Opinion ID: 2519950
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Maestas, Vigil, and Other Utah Authority

Text: ¶ 16 Casey's challenge is not strictly one of first impression. We have addressed jury instructions regarding attempted murder in the past; two of these decisions, State v. Maestas, 652 P.2d 903 (Utah 1982), and Vigil, addressed jury instructions based on the same language at issue in the instant case. Additionally, when addressing attempted murder under other alternatives of the murder statute, we have consistently held that intentional conduct is required by the attempt statute.
¶ 17 In Maestas, the trial court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss his conviction for attempted first degree murder, [4] ruling that specific intent to kill could not properly be inferred from the evidence. 652 P.2d at 904 (citation and quotation omitted). The State appealed. On appeal, Maestas argued that, under the common law rule, an `attempt' crime must always consist of an intent to commit the corresponding completed crime accompanied by a substantial step toward realization of that crime. Id. He derived this theory from the common law rule that intent is a necessary element of every `attempt' crime even where the corresponding completed crime does not require intent as an element. Id. Expanding on this argument, the defendant asserted that attempted first degree murder ... requires a `specific intent' beyond that which would have been required in order to provide first degree murder itself. Id. We noted that according to this argument, the crime of attempted murder [would] require[ ] a stronger showing of intent than does the crime of murder itself. Id. (emphasis added). In other words, Maestas argued that the State must prove a greater degree of intent in order to obtain a conviction for attempted murder than to obtain a conviction for murder. ¶ 18 Instead of adopting this argument that a greater degree of intent is required for attempted murder, we gave two alternative rationales for upholding the conviction. First, looking to the attempt statute, [5] we held that Utah law requires only `the kind of culpability otherwise required for the commission of the [completed] offense.' Thus, there can be no difference between the intent required as an element of the crime of attempted first degree murder and that required for the first degree murder itself. Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Utah Code Ann. § 76-4-101(1) (1978)). We rejected the notion that attempted murder required a different, higher degree of culpability than a murder conviction. Second, we noted that the common law rule differentiated between an attempted crime and completed crime only where the completed crime may be committed without the intent to commit that crime in particular. Id. at 905. Where an intent to commit the particular crime committed is an element of the completed crime, the same intent requirement applies to the corresponding attempt crime, even at common law. Thus, Utah's first degree murder statute, which does contain such an intent requirement, would not fall within the rule cited by defendant even under common law principles. Id. This holding indicated that attempted murder required an intent to commit the particular crime as an element of the offense and ignored the fact that, by definition, a murder conviction could rest on either knowing or intentional conduct. ¶ 19 Though we concluded that a conviction for attempted murder only required the same mental state necessary to obtain a murder conviction, we failed to acknowledge the distinction between acting knowingly and intentionally. Instead, we merely examined [t]he evidence tending to indicate that [Maestas] intentionally fired his revolver, id. (emphasis added), and held that substantial evidence supported the jury in finding that the state had established both the act and the intent components of attempted first degree murder, id. at 907 (emphasis added). We focused on whether the evidence showed the defendant acted intentionally without considering whether he acted knowingly.
¶ 20 Ten years later we decided Vigil, holding that Utah does not recognize attempted second degree murder under the depraved indifference alternative of the murder statute. [6] Using a plain language analysis to determine the meaning of culpability and intent in the two paragraphs of the attempt statute, we determined that to give the fullest possible effect to the terms of paragraphs (1) and (2), we construe the culpability requirement in paragraph (1) to refer to the attendant circumstances, if any, of the underlying offense and construe the intent language in paragraph (2) to limit the attempt statute to offenses with a mental state of intent. In other words, attempt can be found for uncompleted offenses that require intent, even though those offenses have attendant circumstances that require lesser mental states. Vigil, 842 P.2d at 845-46 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted). We held that the word `intent' as used in ... the attempt statute should be read to mean `conscious objective or desire.' This meaning of the word `intent' obviously is distinguishable from knowledge of the proscribed conduct or result, which is the mental state required for depraved indifference homicide. Id. at 847 (emphasis added) (quoting Utah Code Ann. § 76-2-103(1) (defining intentional conduct)). ¶ 21 Following this analysis of the language of the attempt statute, we held that to convict a defendant of attempted second degree murder, the prosecution must prove that the defendant had a conscious objective or desire to cause the death of another. Id. at 848. Accordingly, in a footnote to the Vigil case, we overruled the Maestas decision to the extent it held that a defendant could be convicted for an attempt crime if he or she acted with the same level of culpability necessary to support a conviction for committing the completed crime. See id. at 848 n. 5. ¶ 22 However, we created some confusion by noting in the same footnote that the Vigil holding did not overrule the second rationale we used in Maestas to uphold the conviction for attempted murder. In the second rationale, we assumed that since intent to commit the particular offense was already an element of murder, it was also an element of attempted murder, but in this discussion, we overlooked the fact that murder could also be committed knowingly. In Vigil, we magnified this mistake by specifically stating in dicta that Maestas is still good law insofar as it authorizes prosecution for attempted aggravated murder under the intentional or knowing formulation of section 76-5-202(1) or attempted murder under the intentional or knowing formulation of section 76-5-203(1)(a). Id. (emphasis added). Thus, the dicta in this footnote, contrary to the holding expressed in the main body of the opinion, provided that a person may be convicted of attempted murder if evidence showed that he or she acted knowingly or intentionally. Based on this footnote in Vigil, the trial court and the court of appeals denied Casey's challenges to the jury instructions concerning attempted murder.
¶ 23 In other cases in which we have discussed the level of culpability necessary to convict a defendant of attempted murder, we have consistently required intentional conduct. A month before we decided Maestas, we held that an attempted manslaughter conviction requires intentional conduct. See State v. Howell, 649 P.2d 91 (Utah 1982) (holding that one can be convicted of attempted manslaughter under the subsections of section 76-5-205 that require intentional conduct but not under the subsection that only requires the mens rea of recklessness). In that case, we reasoned that one cannot be guilty of an attempt to commit a crime unless the necessary mens rea of the completed crime is intentional conduct. To convict of an attempt, one must necessarily have the intent required to convict of the complete crime. Id. at 94 n. 1. ¶ 24 Analyzing the attempt statute in another case, we reached a similar result on the issue of whether a defendant could be charged with attempted murder under the felony-murder alternative of the murder statute. [7] The crime of attempted murder does not fit within the felony-murder doctrine because an attempt to commit a crime requires proof of an intent to consummate the crime, and numerous courts have held that the crime of attempted murder requires proof of intent to kill. State v. Bell, 785 P.2d 390, 393 (Utah 1989) (emphasis added) (footnote omitted). Indeed, in the face of logic, the conclusion is inescapable that the crime of attempted murder requires proof of intent to kill. Therefore, we also hold that attempted felony-murder does not exist as a crime in Utah. Id. at 394. Through these decisions, we have consistently interpreted the attempt statute narrowly, requiring a showing of the defendant's intent to consummate the crime for conviction. Thus, no conviction for attempt may be obtained without evidence of intentional conduct.
¶ 25 In Maestas, even though we upheld the conviction for attempted murder, we did so because we found that ample evidence existed for the jury to determine that the defendant intentionally committed the crime. Ignoring the language of the murder statute that required either knowing or intentional conduct, we noted that as long as intent is an element of the completed crime, that same intent is required for the attempt crime. See Maestas, 652 P.2d at 905. In Vigil, we held that the attempt statute requires intentional conduct in order to convict a defendant of attempted second degree murder. See Vigil, 842 P.2d at 848. However, in dicta, we authorized prosecutions for attempted murder under the intentional or knowing alternative of the murder statute. Id. at 848 n. 5. Despite this inconsistency, we have, in other cases, specifically held that attempted murder requires proof of intentional conduct, namely, intent to kill. See Bell, 785 P.2d at 393; Howell, 649 P.2d at 94.