Opinion ID: 2219440
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The included offenses. The marshaling instruction on first-degree burglary told the jury:

Text: Instruction No. 15 In order to convict the defendant of Burglary in the First Degree by Breaking [or by entering, under Instruction No. 16], the State must prove all of the following elements:
2. The residence was an occupied structure as defined in Instruction No. 23. 3. The defendant did not have permission or authority to break into the residence. 4. Persons were present in the residence. 5. The defendant did so with the specific intent to commit an assault. 6. After the defendant broke in, he intentionally or recklessly inflicted bodily injury on Richard Onken. (Emphasis added.) The defendant complains that he was entitled to lesser included offense instructions on attempted burglary, assault causing bodily injury, and simple assault. The State concedes that an instruction on attempted burglary would have been required, if the defendant had requested it. State v. Blanton, 454 N.W.2d 901, 902 (Iowa App.1990). It argues, however, that assault causing bodily injury and simple assault are not included offenses, so any failure on the part of the defendant's lawyer to request them could not amount to a breach of the lawyer's duty of care. The State also contends that the defendant has failed to show he was prejudiced by any failure to request included offenses. To determine whether assault causing bodily injury and simple assault should have been submitted, we look to the statutory elements of each offense. State v. Jeffries, 430 N.W.2d 728, 740 (Iowa 1988). Under this test, in order to be a lesser included offense, the offense must be composed solely of some but not all of the elements of a greater offense. Id. at 736. In other words, the greater offense must be impossible to commit without committing the lesser offense. Id. at 730. The jury was required to find, for first-degree burglary, that the defendant intentionally or recklessly inflict[ed] bodily injury on any person. Iowa Code § 713.3. The State contends that assault causing bodily injury and simple assault are not included offenses because they both require intent while first-degree burglary requires that the act be intentional or reckless. See Iowa Code §§ 713.1, 713.3. The intent in assault causing bodily injury, Iowa Code § 708.2(2), and in simple assault, Iowa Code § 708.1, refers to a general, not specific, intent. See State v. Ogan, 497 N.W.2d 902, 903 (Iowa 1993) (assault causing bodily injury); State v. Brown, 376 N.W.2d 910, 913-14 (Iowa App.1985) (simple assault). The reckless alternative for first-degree burglary connotes that the act was not done with specific intent, but fraught with a high degree of danger ... so obvious from the facts that the actor knows or should reasonably foresee that harm will probably ... flow from the act. State v. Torres, 495 N.W.2d 678, 681 (Iowa 1993) (recklessness in context of involuntary manslaughter). We conclude that it would be impossible to commit first-degree burglary by intentionally or recklessly injuring another without also committing assault or assault causing injury because all of these crimes involve general intent. If the defendant had requested an instruction on these included offenses, he would have been entitled to them. The present record is not complete with respect to the ineffective-assistance issues. We do not know, for example, whether it was his counsel's strategy to present an all or nothing defense. Trial counsel should be given the opportunity to explain any strategy in regard to the included-offense issue, and we therefore reserve it for postconviction proceedings. See State v. Axline, 450 N.W.2d 857, 860 (Iowa 1990). The State argues that the defendant could not have been prejudiced in any event. The defendant counters that the theory of his defense was that, even if the jury had found that he had committed an assault, it might not have found him guilty of the greatest offense, first-degree burglary, if it had other, less serious options from which to choose. It is true that the jury found the elements of first-degree burglary, and we have found no error with respect to that finding. Nevertheless, we have said under analogous facts that it is always possible for the State to argue that, if the conviction of the greater offense is otherwise error free, the failure to submit a lesser-included offense is harmless error. Logically this argument has much to recommend it. A severable error-free adverse verdict on a factual issue which would be required to vindicate an additional legal theory has been recognized in other situations as a predicate for harmless error. This has not been the case, however, with respect to issues involving lesser-included offenses in criminal cases. The distinction undoubtably rests on the belief, seldom articulated, that if the jury had been given an alternative it might have reached a different result. While this approach involves a certain degree of supposition, it is a view that has been consistently applied. State v. Turecek, 456 N.W.2d 219, 222 (Iowa 1990). We cannot conclude as a matter of law that prejudice was not established and therefore reserve that issue for postconviction proceedings as well.