity, and attendant Wyoming constitutional rights under Wyo. Const. art. 1, 
§ 9 and for present recognition of the national constitution as defined in 
Schad, there is a requirement related to the two separate but clearly 
intertwined character of cases. Many came forward on appeal by denied special 
instruction and others, like this case, rest upon the unitary verdict form 
used.

[¶153] The lead case in citation usage for instruction 
was Gipson, 553 F.2d 453 (see, however, the recent case of United States v. 
Holley, 942 F.2d 916 (5th Cir. 1991)) and the informational resource on verdicts 
was initiated by People v. Sullivan, 173 N.Y. 122, 65 N.E. 989 (1903). There are 
a significant number of self-standing rules or characterizations that have been 
enunciated in the cases to justify non-requirement of a unanimous decision by 
the jury. However, within the totality of the cases, the current Schad plurality 
resting on the concept of moral equivalency is indeed novel.16 The predetermined justification in 
historical analysis utilized by Justice Scalia, although found with relevancy to 
the adaptation in Sullivan, as presently phrased in due process rather than 
In re Winship unanimity, is also now completely new in explaining how 
different acts separately charged do not either justify the unitary instruction 
or require the differentiated verdict. Concepts asserted for justification in 
argumentative phraseology or preclusive determination are:

1. Lack of dual verdict 
is justified to affirm the conviction if the jury reasonably could have 
convicted on both alternatives. Price, 807 P.2d 909; Cloman, 574 P.2d 410. 
This is the appellate court fact-finding substitution for a jury unanimity 
requirement on what occurred to create the crime.

2. Premeditation and 
felony murder are alternative ways to establish the mental state required for a 
first degree murder conviction. State v. Wilson, 220 Kan. 341, 552 P.2d 931 
(1976). How the crime may have occurred need not necessarily be unanimously 
determined by the jury for assessment of a mental state and the application of 
the murder conviction responsibility. The jury can assess alternative 
responsibilities without unanimous determination of any one concept, e.g., 
malice - either premeditative or alternatively presumed intent by felony 
participation.

3. Premeditation or 
felony murder can be an aggravating circumstance to create the capital crime of 
first degree murder. Thus, the jury does not separately and unanimously need to 
determine what alternatives exist. State v. Tillman, 750 P.2d 546 (Utah 
1987).

4. The appellate court 
assumes that the jury must have been unanimous because the facts were subsumed 
in the alternative theories as well. State v. Jones, 193 Conn. 70, 475 A.2d 1087 
(1984); Tyler v. United States, 495 A.2d 1180 (D.C.App. 1985).

5. A general unanimity 
instruction suffices to instruct the jury that they must be unanimous on 
whatever specifically forms the proper basis for the jury verdict, except where 
there is a genuine possibility of jury confusion and that conviction may result 
from different jurors concluding that the defendant committed different acts. 
United States v. Payseno, 782 F.2d 832 (9th Cir. 1986); United States v. 
Echeverry, 719 F.2d 974 (9th Cir. 1983). See also Jeffries v. Blodgett, 771 F. Supp. 1520 (W.D.Wash. 1991).

6. Alternative factual 
details have no separate legal importance. Gray v. United States, 544 A.2d 1255 
(D.C.App. 1988); State v. Souhrada, 122 Mont. 377, 204 P.2d 792 (1949); State v. 
Flathers, 57 S.D. 320, 232 N.W. 51 (1930); State v. Giwosky, 109 Wis.2d 446, 326 N.W.2d 232 (1982).

[¶154] The initial concept for the premeditated felony 
murder first degree unitary verdict came from Sullivan, 65 N.E. 989. In that 
1903 case, the New York court authored the dual claim, single verdict, 
sufficiency of the evidence on each claim rule. If, as to either claim, the 
evidence was insufficient to justify the submission of the question to the jury, 
the conviction must be reversed since it cannot be known on which ground the 
jury based its verdict. See, however, although not phrased on Sixth Amendment 
terms, the non-unanimity discussion in Griffin v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 
112 S. Ct. 466, 116 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1991). The list may have become differentiated 
between conjunctive and disjunctive charging; the result, however, is any one or 
not all.

[¶155] However, the court then said in Sullivan, 65 N.E.  at 989 (quoting Murray v. New York Life Insurance Co., 96 N.Y. 614, 48 
Am.Rep. 658 (1884)): "`It is not necessary that a jury, in order to find a 
verdict, should concur in a single view of the transaction disclosed by the 
evidence. If the conclusion may be justified upon either of two interpretations 
of the evidence, the verdict cannot be impeached by showing that a part of the 
jury proceeded upon one interpretation and part upon the other.'" Thus came to 
be the one crime - non-unanimity - sufficiency of the evidence adaptation for 
the unitary verdict which was in that case diligently attacked in dissent and 
has remained singularly challenged for further authentication ever since. 
Although Sullivan is cited in Schad, it is apparent that the rule of Sullivan is 
singularly different from the plurality moral equivalency, Justice Scalia's 
historical non-justification for non-unanimity and, of course, Justice White's 
rejection in dissent. The Sullivan rule in generic concept of a sufficiency of 
the evidence to justify, although the nature of the evidence may be somewhat 
differentiated, was the rule first extracted for dictum in Cloman, used in 
Price, and now authenticated in this case by the majority. That adaptation has 
no support in Schad nor in the Oregon, Colorado, or North Carolina cases and, 
furthermore, is not within the prior federal court law originally delineated in 
Gipson.

[¶156] Frankly, I cannot find the Sullivan approach to 
fit within the long term historical Wyoming precedent either. For ninety-one 
years in this state, the constitutional requirement of a unanimous jury verdict 
in a criminal case has remained unquestioned. By analysis of Wyo. Const. art. 1, 
§ 9, this court in Foster, 61 P.  at 466-67, what yet today should not be in 
doubt, established that the unanimous jury verdict was constitutionally 
established:

The courts have uniformly 
held also that the word "jury" as used in our constitutions, when not otherwise 
modified, means a common law jury composed of 12 men, whose verdict shall be 
unanimous. As stated by the supreme court of Minnesota: "The expression `trial 
by jury' is as old as Magna Charta, and has obtained a definite historical 
meaning which is well understood by all English-speaking peoples; and for that 
reason no American constitution has ever assumed to define it. We are therefore 
relegated to the history of the common law to ascertain its meaning. The 
essential and substantive attributes or elements of jury trial are, and always 
have been, number, impartiality, and unanimity. The jury must consist of twelve. 
They must be impartial and indifferent between the parties; and their verdict 
must be unanimous." Lommen v. Gaslight Co., 65 Minn. 196, 68 N.W. 53, 33 L.R.A. 
437. * * * It is unquestioned, also, that at the adoption of the constitution 
the right existed in Wyoming as at common law; that is, in felonies and in all 
common-law cases in the district court - our court of general common-law 
jurisdiction - the right was to an impartial jury of 12 men and a unanimous 
verdict. * * * As to the right in criminal cases there is no room for 
construction. The language is express that it shall remain inviolate; that is, 
that a person charged with crime has the right, as heretofore, to demand a trial 
by 12 impartial men, whose verdict must be unanimous in order to support a 
judgment.

See also Tobin, 
226 P. 681, where Foster is identically restated.

[¶157] It is my conviction as a basic 
constitutional recognition that what this court in 1900 forbid to the 
legislature is now by tautology and phraseology inserted by this successor court 
into our system of justice to permit a non-unanimous verdict.

[¶158] Any supposition that premeditated murder and 
felony murder are the same or similar criminal offenses is absurd nonsense in 
this world's reality. Lee, 286 Cal. Rptr. 117; Ortega, 817 P.2d 1196. 
Fundamentally and factually, felony murder may occur when none of the factors of 
premeditated murder are present except the death of a human being. The real fact 
and resulting problem as recognized by Justice White in Schad is, like Arizona 
there and now here under the Wyoming statute which, for emphasis, justifies 
restatement: 

[The statute] 
criminalizes several alternative patterns of conduct. While a State is free to 
construct a statute in this way, it violates due process for a State to invoke 
more than one statutory alternative, each with different specified elements, 
without requiring that the jury indicate on which of the alternatives it has 
based the defendant's guilt.

Schad, 111 S. Ct. 
at 2509. Accord Com. v. Kickery, 31 Mass. App. Ct. 720, 583 N.E.2d 869 (1991) 
and State v. Lynch, 327 N.C. 210, 393 S.E.2d 811 (1990).

[¶159] Within the facts of this case, the first degree 
murder conviction is affirmed without knowing whether a single fact was 
unanimously determined by a majority of the jury, let alone unanimously by the 
jury except the admitted activity of Bouwkamp in his conduct as an accessary 
after the fact. Anything else determined in this decision cannot be actually 
demonstrated to have been the "jury decision." This is a supposition, inference 
and conjecture inelegantly coronated to be fact. Here, we rewrite the Wyoming 
Constitution to accept a non-unanimous jury verdict for first degree murder in 
order to justify affirming a most questionable conviction. Clear and precise 
language should not be reconstituted by applied attributions of moral 
equivalency, historical practice, or even "it must have been true" fact finding 
in appellate decision rendition.

[¶160] Our 1984 case of Fife v. State, 676 P.2d 565 
(Wyo. 1984) is not completely inapposite. The case presented an amended 
information involving two forms of intent which provided three ways the jury 
could have found the defendant guilty of aggravated burglary, e.g., intent to 
steal, intent to commit aggravated assault or a combination of the two. In a 
second count, the defendant was convicted of aggravated assault and battery with 
a dangerous weapon. Although the case was emplaced in reversal on a sufficiency 
of evidence on any concept premise, it was concluded:

     If both theories of 
intent submitted to the jury were sufficiently supported by the evidence, we 
could uphold the general verdict on the aggravated burglary charge. * * * 
However, there was insufficient evidence as a matter of law to support the 
intent to assault element. We cannot uphold a general jury verdict when one of 
the alternate theories upon which the jury could have relied is in 
error.

Fife, 676 P.2d  
at 568. It was further said that:

If one of the alternate 
theories submitted to the jury is unsupported by substantial evidence, the 
general verdict must be set aside unless the court can ascertain that the 
verdict was founded upon a theory supported by substantial evidence. * * 
*

     Submitting claims to 
the jury which have no foundation in the evidence allows the jury to engage in 
conjecture or to speculate as to the defendant's guilt. * * * Parties are 
entitled to proper instructions covering their respective theories regarding 
the evidence submitted.

Id. at 568-69 
(emphasis in original and citing Barber v. Sheridan Trust & Savings Bank, 53 
Wyo. 65, 78 P.2d 1101 (1938)).

[¶161] If one has a modest attraction to logic and 
applied rationality, the invalidity of the attribution of parallelism to 
premeditated murder and felony murder to reach first degree murder is 
immediately apparent. The basic nature and carefully defined requirements for 
proof of premeditated murder are quite different from the proof of an intended 
felony from which by some result, accident, happenstance or pragmatic direction 
of willful intent, a death results. Furthermore, intrinsic in constitutional law 
within the character of the offenses, there are potentially lesser included 
offenses to premeditated murder of second degree or manslaughter and the 
affirmative response of self-defense. Conversely, there is not in most 
jurisdictions any lesser included offense for the felony murder charge and 
self-defense is not available to deny guilt. Richmond v. State, 554 P.2d 1217 
(Wyo. 1976). See, however, Thomas, 386 S.E.2d 555 and Survey, David George 
Hester, State v. Thomas: The North Carolina Supreme Court Determines That There 
Are Lesser Included Offenses of Felony Murder, 68 N.C.L.Rev. 1127 (1990). See 
also Bills, 220 N.W.2d 101, rev'd on other grounds sub nom. People v. Dancer, 
396 Mich. 802, 238 N.W.2d 29 (1976), in following People v. Carter, 395 Mich. 
434, 236 N.W.2d 500 (1975).

[¶162] The curiosity is that in Bouwkamp, the jury was 
illogically provided a verdict of first degree murder, second degree murder, 
manslaughter, or not guilty without a special unanimity instruction or the 
separate premeditated or felony murder verdict decision. The non-separately 
defined felony murder crime could not permit a jury verdict of second degree 
murder or manslaughter, McFarland v. State, 579 N.E.2d 610 (Ind. 1991), and the 
admitted accessory after the fact conduct of the defendant which created a 
presumptive felony murder conception within the instructions given could not 
have informatively justified any not guilty verdict. In realistic application of 
the facts with the conceded cover-up activities and non-relational felony 
status, Bouwkamp received a directed verdict of guilty of first degree 
murder.

[¶163] The basic difference in the function of felony 
murder when compared to premeditated murder in the structure of homicide 
criminal law is demonstrated in the pragmatic unavailability by a definition of 
terms of the lesser included offense17 or affirmative self-defense, State 
v. Marks, 226 Kan. 704, 602 P.2d 1344 (1979); Bellcourt v. State, 390 N.W.2d 269 
(Minn. 1986), and the more frequently analyzed lesser included offense 
instruction. Smith v. State, 259 Ark. 703, 536 S.W.2d 289 (1976); McFarland, 579 N.E.2d 610; Newman v. State, 485 N.E.2d 58 (Ind. 1985); State v. Chism, 243 Kan. 
484, 759 P.2d 105 (1988); State v. Moore, 580 S.W.2d 747 (Mo. 1979); State v. 
Dudrey, 30 Wn. App. 447, 635 P.2d 750 (1981). See also State v. Bradshaw, 593 S.W.2d 562 (Mo. App. 1979) and State v. Handley, 585 S.W.2d 458 (Mo. 1979) 
(where the conviction was reversed, when entered for second degree murder and 
the charge which had been submitted was felony murder, on the basis that second 
degree was not a lesser included offense and, without a formal accusation, the 
conviction could not be sustained).

[¶164] Another differentiating factor arises in some 
cases from the vicarious responsibility of the co-participant where the decedent 
may not be an intended victim. State v. Blackmon, 587 S.W.2d 292 (Mo. App. 
1979), co-actor Willie Cordell was killed; Moore, 580 S.W.2d 747, a bystander 
fired the fatal shot; Miers v. State, 157 Tex.Crim. 572, 251 S.W.2d 404 (1952). 
See, however, the converse persuasion of Redline, 137 A.2d 472 and Evans v. 
Com., 222 Va. 766, 284 S.E.2d 816 (1981), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 111 S. Ct. 309, 112 L. Ed. 2d 295 (1990). The Canola cases are additionally informative to 
demonstrate the progression in New Jersey. State v. Canola, 73 N.J. 206, 374 A.2d 20 (1977); State v. Canola, 135 N.J. Super. 224, 343 A.2d 110, cert. 
denied, 69 N.J. 82, 351 A.2d 10 (1975). The interesting facet of the vicarious 
victim cases as noted above is the innate recognition of the implied malice 
which is transferrable in justification for premeditation for the first degree 
where the killing itself may be realistically accidental. See the confusion 
engendered in People v. Till, 80 Mich. App. 16, 263 N.W.2d 586 (1977), rev'd in 
part, 411 Mich. 982, 308 N.W.2d 110 (1981), based on inadequate record to show 
request for instruction.

[¶165] The theory of transferred malice which is the 
centerpost of felony murder got lost in logical explanation why separate verdict 
forms should not be required.18 A somewhat expansive walk through 
the forest of cases provides a considerable education about why constitutional 
unanimity in the erroneous conception of some courts does not require a 
unanimous fact finding resolution by the jury. See Tim A. Thomas, Annotation, 
Requirement of Jury Unanimity as to Mode of Committing Crime Under Statute 
Setting Forth the Various Modes by Which Offense May Be Committed, 75 A.L.R.4th 
91 (1990). Cf. Erwin S. Barbre, Annotation, What Constitutes Termination of 
Felony for Purpose of Felony-Murder Rule, 58 A.L.R.3d 851 (1974).

[¶166] Arizona cases ultimately resting in the vesting 
of the law in the United States Supreme Court decision in Schad, 111 S. Ct. 2491 
provide an interesting panorama. In Schad, 633 P.2d 366, no consideration was 
given to the unitary verdict submission. When the case reappeared in the Arizona 
Supreme Court in Schad, 691 P.2d 710, the issue considered was an improper 
instruction on felony murder. Error in the felony murder instruction was found 
and the court said:

     Since the jurors were 
given only one form of verdict for first degree murder, we cannot now determine 
whether they voted for first degree murder based on premeditation or on felony 
murder. The possibility that they convicted Schad of first degree murder based 
on the deficient instruction constitutes fundamental error.

Id. at 712. The 
defendant was then retried and the resulting case, Schad, 788 P.2d 1162 tells 
that again the unitary jury verdict had been employed.

[¶167] The case first cited in recent time for Arizona 
law was State v. Counterman, 8 Ariz. App. 526, 448 P.2d 96 (1968), where the 
charge had been assault with a deadly weapon. The actual issue for the case was 
presented as a requested election with information and testimony providing 
indication of two separate assaults with a deadly weapon. The evidence revealed 
that a weapon was discharged twice during the assaultive offense. The court, in 
denying a requirement to elect, stated:

[A] person has a 
constitutional right to be put on trial for a single offense, and that he has a 
right to a unanimous jury verdict with reference to the criminal act for which 
he was tried. * * *

     The rule does not 
apply, however, "where a series of acts form part of one and the same 
transaction, and as a whole constitute but one and the same 
offense."

Id. 448 P.2d  at 
101 (quoting People v. Jefferson, 123 Cal. App. 2d 219, 266 P.2d 564 
(1954)).

[¶168] The next case, Axley, 646 P.2d 268, resulted 
when the trial court had granted a directed verdict on premeditated murder and 
submitted the case by instruction on only felony murder. Consequently, the 
attack came on the indictment and not on the verdict. The subject of unanimity 
of a verdict was not considered. The relevant Arizona rule was then established 
in Encinas, 647 P.2d 624 where the first degree one-crime rule was applied 
rejecting the requirement for a unanimous decision of the jury on either the 
premeditation or felony murder constituents. This was a precise manner, one 
offense allocation to adjure requirement for unanimity in decision on the basic 
facts submitted for offense conviction. The non-election requirement was again 
addressed in the premeditation case of State v. Walton, 159 Ariz. 571, 769 P.2d 1017, cert. granted, 493 U.S. 808, 110 S. Ct. 49, 107 L. Ed. 2d 18 (1989), aff'd, 
497 U.S. 639, 110 S. Ct. 3047, 111 L. Ed. 2d 511 (1990) with no issue raised of 
unanimity in verdict presented. These cases in disruptive process and theory 
would not go away as then last illustrated by State v. Smith, 160 Ariz. 507, 774 P.2d 811 (1989), where the issue was raised by inconsistent verdicts after 
alternative forms of verdicts had been used. The jury found defendant guilty of 
felony murder, not guilty of premeditated murder and the court said in 
recognition which subsequently reappeared as a quotation in Schad, 111 S.Ct. 
2491:

     Thus, as a matter of 
sound administration of justice and efficiency in processing murder cases in the 
future, we urge trial courts, when a case is submitted to a jury on alternate 
theories of premeditated and felony murder, to give alternate forms of verdict 
so the jury may clearly indicate whether neither, one, or both theories 
apply.

Smith, 774 P.2d  
at 817. One could realistically anticipate that by now the word has gone forth 
and that in the state of Arizona, Schad and Encinas will not again reoccur. 
Unfortunately, what is no longer the status in Arizona becomes what reoccurs in 
Wyoming. By misunderstanding the current progression of the law, this court will 
not now provide a thoughtful analysis for the logical development for our own 
law.

[¶169] The cited Washington case, State v. Whitney, 
108 Wn.2d 506, 739 P.2d 1150 (1987), holds, that at least for rape, unanimity 
was not necessary if each charged alternative is supported by "substantial 
evidence"; whether by use of deadly weapon or by kidnapping. The court 
recognized that threatened use of a deadly weapon and kidnapping were different 
crimes, but not necessarily different offenses. The court then said:

Petitioner concedes that 
substantial evidence supports both the kidnapping and the use or threatened use 
of a deadly weapon. Because constitutionally sufficient evidence supports both 
charged alternatives, the lack of jury unanimity does not entail the danger 
present in Green II that any of the jury members may have based their finding of 
guilt on an invalid ground. See [State v.] Green II, 94 Wn.2d [216] at 232, 616 P.2d 628; [State v.] Ellison, 36 Wn. App. [564] at 575, 676 P.2d 531. We 
agree that an instruction on jury unanimity as to the alternative method found 
is preferable because it eliminates potential problems which may arise when one 
of the alternatives is not supported by substantial evidence; however, we 
conclude that such an instruction was not required in this case.

Id. 739 P.2d  at 
1153 (emphasis added). Washington now appears, at least for this type of case, 
to adopt a "sufficiency of the evidence that the jury could have found" rule. It 
was not always that way.

[¶170] In State v. Golladay, 78 Wn.2d 121, 470 P.2d 191, 201 (1970), involving felony murder and premeditated murder, the court had 
said in reversing the conviction and remanding for retrial:

     Thus, a defendant may 
be charged with committing a single crime in two or more ways and proof of one 
will uphold the indictment or information. But before the jury can be instructed 
on and allowed to consider the various ways of committing the crime alleged, 
there must be sufficient evidence to support the instructions. Moreover, the 
instructions must clearly distinguish the alternative theories and require the 
necessity for a unanimous verdict on either of the alternatives. When such is 
the case, the prosecutor need not be forced to elect, for fear that half of the 
jury will find the defendant guilty on one theory and half on another 
theory.

[¶171] Golladay lasted until State v. Arndt, 87 Wn.2d 374, 553 P.2d 1328 (1976) where the "Golladay dictum" was overruled in a larceny 
by fraudulent receipt of public assistance case with a new rule of mutual 
repugnancy then being created. This rule was, as described by the dissent, built 
on a "faulty foundation[]", to-wit: the title of the act. Arndt, 553 P.2d  at 
1336, Brachtenbach, A.J., dissenting. That dissent found the prior state law to 
have been:

"An accused is entitled 
to the concurrence of twelve jurors upon one definite charge of crime." * * 
*

     The jury should have 
been instructed that they must be unanimous in finding beyond a reasonable doubt 
that the defendant committed one or more of the acts charged.

Id. at 1339 
(quoting State v. Oswald, 306 S.W.2d 559, 563 (Mo. 1957)). See also State v. 
Wixon, 30 Wn. App. 63, 631 P.2d 1033, 1040 (1981), which also followed the 
repugnancy rule.

[¶172] With the Arndt split court decision in place, 
the Green cases followed. State v. Green, 91 Wn.2d 431, 588 P.2d 1370 (1979) 
(Green I) and State v. Green, 94 Wn.2d 216, 616 P.2d 628 (1980) (Green II), 
involving a capital penalty murder conviction. Assessed for an error contention 
in Green I was conviction of aggravated murder by alternative means without 
requiring a unanimous verdict. The alternative aggravating offenses of rape and 
kidnapping were presented. The decision provided a requirement of substantial 
evidence of both crimes when a single killing involved theories of both felony 
murder and premeditated murder.

     We are satisfied that 
there exists substantial evidence from which the jury could infer appellant 
killed while in the course of or in furtherance of the statutorily defined 
offense of kidnapping. Appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the 
evidence regarding rape. Thus, since there is substantial evidence of both 
circumstances, applying Arndt, it was not error to instruct the jury in the 
alternative.

Green I, 588 P.2d  at 1377.

[¶173] However, the Green I substantial evidence rule 
was then discarded in Green II to permit adoption of a reasonable doubt 
rule.

     Accordingly, the 
appropriate test for determining the sufficiency of the evidence of kidnapping 
is not that applied in Green I, i.e., whether, after viewing the evidence 
most favorable to the State, there is substantial evidence to support 
kidnapping. The issue, as framed in Jackson v. Virginia, [443 U.S. 307, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560 (1979)], is whether, after viewing the evidence most 
favorable to the State, any rational trier of fact could have found the 
essential elements of kidnapping beyond a reasonable doubt.

Green II, 616 P.2d  at 632 (emphasis in original). In making the progression, the Washington 
court followed Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560 
(1979) and In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S. Ct. 1068. The court applied as a 
rule and concept:

      We agree with 
Green's contention that absent a separate unanimous verdict on each of 
the two critical elements of aggravated murder in the first degree, it is 
impossible to determine whether the jury found unanimously that he committed 
either rape or kidnapping or both.

* * * * * *

In the instant case, the 
jury instructions and verdict form did not require the jury to unanimously find 
appellant committed or attempted to commit either first degree kidnapping or 
rape or both. As instructed, it was possible for the jury to have convicted 
Green with six jurors resting their belief of guilt upon kidnapping and the 
other six resting their belief upon rape. Thus, it is impossible to know whether 
the jury unanimously decided that the element of rape had been established 
beyond a reasonable doubt.

Green II, 616 P.2d  at 638 (emphasis in original). Consequently, the case was reversed for 
retrial. This review of the Washington cases does not provide much stature or 
structure to justify either the moral equivalency of the Schad plurality or the 
historical justification of due process (Justice Scalia's special concurrence). 
The complexity created for the law by the incongruities of differentiated rules 
becomes self-evident.19

[¶174] The case law of California which is the most 
extended among the jurisdictions is also the most confused. In pathway where 
nearly every direction can be found from People v. Castro, 133 Cal. 11, 65 P. 13 
(1901); Chavez, 234 P.2d 632; People v. Nye, 63 Cal. 2d 166, 45 Cal. Rptr. 328, 
403 P.2d 736 (1965), cert. denied, 384 U.S. 1026, 86 S. Ct. 1960, 16 L. Ed. 2d 1033 
(1966); and then People v. Milan, 9 Cal. 3d 185, 107 Cal. Rptr. 68, 507 P.2d 956 
(1973) from which as a distillation of Chavez, unanimity as a constitutional 
concept for conviction of a criminal offense was not presented. This 
non-unanimity criteria in California case law ran into trouble fairly rapidly 
resulting in reversal in both People v. Alva, 90 Cal. App. 3d 418, 153 Cal. Rptr. 644 (1979) and then People v. Diedrich, 31 Cal. 3d 263, 182 Cal. Rptr. 354, 643 P.2d 971 (1982). The immediate watershed case came in People v. Dillon, 34 Cal. 3d 441, 194 Cal. Rptr. 390, 668 P.2d 697 (1983) which touched the tender 
nerve of consistency when the basic examination of felony murder in 
constitutional concepts was the issue presented. For the purpose of that 
resolution, the California Supreme Court said:

     It follows from the 
foregoing analysis that the two kinds of first degree murder in this state 
differ in a fundamental respect: in the case of deliberate and premeditated 
murder with malice aforethought, the defendant's state of mind with respect to 
the homicide is all-important and must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt; in 
the case of first degree felony murder it is entirely irrelevant and need not be 
proved at all. From this profound legal difference flows an equally significant 
factual distinction, to wit, that first degree felony murder encompasses a far 
wider range of individual culpability than deliberate and premeditated murder. 
It includes not only the latter, but also a variety of unintended homicides 
resulting from reckless behavior, or ordinary negligence, or pure accident; it 
embraces both calculated conduct and acts committed in panic or rage, or under 
the dominion of mental illness, drugs, or alcohol; and it condemns alike 
consequences that are highly probable, conceivably possible, or wholly 
unforeseeable.

Dillon, 668 P.2d  
at 719 (footnote omitted).

[¶175] The two offense delineation of Dillon then 
easily disappeared in People v. Guerra, 40 Cal. 3d 377, 220 Cal. Rptr. 374, 708 P.2d 1252 (1985); see People v. Schultz, 192 Cal. App. 3d 535, 237 Cal. Rptr. 513, 
516 (1987), with progression that led to People v. Sanders, 51 Cal. 3d 471, 273 Cal. Rptr. 537, 558, 797 P.2d 561, 582 (1990), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S. Ct. 2249, 114 L. Ed. 2d 490 (1991), where the court escaped from requiring 
reversal with the concept of harmless error that "the jury reached its verdict 
of first degree murder under one legally proper theory." Before reaching that 
startling concept of unanimity in jury decision and constitutionality regarding 
unproven guilt, the court had related:

     The People presented 
the jury with six potential first degree murder theories. In addition to being 
instructed that it should return a verdict of first degree murder if it found 
defendant premeditated and deliberated the killing, or killed during a robbery, 
the jury was also instructed that it could return a verdict of first degree 
murder if it found the murder was committed during a burglary in which defendant 
entered Boender's home with the intent to (1) steal, (2) commit an assault, (3) 
falsely imprison the victims, or (4) dissuade the victims from 
testifying.

     Defendant correctly 
contends, and the People now concede, that it was error to instruct the jury 
that it might convict of first degree murder if it found the killing occurred 
during a burglary in which defendant's intent was to commit an assault. "In 
[People v.] Ireland, [70 Cal. 2d 522, 75 Cal. Rptr. 188, 450 P.2d 580 (1969)], we 
rejected the bootstrap reasoning involved in taking an element of a homicide and 
using it as the underlying felony in a second degree felony-murder instruction. 
We conclude that the same bootstrapping is involved in instructing a jury that 
the intent to assault makes the entry burglary and that the burglary raises the 
homicide resulting from the assault to first degree murder without proof of 
malice aforethought and premeditation." (People v. Wilson (1969) 1 Cal. 3d 431, 
441, 82 Cal. Rptr. 494, 462 P.2d 22.) We thus concluded that "a burglary based on 
intent to assault . . . cannot support a felony-murder instruction." (Ibid.; see 
also People v. Smith (1984) 35 Cal. 3d 798, 804, 201 Cal. Rptr. 311, 678 P.2d 886.)

     Although the 
instruction was erroneous, we agree with the People that the error did not 
prejudice defendant. The jury was presented with five legally permissible 
theories of guilt and one legally impermissible theory. In such circumstances, 
the applicable rule on appeal is clear: reversal is required only if the 
reviewing court cannot determine from the record on which theory the jury 
relied.

Id. 273 Cal. Rptr.  at 557-58, 797 P.2d  at 581-82.

[¶176] The progression in case law then came recently 
to People v. Johnson, 233 Cal. App. 3d 425, 284 Cal. Rptr. 579 (1991) where the 
appellate court determined that pleading premeditated murder suffices for 
conviction of felony murder by a most interesting logical 
conceptualization:

     Defendant errs in 
interpreting Dillon as holding that felony murder and premeditated murder are 
two distinct crimes. (People v. Scott (1991) 229 Cal. App. 3d 707, 713, 280 Cal. Rptr. 274.) Dillon treats felony murder and premeditated murder as "two 
kinds of first degree murder" requiring different elements of proof. (People v. 
Dillon, supra, 34 Cal.3d at pp. 476-477, 194 Cal. Rptr. 390, 668 P.2d 697.) The 
language defendant quotes from the opinion ("the two kinds of murder are not the 
`same' crimes") (id. at p. 476, fn. 23, 194 Cal. Rptr. 390, 668 P.2d 697) was 
merely employed to refute Dillon's "narrow equal protection argument" that 
defendants charged with felony murder, unlike those charged with premeditated 
murder, are not allowed to reduce their degree of guilt by evidence negating the 
element of malice. (Ibid.)

Johnson, 284 Cal. Rptr.  at 595. See, however, People v. Kelly, 1 Cal. 4th 495, 3 Cal. Rptr. 2d 677, 822 P.2d 385 (1992), which is even more recent where the appellate court 
"can determine" one correct theory rule was applied.

[¶177] Reconstruction of this pathway through this 
sample of the many California cases is not taken to illustrate lack of logical 
consistency. Rather, it is done to demonstrate that taking the different 
offenses of premeditated murder and felony murder and factually stating that 
they are the same is, in actuality, not true regardless of the source of 
frequently cited authority to the contrary. The majority decision in this case 
is not made reliable by either honoring the Wyoming Constitution or adaptation 
of Schad, 111 S. Ct. 2491.

[¶178] To say that these two crimes, premeditated 
murder and felony murder, are the same offense is no different than asserting 
that the some fifty-four capital offenses proposed to be created in crime 
control federal legislation now pending in Congress are one crime. If it is to 
be one crime because one penalty can result and only that identity, then to 
assert under present Wyoming law many combinations of aggravated crimes which 
are not capital offenses are likewise one crime which as a matter of fact would 
include manslaughter, aggravated homicide by vehicle, sexual assault in the 
second degree, aggravated robbery, aggravated blackmail, arson, first degree and 
aggravated burglary, while another crime would be aggravated kidnapping and 
second degree murder. It was this incongruity that required Justice Souter to 
create the test of moral equivalency. Schad, 111 S. Ct. 2491. Rationally and 
logically our creation of more of this result-oriented imaginary structure where 
factual underpinning is lacking really makes no sense. It would be far better if 
we would look at cases with a dual verdict finding, as for example, United 
States v. Sides, 944 F.2d 1554, 1557-58 n. 3 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. 
___, 112 S. Ct. 604, 116 L. Ed. 2d 627 (1991) (emphasis in original), where the 
opinion offered by Judge Brorby recognized the definitive advantage of specific 
decision in a case where the differentiated jury conclusions were established by 
the verdict:

     Due to commendable 
thoroughness, the Special Interrogatory also confirms that each finding of first 
degree murder is supported by the jury's conclusion that "the Defendant * * * is 
guilty of murder in the first degree, including malice aforethought. . . 
."

[¶179] In a case providing "a `conscientious' and 
sophisticated jury" and a pastiche of discreet acts where a unanimity 
instruction was considered, the New Jersey Supreme Court adopted the instruction 
on request criteria where there was danger of a fragmented verdict:

     Ordinarily, a general 
instruction on the requirement of unanimity suffices to instruct the jury that 
it must be unanimous on whatever specifications it finds to be the predicate of 
a guilty verdict. There may be circumstances in which it appears that a genuine 
possibility of jury confusion exists or that a conviction may occur as a result 
of different jurors concluding that a defendant committed conceptually distinct 
acts. We hold that when there is such a danger of a fragmented verdict, the 
court must instruct a jury, on request, that if a guilty verdict is returned, 
the jury must be unanimous on the underlying facts. Such a charge was not 
requested here. We are satisfied that in the circumstances of this case, there 
was no genuine possibility of jury confusion about its responsibility 
unanimously to find defendant guilty of official misconduct on the 
specifications charged.

State v. Parker, 
124 N.J. 628, 592 A.2d 228, 234, 235 (1991).

[¶180] Some thought is required regarding the comments 
in dissent by Justice Pollock, who also recognized the ultimate test to be a 
genuine potential for jury confusion, and then followed the conceptual distinct 
approach of Gipson as well as the Schad analytical limitations of conceptual 
distinction test:

     Because the rule 
requiring a unanimous verdict of guilt in criminal trials is "fundamental," 
doubt about the jury's consensus strikes at the heart of a defendant's right to 
a fair trial. * * * I agree with the majority that generally the trial court 
must give a specific unanimity instruction when confronted with the danger of a 
fragmented verdict. * * * I differ, however, with the application of that rule 
to this case.

Parker, 592 A.2d  
at 235.

[¶181] The extended discussion in dissent, as well as 
in the majority, and the common recognition that the effort was a deprivation of 
the defendant's fundamental right to be convicted based only on proof of 
specific illegal acts, came within a plain error review since an instruction had 
not been requested. Furthermore, no Schad verdict issue was presented at all. 
Conversely, or even perhaps compatibly, the majority defined the issue in terms 
of the politics enfolded decision writing in the North case:

     The celebrated case of 
Oliver North highlights this issue. United States v. North, 910 F.2d 843 (D.C. 
Cir.) (North I), vacated in part and rev'd in part on rehearing, 920 F.2d 940 
(D.C. Cir. 1990) (North II), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S. Ct. 2235, 114 L. Ed. 2d 477 (1991), and cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S. Ct. 2235, 114 L. Ed. 2d 477 (1991). North had requested specific unanimity instructions from the trial 
court and had objected to the trial court's refusal to give such 
instructions.

Parker, 592 A.2d  
at 232.

[¶182] Furthermore, this was not a non-unanimous 
instruction case:

This is not a case in 
which a court incorrectly stated general principles. The "jury instructions 
cannot be read as sanctioning a nonunanimous verdict." State v. Jennings, 216 
Conn. 647, 663, 583 A.2d 915, 924 (1990). The court correctly instructed the 
jury that it must be unanimous in its verdict. The core question is, in light of 
the allegations made and the statute charged, whether the instructions "as a 
whole [posed] `a genuine risk that the jury [would be] confused.'" North II, 
supra, 920 F.2d  at 951 (quoting United States v. Duncan, supra, 850 F.2d [1104] 
at 1114) [(6th Cir. 1988)].

Id. 592 A.2d  at 
233-34. Cf. State v. Dechaine, 572 A.2d 130 (Me.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 
111 S. Ct. 156, 112 L. Ed. 2d 122 (1990); State v. Walsh, 558 A.2d 1184 (Me. 1989); 
and State v. Allard, 557 A.2d 960 (Me. 1989), where alternative verdict forms 
were used and a one-crime conviction was subsequently affirmed.

[¶183] The law in Connecticut, which has been given 
substantial attention, also considers whether an instruction was given to 
sanction a non-unanimous verdict, and if not, then the matter is at an end if 
apparently a general unanimous instruction of some kind had been given. This is 
the specific converse of the Parker rule found in the New Jersey 
case.

     On the merits, we have 
not required a specific unanimity charge to be given in every case in which 
criminal liability may be premised on the violation of one of several 
alternative subsections of a statute. We have instead invoked a multipartite 
test to review a trial court's omission of such an instruction. We first review 
the instruction that was given to determine whether the trial court has 
sanctioned a nonunanimous verdict. If such an instruction has not been given, 
that ends the matter. Even if the instructions at trial can be reasoned to have 
sanctioned such a non-unanimous verdict, however, we will remand for a new trial 
only if (1) there is a conceptual distinction between the alternative acts with 
which the defendant has been charged, and (2) the state has presented evidence 
to support each alternative act with which the defendant has been 
charged.

State v. 
Famiglietti, 219 Conn. 605, 595 A.2d 306, 313 (1991).

[¶184] Iowa has built its non-unanimity requirement 
structure on a thesis of non-repugnancy of felony murder and premeditation, 
Gavin v. State, 425 N.W.2d 673 (Iowa App. 1988), and that first degree murder is 
a unitary offense not requiring separate consideration whether achieved by 
premeditation or the augmentation of felony participation. State v. Fuhrmann, 
257 N.W.2d 619 (Iowa 1977); State v. Nowlin, 244 N.W.2d 596 (Iowa 1976). See 
also the ineffectiveness of counsel inquiry in Gavin, 425 N.W.2d 673. The Iowa 
court adopted a repugnancy-substantial evidence test to avoid the unanimous 
content of the verdict requirement. State v. Duncan, 312 N.W.2d 519 (Iowa 
1981).

     The second question is 
whether the jury had to be unanimous on guilt with respect to the boat or with 
respect to the marina, or whether the jury could find defendant guilty of 
burglary by a combination of votes respecting the marina or the boat. A 
unanimous verdict is of course required in this kind of case. * * *

     At this point another 
principle intervenes. "It is not necessary that a jury, in order to find a 
verdict, should concur in a single view of the transaction disclosed by the 
evidence. If the conclusion may be justified upon either of two interpretations 
of the evidence, the verdict cannot be impeached by showing that a part of the 
jury proceeded upon one interpretation and part upon another." People v. 
Sullivan, 173 N.Y. 122, 127, 65 N.E. 989, 989 (1903). Stated differently, "[I]f 
substantial evidence is presented to support each alternative method of 
committing a single crime, and the alternatives are not repugnant to each other, 
then unanimity of the jury as to the mode of commission of the crime is not 
required." State v. Arndt, 12 Wn. App. 248, 252, 529 P.2d 887, 889 
(1974).

Id. at 523 
(emphasis in original). The problem in concept is that the specific statement 
made regarding Washington precedent is no longer the law in that 
jurisdiction.

[¶185] The Michigan court in the second of two Embree 
cases, People v. Embree, 70 Mich. App. 382, 246 N.W.2d 6, 8 (1976), affirmed on 
the instructional issue by a finding of overwhelming evidence of both 
premeditation and felony murder, and then added:

     We would be remiss if 
we did not bring to the attention of the bench and bar the fact that good 
practice would require a trial judge to instruct the jury that its decision must 
be unanimous as to whether the murder was premeditated or whether it occurred as 
an incident of defendant's participation in one of the enumerated 
felonies. 

The Michigan 
judiciary now apparently recognizes the admonition earlier given. See People v. 
Zeitler, 183 Mich. App. 68, 454 N.W.2d 192 (1990), where the conviction was of 
first degree premeditated murder and also first degree felony murder with one 
sentence imposed.

[¶186] In another instruction case, which is 
frequently cited, Holland, 280 N.W.2d 288, the issue related to direct 
commission or aiding and abetting or conspiracy and resulted in guilt of second 
degree murder. Although some broad discussion of authorities, including In re 
Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S. Ct. 1068 and Gipson, 553 F.2d 453, is included, 
Sullivan, 65 N.E. 989, which is converse, was also cited with equal approval. 
The Holland court then said unanimity is required only with respect to the 
ultimate issue of the defendant's guilt or innocence of the crime charged and 
unanimity is not required with respect to the alternative means or ways which 
the crime can be committed.

[¶187] The party to the crime statute, as Holland, 
cannot be compared to the proven malice and presumed intent differentiation 
involved in the issues of present concern. The law of Wisconsin, by examination 
in Manson v. State, 101 Wis.2d 413, 304 N.W.2d 729, 737 (1981), applied the 
Gipson concept:

     The constitutional 
right to a unanimous jury verdict exists under both the United States and 
Wisconsin Constitutions. See State v. Baldwin, 101 Wis.2d 441, 446 n. 3, 304 N.W.2d 742 (1981). The nature and scope of that right, however, are not well 
defined and have been receiving increased attention by the courts and 
commentators in recent years. The leading case discussing the question of jury 
unanimity is United States v. Gipson, 553 F.2d 453 (5th Cir. 1977).

By footnote, the 
court stated that the Gipson analysis had been adopted for determining whether 
the defendant's right to a unanimous verdict was violated. Manson, 101 Wis.2d 
413, 304 N.W.2d  at 737 n. 6. Justice Abrahamson, in the thoughtful and scholarly 
special concurrence, recognized the advantage of a unanimity instruction on the 
mode of committing the offense. See also John R. Baumgarth, Note, Application of 
Gipson's Unanimous Verdict Rationale to The Wisconsin Party to a Crime Statute - 
Holland v. State, 91 Wis.2d 134, 280 N.W.2d 288 (1979), 1980 Wis.L.Rev. 597 
(1980); Sally Wellman, Note, Constitutional Law - Criminal Procedure - Jury 
Instructions and the Unanimous Jury Verdict, 1978 Wis. L.Rev. 339 (1978); and 
Gary N. Gibbs, Note, United States v. Gipson: Duplicity Denies Right to 
Unanimous Verdict, 1978 Det. C.L.Rev. 319 (1978).

[¶188] Generally, the issue is presented either to 
consider the unanimous decision jury instruction or regarding the dual or 
unitary verdict form where the case may present concepts of either 
distinguishable methods of crime commission or diverse events in course of the 
occurrence. It is apparent that the discussions intermix without regard for 
which concept is considered. For example, the Ohio Supreme Court recognized the 
danger of the "`patchwork' or less than unanimous verdict * * *" in State v. 
Johnson, 46 Ohio St.3d 96, 545 N.E.2d 636, 645 (1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1039, 110 S. Ct. 1504, 108 L. Ed. 2d 639 (1990). The robbery involvement in the 
felony murder death was sufficiently defined to avoid any potential for jury 
confusion.20

[¶189] The converse law is illustrated by Oklahoma in 
the candy store robbery case of James v. State, 637 P.2d 862 (Okla. Cr. 1981), 
which produced a felony murder and malice aforethought killing with a resulting 
unitary verdict of first degree murder and a life sentence. The Oklahoma court 
followed the ostensible authority of a Colorado case, People v. Taggart, 621 P.2d 1375 (Colo. 1981), and the since-reversed Oregon case of Hazelett, 492 P.2d 501, to uphold the requirement that only "the verdict must be unanimous as to 
guilt or innocence of murder in the first degree but that they need not reach a 
unanimous decision on its foundation in either felony murder or premeditated 
murder." James, 637 P.2d  at 866. James also cited two other cases, Wilson, 552 P.2d 931 and Wells v. Com., 561 S.W.2d 85 (Ky. 1978). However, the adjudicatory 
fact finding was made "[h]aving examined these decisions, and having found that 
the State did prove both premeditation and felony-based murder, this Court finds 
that the failure of the jury to indicate the basis of their finding of guilt was 
not error." James, 637 P.2d  at 866. See also Newsted v. State, 720 P.2d 734 
(Okla. Cr.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 995, 107 S. Ct. 599, 93 L. Ed. 2d 599 (1986), 
which was a death penalty case involving a shooting of a taxicab driver in the 
back of his head in conjunction with an admitted robbery.

[¶190] Since the Oklahoma court relied principally on 
two cases, the Oregon case since reversed and the Taggart case from Colorado, 
reference to Colorado law is required. In regard to Taggart, a close examination 
cannot sustain the broad application asserted. The case involved the death of a 
child and the court first said that "`evidence of any of the alternative ways 
that a crime can be committed will support a general verdict.'" Taggart, 621 P.2d  at 1387 (quoting Hernandez v. People, 156 Colo. 23, 30, 396 P.2d 952, 955 
(1964)). The Taggart court then stated:

     The record indicates 
that the defendant did not object to the elemental instruction on child abuse, 
failed to request a special verdict, and did not assert his present challenge to 
the general verdict in his motion for a new trial. Under such circumstances "we 
are not inclined to hold that the general instruction on the necessity of 
unanimity was insufficient."

Taggart, 621 P.2d  at 1387 (quoting United States v. Pavloski, 574 F.2d 933, 936 (7th Cir. 
1978)). Incidentally, the court in footnote distinguished Gipson, 553 F.2d 453 
as "inapposite" in stating:

Subsequent federal cases 
have found Gipson inapplicable where the jury is not specifically instructed on 
non-unanimity but is instructed on the alternative methods of committing a crime 
and on the requirement of a unanimous verdict. United States v. Pavloski, 574 F.2d 933 (7th Cir. 1978); United States v. Bolts, 558 F.2d 316 (5th Cir. 1977), 
cert. denied, 439 U.S. 898, 99 S. Ct. 262, 58 L. Ed. 2d 246 (1978). State courts 
consistently have held that unanimity is required only with respect to the 
ultimate issue of the defendant's guilt or innocence of the crime charged and 
not with respect to alternative means by which the crime was 
committed.

Taggart, 621 P.2d  at 1387 n. 5.

[¶191] The other Colorado authority does not provide 
more well documented and compelling authority. The special concurrence of 
Justice Lohr in the four-three decision of People v. Marquez, 692 P.2d 1089, 
1104-05 (Colo. 1984) (footnote omitted and emphasis added), in following Gipson 
and rejecting Sullivan, addressed the subject with persuasion:

     In People v. Ledman, 
622 P.2d 534 (Colo. 1981) and People v. Taggart, 621 P.2d 1375 (Colo. 1981), we 
addressed this issue. In both cases, however, we noted that the defendant had 
failed to object during the proceedings to an instruction inviting a general 
verdict, and under those circumstances held that a general instruction on the 
necessity of unanimity was sufficient. Implicit in those decisions is the 
principle that a defendant has a right to request a verdict form that identifies 
the method of commission of the crime, at least where the alternative methods 
encompass conceptually distinct and different combinations of material acts and 
culpable mental states. In the case now before us, the defendant made such a 
timely request, and the trial court erred in refusing to grant it.

     The defendant was 
charged with commission of aggravated robbery in alternative ways which, 
although not necessarily mutually exclusive under the facts of this case, 
involve combinations of conduct and mental culpability elements that are 
conceptually distinct and different from each other. First, he could have been 
found guilty based on a jury determination that he was armed with a deadly 
weapon and intended, if resisted, to kill, maim or wound another person. § 
18-4-302(a), 8 C.R.S. (1978). Second, the defendant could have been found to 
have committed aggravated robbery because he knowingly wounded or struck another 
person with a deadly weapon. § 18-4-302(b), 8 C.R.S. (1978). Finally, the 
defendant's guilt could have been bottomed on a determination that he knowingly 
put a person in reasonable fear of death or bodily injury by the use of force, 
threats, or intimidation with a deadly weapon. § 18-4-302(b), 8 C.R.S. (1978). 
The second and third methods of elevation of the crime of robbery to the more 
serious offense of aggravated robbery involve acts additional to the mere 
possession of a deadly weapon required under the first method. The first method 
requires specific intent, a more culpable mental state than the knowing conduct 
required to support conviction under the second and third.

     It is implicit in 
Ledman and Taggart that the defendant was entitled to submission of special 
verdict forms to the jury upon timely request. Under the circumstances of this 
case, I believe that, in order to have found the defendant guilty of aggravated 
robbery, the jury should have been required to agree unanimously upon the 
essential acts and mental state upon which their verdict was based. By holding 
otherwise, the majority greatly dilutes the unanimous jury verdict right 
guaranteed to the defendant by section 16-10-108, 8 C.R.S. (1978), and Crim.P. 
23(a)(8) and 31(a)(3).

     In reaching this 
conclusion, I am aware that there are decisions from other states that would 
permit the sort of patchwork verdicts I would find impermissible. See, 
e.g., People v. Sullivan, 173 N.Y. 122, 65 N.E. 989 (1903). I believe, however, 
that the better reasoned approach is to be found in Judge Wisdom's opinion in 
United States v. Gipson, 553 F.2d 453 (5th Cir. 1977), reversing a conviction 
because of a trial court instruction to the jury that they could convict if all 
agreed that the defendant was guilty of the offense charged even if in 
disagreement as to the acts of the defendant upon which their conclusion of 
guilt was predicated. As the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals there 
stated:

"Like the `reasonable 
doubt' standard, which was found to be an indispensable element in all criminal 
trials in In re Winship, 1970, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S. Ct. 1068, 25 L. Ed. 2d 368, the unanimous jury requirement `impresses on the trier of fact the 
necessity of reaching a subjective state of certitude on the facts in 
issue.'"

[¶192] Furthermore, the broad statement in footnote in 
Taggart was then re-examined by a further footnote in the more current case of 
James v. People, 727 P.2d 850, 855 n. 4 (Colo. 1986), wherein it was 
stated:

     We have made a general 
statement in several cases involving alternative theories of criminal 
culpability that evidence establishing any one alternative will support a 
general verdict. People v. Marquez, 692 P.2d  at 1100; People v. Ledman, 622 P.2d  
at 541; People v. Taggart, 621 P.2d  at 1387; Hernandez v. People, 156 Colo. 23, 
30, 396 P.2d 952, 955 (1964). Those cases addressed the unanimous verdict 
question and were not focused on the constitutional requirement that proof 
beyond a reasonable doubt is necessary to sustain a conviction. We did not mean 
to imply in those cases that an alternative theory could be submitted to a jury 
without adequate evidence to support it. To the extent that such an implication 
is to be found in that language, we reject it as contrary to the requirements of 
due process of law. See, e.g., In re Winship; People ex rel. Juhan v. District 
Court [165 Colo. 253, 439 P.2d 741 (1968)].

[¶193] Continuing in text, the James court 
stated:

     We agree that unless 
the evidence on each of the alternative methods of causing the victim's 
submission is sufficient to support a verdict by proof beyond a reasonable 
doubt, there can be no assurance that the general verdict is based upon that 
constitutional standard mandated by the due process clauses of both the federal 
and state constitutions. As we stated in People v. Lowe, 660 P.2d 1261 [1271] 
(Colo. 1983), "[i]f the jury is asked only for a general verdict [when the 
prosecution is based on alternative methods of committing a crime], then on 
appeal there is no way to decide upon which theory the jury reached its verdict. 
In such a case an error relating to either count would void the entire 
verdict."

Id. at 
853.

[¶194] The progression as a defined requirement for 
separate verdicts for Colorado as initiated in Lowe, 660 P.2d 1261 was restated 
in Freeman, 668 P.2d 1371 and then most recently recognized in O'Neill, 803 P.2d 164. In Freeman, 668 P.2d  at 1381, the court said:

     We conclude therefore 
that although the denial of the defendant's motion to compel an election is not 
error, dual convictions and sentences may not be entered on the murder after 
deliberation and felony murder counts with respect to each killing. The proper 
procedure to be followed on remand is as we stated in Lowe:

"If there is sufficient 
evidence in the record, all theories charged should be submitted to the jury for 
a special verdict. The jury should be informed that the defendant is charged 
with one crime, first-degree murder. The jury's special verdict should indicate 
which theories of first-degree murder, if any, have been proved by the 
evidence." 660 P.2d  at 1271.

[¶195] Kansas law likewise requires comparison between 
the older rule and the more realistic, present understanding. See Wilson, 552 P.2d  at 935-36, where the court said:

This being the case it 
follows that the question is one of proof necessary to support a verdict of 
first degree murder. When an accused is charged in one count of an information 
with both premeditated murder and felony murder it matters not whether some 
members of the jury arrived at a verdict of guilt based on proof of 
premeditation while others arrive at a verdict of guilt by reason of the 
killer's malignant purpose. In such case the verdict is unanimous and guilt of 
murder in the first degree has been satisfactorily established. If a verdict of 
first degree murder can be justified on either of two interpretations of the 
evidence, premeditation or felony murder, the verdict cannot be impeached by 
showing that part of the jury proceeded upon one interpretation of the evidence 
and part on another.

     The above holding 
meets with general acceptance in other jurisdictions in the absence of a statute 
which requires the jury to agree to the mode in which a murder was 
committed.

[¶196] More recently, however, the Kansas court, in 
addressing the same structural concern involved in the law of unanimity, 
stated:

     We believe, however, 
that it is appropriate to address the matter as it could arise again in a 
retrial herein. The defense cites cases dealing with a trial court's duty to 
instruct on all lesser included offenses pursuant to K.S.A. 1987 Supp. 
21-3107(3). Involuntary manslaughter was a charged crime, not a lesser included 
offense herein. Likewise, this does not involve an amendment of an information 
by the State. Rather, the effect was the trial court deleted part of the charge 
on its own motion.

     Inasmuch as the 
involuntary manslaughter charge in the information was one count alleging two 
different means of commission, presumably the instruction and verdict form would 
have presented the whole charge to the jury without the court's intervention. 
Hence, had defendant been convicted of involuntary manslaughter, it would be 
impossible to determine which means of commission the jury had found occurred. A 
challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the conviction would 
reveal this problem.

     We believe that the 
proper method to be employed would be to charge the two different alleged means 
of commission as alternative counts of involuntary manslaughter. This would 
separate the elements instructions and the verdict forms and enable a reviewing 
court to determine precisely what the jury found. Further, it would prevent the 
jury from hybridizing the two means into some means of commission not specified 
in the statute defining involuntary manslaughter.

State v. Prouse, 
244 Kan. 292, 767 P.2d 1308, 1314 (1989).

[¶197] The current awareness of the more appropriate 
process is demonstrable in the recent case from New Mexico, Ortega, 817 P.2d 1196, where the jury was presented the issues in a special dual verdict form and 
found the defendant not guilty of premeditated murder, but in each case guilty 
of felony murder. See also Barbara L. Lauer, Comment, Jury Agreement and the 
General Verdict in Criminal Cases, XIX Land & Water L.Rev. 207 
(1984).

[¶198] In appellate responsibility, we do little 
credit to ourselves or provide moral substance in our responsibility for 
government by a process of recognizing a simple solution which would be 
preferable and then doing nothing to achieve or require compliance. Surely, it 
should not be too much of a challenge for Wyoming to be as specific and 
determinative to adopt the progressive process followed in New Mexico, North 
Carolina, Kansas, Oregon and Colorado. See also Holley, 942 F.2d 916, where the 
conviction in a non-homicide case was reversed for failure to give a unanimity 
instruction; People v. Johnson, 197 Ill. App.3d 74, 143 Ill.Dec. 761, 554 N.E.2d 696 (1990), where separate verdicts were used in very recent cases; Huffman v. 
State, 543 N.E.2d 360 (Ind. 1989), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 110 S. Ct. 3257, 
111 L. Ed. 2d 767 (1990); Dechaine, 572 A.2d 130; and Allard, 557 A.2d 960. Waiver 
by neglect to request singularly valuable separate findings in jury verdict no 
matter how competent the legal representation proved equally and adversely 
efficacious in United States v. Garcia, 938 F.2d 12 (2nd Cir. 1991), cert. 
denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S. Ct. 868, 116 L. Ed. 2d 774 (1992).

[¶199] Separate verdicts or special interrogatories 
should not constitute an unreasonable requirement in the interest of certainty 
at trial with specificity and clarity consequently provided for appellate 
review. Sides, 944 F.2d 1554. The appellate court has no business deciding for 
itself if or how there is sufficient evidence to convict if the instructional 
process may have actually confused the jury. See Nye & Nissen v. United 
States, 336 U.S. 613, 629, 69 S. Ct. 766, 774-75, 93 L. Ed. 919 (1949), Murphy, 
J., dissenting. Patchwork verdicts should find no accepted place in Wyoming law. 
Marquez, 692 P.2d 1089; Johnson, 545 N.E.2d  at 645; Hayden J. Trubitt, Patchwork 
Verdicts, Different-Jurors Verdicts, and American Jury Theory: Whether Verdicts 
Are Invalidated by Jury Disagreement on Issues, 36 Okla.L.Rev. 473 
(1983).

[¶200] Verdict forms requiring (or permitting) 
unanimity in decision by the jury should be required. Cloman and Price made bad 
law. The sooner this is recognized, the better the substance of Wyoming criminal 
justice proceedings will be. It will be done, but I would do it now.

VII.

CONCLUSION

[¶201] Bouwkamp, now serving a life sentence for first 
degree murder, under the circumstances of his trial, was effectively convicted 
of an offense of accessory after the fact, which he admitted and for which he 
was not charged, and denied proper opportunity to present his defense of 
innocence to the aiding or betting or accessory in the commission of a homicide 
which he absolutely denied. Whether completely innocent or totally guilty of 
criminal responsibility for the killing, Bouwkamp was denied the constitutional 
right to adequately defend.

[¶202] In this process, the majority makes 
monumentally bad law for future Wyoming jurisprudence in finite justification of 
a mandatory presumption to convert the admitted accessory after the fact 
criminal conduct into guilt of an offense invoking a life sentence for first 
degree murder.

[¶203] These decisive misapplications and 
misconstructions of deep-seated legal principles, each combined with the fact 
finding exercise now pursued by this court in assiduously guessing what the jury 
might have done within the evidence presented, offend law and justice 
where:

1. Bouwkamp was denied a 
theory of defense instruction - theory of defense.

2. The majority 
misapplies the admitted guilt of accessory after the fact by misunderstanding 
its nature and temporal relationship as a separate criminal offense - nature 
of accessory after the fact crime.

3. The majority creates a 
presumption that by transactional interrelationship and lack of mutuality of 
causative proof, an accessory after the fact is equally responsible in criminal 
conduct with the co-participant or accessory - instruction that temporal 
relationship is immaterial.

4. Jury confusion was 
engendered with one verdict for either felony murder or premeditated murder 
resulting in admission of accessory after the fact conduct to prove either or 
both felony murder or premeditated murder without uniformity of jury decision 
required - unanimous jury verdict issue.

[¶204] Bouwkamp may in fact have been guilty despite 
his testimony to the contrary based on the most fragmentary evidence of either 
or both aiding and abetting or participation in premeditated murder or felony 
murder by stealing the boots of the casually acquainted drunken party 
participant. Alternatively, he may be completely innocent of the first degree 
murder crime and only involved in reprehensible action as an accessory after the 
fact. The jury did not determine within proper instructions which may have been 
the case and there is absolutely nothing this court or any member can do to 
reliably make that factual decision as to what the jury might have done if the 
decision had been required. The structure of the law we build goes in the wrong 
direction.

[¶205] A curiosity of the adjudicative business is 
that a Wyoming law journal publication in thoughtful discourse examined this 
area of Wyoming law and, for some reason, no one seems to have researched or at 
least cited the publication. Barbara L. Lauer, Comment, supra, XIX Land & 
Water L.Rev. at 224 provided a comprehensive analysis of the subject, including 
significant cases like Gipson, Sullivan and the Green cases, outlined variant 
solutions with the principal burden falling on the review courts, and finally 
concluded:

     A basic requirement of 
criminal jury trials is that the jury must reach agreement. The practice of 
submitting alternatives to a jury not instructed they must reach agreement on at 
least one alternative, allows a jury to return a special verdict of guilty 
without the necessary agreement. Broad reforms are available to insure jury 
agreement in such cases. Until these reforms are accomplished, better use of the 
available tools will go far toward assuring jury agreement. The currently 
available tools include the prosecutor's charging discretion, judgment of 
acquittal, jury instructions, and, in limited situations, special verdicts. 
These tools should be utilized to mould verdicts based on jury agreement, in 
accord with the basic requirements of criminal jury trials.

That message 
continues to be ignored.

[¶206] I respectfully dissent.

Footnotes

1 Wyo. Stat. § 6-5-202 
(June 1988).

2 See also Buckles v. 
State, 500 P.2d 518, 522, (Wyo. 1972), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1026, 93 S. Ct. 475, 34 L. Ed. 2d 320.

3 We do not mean to 
suggest by these comments that this court has not required evidence of 
premeditation beyond mere opportunity to reflect before it has affirmed 
convictions of murder in the first degree argued on a premeditation theory. 
Review of our opinions concerning challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence 
in first degree murder convictions based on premeditation demonstrates that 
additional evidence of a specific intent to kill has been required to sustain 
convictions. The Wyoming decisions cited throughout this opinion provide 
representative examples.

 

FOOTNOTES for the 
Dissent

1 McInturff v. State, 808 P.2d 190 (Wyo. 1991), Urbigkit, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part; 
Ramos v. State, 806 P.2d 822 (Wyo. 1991); Oien v. State, 797 P.2d 544 (Wyo. 
1990); Thom v. State, 792 P.2d 192 (Wyo. 1990); Thomas v. State, 784 P.2d 237 
(Wyo. 1989); Smith v. State, 773 P.2d 139 (Wyo. 1989); Keller v. State, 771 P.2d 379 (Wyo. 1989); Prime, 767 P.2d 149; Simonds v. State, 762 P.2d 1189 (Wyo. 
1988); Miller, 755 P.2d 855; Best v. State, 736 P.2d 739 (Wyo. 1987); 
Noetzelmann v. State, 721 P.2d 579 (Wyo. 1986); Ellifritz v. State, 704 P.2d 1300 (Wyo. 1985); Stapleman v. State, 680 P.2d 73 (Wyo. 1984); Scheikofsky v. 
State, 636 P.2d 1107 (Wyo. 1981); Goodman v. State, 601 P.2d 178 (Wyo. 1979); 
Goodman v. State, 573 P.2d 400 (Wyo. 1977); Benson v. State, 571 P.2d 595 (Wyo. 
1977); State v. Hickenbottom, 63 Wyo. 41, 178 P.2d 119 (1947).

2 For a thoughtful and 
cogent analysis, see Nelson E. Roth & Scott E. Sundby, The Felony-Murder 
Rule: A Doctrine at Constitutional Crossroads, 70 Cornell L.Rev. 446 
(1985).

3 I do not suggest that a 
review of the evidence viewed in a perspective most favorably to conviction 
would not realistically provide factual issues appropriate for jury decision 
separately on either felony murder or perhaps premeditated murder. One or both 
offenses with participation of both co-defendants may have occurred. The 
offenses may have been committed by the co-defendant without act or culpability 
by Bouwkamp, and those offenses may not have occurred at all where an 
alcoholic-induced fight started and the loser lost his life in the senseless 
progression of the brutality of human conduct.

4 As I hereafter discuss 
in the section on accessory after the fact, the comment in the majority is 
substantively wrong since, of course, participation only as an accessory after 
the fact would be a proper defense; but in this segment, the comment is 
procedurally wrong since the accused is always entitled to an instruction of his 
theory of defense if viable evidence to support the theory is provided. Dice, 
825 P.2d 379. Case law applying the rule is endless in consistent application. 
Stapleman, 680 P.2d 73; 4 Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Procedure § 538, 
at 11 (12th ed. 1976). Cf. Sellers v. State, 809 P.2d 676 (Okla. Cr.), cert. 
denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S. Ct. 310, 116 L. Ed. 2d 252 (1991).

5 See cases cited in n. 1, 
supra.

6 Westlaw counts 9,188 
cases by a term search.

7 In recognizing the 
applied vengeance and the prescriptive character of the statute for New Mexico, 
that court appended upon the presumptive malice a requirement of intent to kill. 
Ortega, 817 P.2d  at 1211. Contrarily, the direction recently taken with the 
major change in membership in the California Supreme Court has provided the 
opposite direction. People v. Anderson, 43 Cal. 3d 1104, 240 Cal. Rptr. 585, 742 P.2d 1306 (1987), overruling Carlos v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 35 Cal. 3d 131, 197 Cal. Rptr. 79, 672 P.2d 862 (1983). I would confidently expect 
that New Mexico now leads the way for mature and constitutionally consecrated 
jurisdiction within the American legal landscape. It is thoughtfully recognized 
in a variety of scholarly articles that, except in a minority of cases, felony 
murder defines a determined intent or predisposed willingness to kill. Felony 
murder in most cases simply serves to be a mechanism to reduce the burden of 
proof, but not to change the circumstance of intentional killing. Engberg, 820 P.2d 70 (Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting in part and concurring in part). Most 
homicides have an associated felony and few felony murders present a truly 
accidental killing. It is the wrong cases that provide the exceptions. See 
Engberg, 820 P.2d  at 157-59 nn. 42 & 43 (Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting in part 
and concurring in part). See also People v. Lee, 234 Cal. App. 3d 1214, 286 Cal. Rptr. 117, 121 (1991) (quoting People v. Phillips, 64 Cal. 2d 574, 582, 51 Cal. Rptr. 225, 414 P.2d 353 (1966)) recognizing that "`[o]nly such felonies as 
are in themselves "inherently dangerous to human life" can support the 
application of the felony-murder rule.'"

8 Long before Sandstrom, 
this court also, in a murder case which reversed a conviction based on a 
presumptive instruction, stated in part: "Every person possessed of a sound mind 
is presumed to intend and contemplate the necessary, and even probable, 
consequences of his deliberate act," Johnson v. State, 8 Wyo. 494, 58 P. 761, 
764-65 (1899), from which, by categorical rejection, the court 
established:

This statement of the law 
cannot be sustained. A conclusive presumption cannot arise in such a case upon 
any material question until all the evidence bearing upon it is considered, and 
the proof found to be beyond reasonable doubt. And then, the intent is merely an 
inference from the facts in evidence, and it is somewhat misleading to speak of 
it as a presumption at all. The effect of the instruction is to select a part of 
the evidence bearing upon the question, and to inform the jury that it alone is 
proof beyond reasonable doubt of the defendant's intention to kill the deceased, 
and that all other evidence bearing upon the subject is to be excluded from 
their consideration. To hold that a militiaman in a sham battle, who 
deliberately points and fires his gun at a vital part of the body of his friend 
in the opposing line, and kills him, cannot be heard to say that the ball 
cartridge found its way into his gun by fraud or misadventure, would be as 
absurd as it would be barbarous.

Id. 
58 P.  at 765.

9 The differentiation 
between accessory before the fact and accessory after the fact is demonstrated 
not only from the significant difference in punishment provided, but also from 
location in the code where accessory before the fact is a liability statute as 
compared to accessory after the fact which constitutes the offense in itself. 
The first statute is included in the general section, Chapter 1, and the second 
in a section of the Wyoming statutes relating to offenses against public 
administration as a category of discreet crimes, Chapter 5.

10 Hayden J. Trubitt, 
Patchwork Verdicts, Different-Jurors Verdicts, and American Jury Theory: Whether 
Verdicts Are Invalidated by Juror Disagreement on Issues, 36 Okla.L.Rev. 473 
(1983); Barbara L. Lauer, Comment, Jury Agreement and the General Verdict in 
Criminal Cases, XIX Land & Water L.Rev. 207 (1984).

11 The even more recent 
United States Supreme Court case of Griffin v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S. Ct. 466, 116 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1991) avoids unanimity issues under the Sixth 
Amendment and considers only due process questions under the Fifth Amendment in 
review of a general verdict on "multi-object conspiracy" conviction. 
Consequently, the Schad issue is not reviewed.

12 See Comment, Right to 
Jury Unanimity on Material Fact Issues: United States v. Gipson, 91 Harv.L.Rev. 
499 (1977).

13 Categorical reliance on 
some general historical perspective provides intrinsic dangers when analysis of 
intendment and application of a constitution is considered. Less than twenty 
legal executions have occurred in the history of the territory and the state of 
Wyoming. Conversely, the community adaptation of applied instant justice by 
lynching reached a significantly greater number of "final decisions." Since it 
did occur then, it will not necessarily constitutionally justify lynching now as 
an answer to society's disturbance about individuals' misconduct.

14 A contemporaneous 
anomaly can be extracted in comparing the majority, concurrence and dissent from 
Schad with McKoy v. North Carolina, 494 U.S. 433, 110 S. Ct. 1227, 108 L. Ed. 2d 369 (1990), where Justice Scalia in dissent argues for jury unanimity on each 
mitigating circumstance in a death penalty case and Justice Blackmun, in text 
and footnote in his concurring opinion, stated for analogy:

     The dissent suggests 
that the rule announced in Mills [v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367, 108 S. Ct. 1860, 100 L. Ed. 2d 384 (1988)] is an aberration, a quirk of our Eighth Amendment 
jurisprudence. In fact, however, it is the North Carolina unanimity requirement 
which represents an extraordinary departure from the way in which juries 
customarily operate. Juries are typically called upon to render unanimous 
verdicts on the ultimate issues of a given case. But it is understood that 
different jurors may be persuaded by different pieces of evidence, even when 
they agree upon the bottom line. Plainly there is no general requirement that 
the jury reach agreement on the preliminary factual issues which underlie the 
verdict.[5]

[5] 
There is one significant exception to this principle, but it does not support 
the dissent's position. In federal criminal prosecutions, where a unanimous 
verdict is required, the Courts of Appeals are in general agreement that 
"[u]nanimity . . . means more than a conclusory agreement that the defendant has 
violated the statute in question; there is a requirement of substantial 
agreement as to the principal factual elements underlying a specified offense." 
United States v. Ferris, 719 F.2d 1405, 1407 (CA9 1983).

Id. 
110 S. Ct.  at 1236-37 (footnote omitted). Citing five other cases, Justice 
Blackmun continued in the footnote stating:

This rule does not 
require that each bit of evidence be unanimously credited or entirely discarded, 
but it does require unanimous agreement as to the nature of the defendant's 
violation, not simply the fact that a violation has occurred.

Id. 
at 1237 n. 5.

Furthermore, in 
considering the moral equivalency and characterized historical tradition 
standard provided in Schad, it would be well to look back at what Justice Black 
said in dissent in Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 426, 90 S. Ct. 642, 
657, 24 L. Ed. 2d 610 (1970) in response to an opinion which Justice White had 
authored:

The Framers of our 
Constitution and Bill of Rights were too wise, too pragmatic, and too familiar 
with tyranny to attempt to safeguard personal liberty with broad, flexible words 
and phrases like "fair trial," "fundamental decency," and "reasonableness." Such 
stretchy, rubberlike terms would have left judges constitutionally free to try 
people charged with crime under will-o'-the-wisp standards improvised by 
different judges for different defendants. Neither the Due Process Clause nor 
any other constitutional language vests any judge with such power. Our 
Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each wave of new 
judges blown in by each successive political wind that brings new political 
administrations into temporary power. Rather, our Constitution was fashioned to 
perpetuate liberty and justice by marking clear, explicit, and lasting 
constitutional boundaries for trials. One need look no further than the language 
of that sacred document itself to be assured that defendants charged with crime 
are to be accorded due process of law - that is, they are to be tried as the 
Constitution and the laws passed pursuant to it prescribe and not under 
arbitrary procedures that a particular majority of sitting judges may see fit to 
label as "fair" or "decent[]" [or assure a moral equivalency].

15 The Oregon Supreme Court 
made an interesting comment in Boots, 780 P.2d  at 729 in the analysis of 
applicable cases:

Some are decisions of 
intermediate courts which, of course, may control the practice in those states 
but may prove to be erroneous when the state's highest court addresses the 
issue.[7]

[7] 
E.g., State v. Anderson, 16 Conn. App. 346, 547 A.2d 1368, app. den. 209 Conn. 
828, 552 A.2d 433 (1988); People v. Travis, 170 Ill. App.3d 873, 121 Ill.Dec. 
830, 525 N.E.2d 1137 (1988), cert. den. [489] U.S. [1024], 109 S. Ct. 1149, 103 L. Ed. 2d 209 (1989); People v. Ewing, 102 Mich. App. 81, 300 N.W.2d 742 (1980), 
lv. den. (1982); State v. Begbie, 415 N.W.2d 103 (Minn. Ct. App. 1987), rev. 
den. (1988); State v. Brigham, 709 S.W.2d 917 (Mo. Ct. App. 1986).

16 The trouble with a 
societal behavior standard list like moral equivalency is who determines what is 
moral and what is equivalent and who judges the judges in either their 
definition or their usage? A Murphy Brown can either be a symbol or a 
symptom.

17 See Phillips v. 
Territory, 1 Wyo. 82 (Wyo. 1872).

18 The simple fact, seldom 
stated, is that the unitary verdict approach permits a non-unanimous jury 
decision and consequent substantial prosecutorial benefit in reduced trial 
burden. Otherwise, most courts would be using the preferred separate verdict 
form immediately and uniformly. Actually, the advantage given to the prosecutor 
may not be morally inappropriate. It is, however, in my opinion, just 
constitutionally unjustified. Wyo. Const. art. 1, §§ 6, 9 and 10. The 
constitutional protection to the accused is diminished from the designed shift 
of a significant trial proof responsibility away from the state. In interesting 
analysis, see James J. McGuire, Note, Schad v. Arizona: Diminishing the Need for 
Verdict Specificity, 70 N.C.L.Rev. 936 (1992).

19 See, as a further 
example, State v. Loehner, 42 Wn. App. 408, 711 P.2d 377 (1985), which addressed 
the similar subject of differentiated incidents within the criminal charge and 
defendant's denial of a requested election for prosecution. The court stated by 
quotation from State v. Petrich, 101 Wn.2d 566, 572, 683 P.2d 173 
(1984):

"When the evidence 
indicates that several distinct criminal acts have been committed, but defendant 
is charged with only one count of criminal conduct, jury unanimity must be 
protected. . . . The State may, in its discretion, elect the act upon which it 
will rely for conviction. Alternatively, if the jury is instructed that all 12 
jurors must agree that the same underlying criminal act has been proved beyond a 
reasonable doubt, a unanimous verdict on one criminal act will be assured. When 
the State chooses not to elect, this jury instruction must be given to ensure 
the jury's understanding of the unanimity requirement."

Loehner, 711 P.2d  at 
378.

20 The trouble that the 
unitary first degree murder concept makes when questions of a lesser included 
offense are applied to felony murder is singularly demonstrated in the case of 
Thomas, 386 S.E.2d 555. See also Huffman v. State, 543 N.E.2d 360 (Ind. 1989), 
cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 110 S. Ct. 3257, 111 L. Ed. 2d 767 (1990).