Opinion ID: 2583943
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Instruction on Felony Murder

Text: Young's failure to object to the felony-murder instruction means his appellate challenge is governed by K.S.A. 2003 Supp. 22-3414(3): No party may assign as error the giving or failure to give an instruction, including a lesser included crime instruction, unless the party objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict stating distinctly the matter to which the party objects and the grounds of the objection unless the instruction or the failure to give an instruction is clearly erroneous. Instructions are clearly erroneous only if the reviewing court is firmly convinced that there is a real possibility that the jury would have rendered a different verdict if the error had not occurred. [Citations omitted.] State v. Davis, 275 Kan. 107, 115, 61 P.3d 701 (2003). The felony-murder instruction given in Young's case was not a correct statement of Kansas law, because felony murder is not a lesser offense of premeditated first-degree murder. In fact, felony murder and premeditated murder define the same crime  first-degree murder  committed by alternative means. See State v. Morton, 277 Kan. 575, 86 P.3d 535 (2004); State v. Hoge, 276 Kan. 801, 809-10, 80 P.3d 52 (2003). The felonious conduct proved in a felony-murder prosecution stands in for the deliberation and intent ordinarily required to be proved in a premeditated murder case. See, e.g., Morton, 277 Kan. 575, Syl. ¶ 1. The district court's misstatement was literally but not legally clearly erroneous because the remainder of the instruction's content and its inclusion in the case were proper. It was not error to have the jury consider a felony-murder theory in the alternative to a premeditation theory, even though felony murder had not been described in the information. See State v. Foy, 224 Kan. 558, 565-66, 582 P.2d 281 (1978); see also State v. Hall, 246 Kan. 728, 747-49, 793 P.2d 737 (1990), overruled on other grounds Ferguson v. State, 276 Kan. 428, 442-45, 78 P.3d 40 (2003) (unnecessary to charge defendant with underlying felony, recite elements of underlying felony in felony-murder charge; under Foy, State need not charge felony murder, underlying felony as long as defendant charged with premeditated murder); State v. Murdock, 236 Kan. 146, 154, 689 P.2d 814 (1984) (charge limited to premeditated murder adequate to support felony-murder instruction where evidence of the underlying felonies clear). In Foy, the defendant shot and killed his wife at her mother's home after a long history of marital strife. He was charged with premeditated murder but not with aggravated burglary of the home. After putting on its evidence, the State announced that it would not seek a felony-murder instruction. At the close of the defense case, however, the State requested and received a felony-murder instruction over the defendant's objection. The jury convicted the defendant on the felony-murder theory. This court rejected the defendant's argument that the jury could not be instructed on felony murder because the charge against him had been limited to a premeditation theory: [A]n information in the ordinary form charging that a killing was done with malice aforethought, deliberation, and premeditation is sufficient to sustain a conviction of murder in the first degree committed in perpetration of a robbery or burglary. [Citation omitted.] Therefore, the fact that felony murder was not charged in the information does not preclude an instruction where evidence supports the instruction. [Citation omitted.] Foy, 224 Kan. at 566. But this court reversed the defendant's conviction because the State's sandbagging had prejudiced him in the presentation of his case. 224 Kan. at 567, 570. Neither Young nor the State has cited Foy. Young urges us to rely instead on State v. Jackson, 223 Kan. 554, 575 P.2d 536 (1978), and State v. Thompkins, 263 Kan. 602, 952 P.2d 1332 (1998), claiming those cases required the State to charge him in the alternative with felony and premeditated murder to avoid a due process violation. In Jackson, the defendant was charged and convicted of both felony murder and premeditated murder for a single homicide. On appeal, he argued that the district court's instructions on premeditated and felony murder were faulty and that the double conviction could not stand. This court affirmed. Although the instruction allowing the jury to convict on both felony and premeditated murder for one killing should have been phrased in the alternative, there was no prejudicial error. The defendant got only one sentence. Jackson, 223 Kan. at 557. This result in Jackson is consistent with more recent case law from this court, see State v. Wakefield, 267 Kan. 116, 136-41, 977 P.2d (1999) (where appellate court cannot tell from verdict form whether defendant convicted on premeditation theory or felony-murder theory, only sentence for felony murder appropriate); State v. Vontress, 266 Kan. 248, 262-64, 970 P.2d 42 (1998) (only defendant whose jury agrees unanimously on premeditation theory may be sentenced to harsher penalty reserved for that theory), but it does not support Young's argument here. In effect, Young's jury received exactly the alternative jury instruction Jackson recommended, despite the absence of Jackson 's dual charge. Thompkins is more helpful to Young in result but not in analysis. In that case, the defendant was charged in the alternative with felony murder and premeditated murder. The premeditation theory was rejected after preliminary hearing, and the court rejected the State's later motion to proceed on an amended information that reinserted it. The State then suggested that it could present its premeditation evidence at trial anyway, and the court could instruct on it if the evidence supported such an instruction at that time. The defendant did not object to this procedure, and the district judge permitted the State to pursue that approach. At the close of the evidence, the judge concluded that a premeditation instruction could be given after all. Again, the defense did not object. Despite the passivity exhibited by the defense, the Thompkins court voted 4-3 to reverse the defendant's conviction on appeal. 265 Kan. at 625, 628. The majority opinion, written by Justice Lockett, did not explain why the procedure employed by the district court prejudiced the rights of the defendant. There could have been no surprise; the State's agenda could not have been more clear. Justice Lockett noted only that the State had not appealed the district court's initial rejection of the premeditation theory and that the inclusion of the premeditation instruction came too late for the defendant to challenge the theory by means of K.S.A. 22-3208(3), which deals with defects in the initiation of criminal proceedings. 263 Kan. at 620-21. Justice Six, writing for himself, Chief Justice McFarland, and Justice Davis in dissent, was more analytical and persuasive. He emphasized the lack of an objection from the defense, the State's evidence of premeditation, and the absence of surprise. Thompkins, 263 Kan. at 628. Neither the Thompkins majority nor the dissent mentioned or cited Foy  either its general rule that a charge of premeditated murder will support a conviction of felony murder or its particular exception for particularly misleading behavior by the prosecution. The omission of any citation to or discussion of Foy in Thompkins undercuts its authority and precedential value, and we limit it strictly to its facts. Here, the evidence presented at trial was plainly sufficient to support Young's felony-murder conviction. At the time of the murder, Young was involved in the sale of cocaine, which is listed as an inherently dangerous felony. See K.S.A. 2003 Supp. 21-3436(14). Young was carrying a gun; he threatened to shoot Horn if Horn turned the key in the car's ignition; and he shot into the car five times when the drug deal soured. Just as important, we detect no misleading conduct by the prosecution counseling against application of Foy 's general rule. Although Young stated otherwise, it is evident from the record that both sides in the case as well as the district court anticipated the State's reliance on a felony-murder theory. During voir dire, the prosecutor mentioned the possibility of conviction on that theory. There was no defense objection to this statement. After voir dire but before the prosecution's opening statement, the court referenced the theory again when discussing plea negotiations. Finally, the defense did not object during the instructions conference and did not react during closing argument when the prosecutor urged the jury to find Horn's murder occurred during Young's commission of the crime of selling drugs. These instances demonstrate that Young had notice of the State's use of the felony-murder theory and never took issue with it. We therefore hold that the information charging Young with premeditated murder of Horn was sufficient to support instruction on felony murder. There was no due process violation, and no reversible error despite the district court's misstatement of the relationship between the two possible theories supporting commission of first-degree murder. We are firmly convinced there was no reasonable possibility that the jury would have rendered a different verdict if the district court had not made the mistake of calling felony murder a lesser offense of premeditated murder.