Opinion ID: 2543729
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Nullification of K.S.A. 21-3109

Text: Gunby next argues that the district court erred in instructing the jury: If you do not agree that the defendant is guilty of [premeditated first-degree murder], you should then consider lesser included offenses. This error, Gunby asserts, was compounded when the prosecutor told jurors that Kansas law demands a top-to-bottom evaluation of the possible offenses committed, with the question of whether Gunby committed premeditated first-degree murder to be considered first and the inquiry ending there if he was found guilty of that crime. In Gunby's view, the instruction and the argument worked together to nullify K.S.A. 21-3109. That statute requires that a defendant be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; it also requires that, if reasonable doubt exists as to which of two or more degrees of a crime was committed, the defendant be convicted of only the less serious one. This issue is raised for the first time on appeal. No party may assign as error the giving or failure to give an instruction unless he or she objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which he or she objects and the grounds of his or her objection, unless the instruction or the failure to give the instruction is clearly erroneous. K.S.A. 2005 Supp. 22-3414(3). Instructions are clearly erroneous only if the reviewing court is firmly convinced that there is a real possibility the jury would have rendered a different verdict if the trial error had not occurred. State v. Evans, 270 Kan. 585, 588, 17 P.3d 340 (2001). Gunby acknowledges this court's decision in State v. Roberson, 272 Kan. 1143, 1155, 38 P.3d 715 (2002), which rejected the same argument. See State v. Korbel, 231 Kan. 657, 661, 647 P.2d 1301 (1982). He maintains, however, that jurors are bound to read the instruction to require that they reach a unanimous decision that no first-degree murder occurred before they are permitted to consider lesser offenses. We do not see this interpretation as a reasonable possibility. Moreover, Gunby's reliance on the Court of Appeals' decision in State v. Cribbs, 29 Kan.App.2d 919, 924, 34 P.3d 76 (2001), is unpersuasive. In that case the panel dealt with the very specific simultaneous comparison necessary between the elements of voluntary manslaughter and second-degree murder. Gunby got the instruction sought in Cribbs. Nothing done by the district judge or prosecutor impaired it. Otherwise, ordered consideration of the charged offense and the lesser included offenses was appropriate. It did no violence to the presumption of innocence, nor did it in any manner nullify K.S.A. 21-3109. See State v. Brown, 280 Kan. 65, 118 P.3d 1273 (2005); State v. Hurt, 278 Kan. 676, 685, 101 P.3d 1249 (2004).