Opinion ID: 2085062
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Foreign Cases

Text: Lacking support in New York statutes and precedent, the majority finally retreats to foreign cases to support its holding that capital felony murder must have a criminal objective independent of the intentional murder (majority op at 69). As the majority acknowledges, two of these sister-state cases Williams v State (818 A2d 906 [Del 2002]) and Parker v State (292 Ark 421, 731 SW2d 756 [1987])are nothing more than interpretations of Delaware's and Arkansas' rather different capital statutes. Additionally, Williams and Parker both deal with capital felony murder statutes that are closer to our traditional (second-degree) felony murder statute than to our first-degree felony murder statute. Specifically, these statutes do not require an intentional killing, and instead appear designed to reduce the disproportionate number of accidental homicides which occur during the commission of the enumerated predicate felonies ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 161). Indeed, Delaware requires a reckless[ ] murder ( see Del Code Ann, tit 11, § 636 [a] [2]), while in Arkansas, the killing had to have been under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life ( Parker, 292 Ark at 425, 731 SW2d at 758). It is, thus, quite surprising that the majority considers Parker and Williams so convincing. After all, the majority views our own traditional felony murder jurisprudence in Miller as irrelevant mainly because that crime, like the crimes addressed in Williams and Parker, does not require an intentional murder (majority op at 65). By contrast, the Arkansas Supreme Court itself considered Miller entirely relevant, but rejected the Miller distinction between a murder committed in an occupied dwelling as opposed to out of doors. The court concluded that what might make sense in New York did not automatically make sense in Arkansas because of its different statutes ( Parker, 292 Ark at 426-427, 731 SW2d at 759). The majority cannot have it both ways. If Miller is of no value here, as the majority contends, then Williams and Parker are at least equally useless. Alternatively, if it is legitimate to rely on foreign cases dealing with statutes similar to the statute underlying Miller, then Miller must be relevant here. Ultimately, the majority rests its conclusion principally upon the opinion of the California Supreme Court in People v Green (27 Cal 3d 1, 609 P2d 468, supra ) (majority op at 70-71). Our decisions in Miller and People v Harris (98 NY2d 452 [2002]), however, undermine any reliance on Green. In Green, the California Supreme Court justified the need for an independent objective by reference to Eighth Amendment narrowing concepts. In Harris, however, we expressly rejected a claim that the first-degree felony murder statute did not comport with the narrowing requirements of the Eighth Amendment ( Harris, 98 NY2d at 475-477). There is no reason for us to shrink from that conclusion here. We noted in Miller that it was apparent that the Legislature, in including burglary as one of the enumerated felonies as a basis for felony murder, recognized that persons within domiciles are in greater peril from those entering the domicile with criminal intent, than persons on the street who are being subjected to the same criminal intent ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 160). The concern for preventing violence in domiciles that led the Legislature to include burglary in the second-degree felony murder statute informs the first-degree statute under consideration here. As discussed earlier, the traditional, second-degree statute is predicated upon burglary of any degree ( see Penal Law § 125.25 [3]). But when the Legislature borrowed from that statute, it slightly narrowed intentional felony murder so as to include only first-degree or second-degree burglary ( see Penal Law § 125.27 [1] [a] [vii]). Significantly, only those two degrees of burglary expressly encompass crimes committed in a dwelling ( see Penal Law § 140.25 [2]; § 140.30); third-degree burglary references only a building ( see Penal Law § 140.20). Thus, the Legislature clearly structured the first-degree felony murder statute to deter and punish intentional killings in a dwelling. The legislative goal of protecting the citizens of our state from burglars with a murderous intent nullifies any Eighth Amendment fears. As just discussed, we took note in Miller of the extremely rational legislative recogni[tion] of the greater peril faced by persons in their homes ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 160). Because of that greater peril, the Legislature ensured that the burglary statutes prescribe greater punishment for a criminal act committed within the domicile than for the same act committed on the street ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 160). The greater punishment for committing the same act in a dwelling rather than on the street obviates the need for the burglary here to have had an objective independent of murder. The Legislature quite rationally concluded that a burglarlike defendantwho fulfills a specific murderous intent is deserving of greater punishment than a defendant who commits the same act . . . on the street ( id. ). Thus, providing the death penalty for the crime committed here in no way runs afoul of the Eighth Amendment ( Harris, 98 NY2d at 476). Indeed, it is not merely an intent to kill, but rather burglarizing a dwelling to fulfill that murderous intent which differentiates (and correspondingly narrows) this murder from its lesser included offense of second-degree intentional murder. Simply put, the Eighth Amendment concerns expressed by the California Supreme Court in Green are not present here. [15] The Eighth Amendment does not require that a burglary underlying a felony murder (especially an intentional murder) be predicated upon an independent criminal objective ( see e.g. State v Tillman, 750 P2d 546, 571 [Utah 1987]; Smith v State, 499 So 2d 750, 754 [Miss 1986]; see also State v Dann, 205 Ariz 557, 568 n 7, 74 P3d 231, 242 n 7 [2003] [implying that merger doctrine would not preclude capital felony murder conviction for burglary premised on intent to kill]).