Opinion ID: 1188849
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: clarifying potentially confusing instructions.

Text: We base our reversal of the manslaughter conviction on the two jury instruction errors just discussed. However, we wish to comment on another point raised by Defendant because of our concern that giving the jury two unambiguous but possibly conflicting instructions might have caused confusion in the minds of the jury. The jury was first asked to decide whether Parish committed second degree murder, which is distinguished from voluntary manslaughter by the element of provocation. See § 30-2-1(B). The appropriate jury instruction is SCRA 1986, 14-210, which was the trial court's instruction No. 5: For you to find the defendant guilty of second degree murder as charged in Count I, the state must prove to your satisfaction [beyond] a reasonable doubt each of the following elements of the crime: 1. The defendant killed Paul Vigil; 2. The defendant knew that his acts created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to Paul Vigil; 3. The defendant did not act as a result of sufficient provocation; 4. This happened in New Mexico on or about the 15 day of July, 1991. [Emphasis added.] Thus, to distinguish between second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter the jury had to find evidence that the Defendant acted as the result of sufficient provocation. The trial court's instruction on provocation came directly from SCRA 1986, 14-222: Sufficient provocation can be any action, conduct or circumstances which arouse anger, rage, fear, sudden resentment, terror or other extreme emotions. The provocation must be such as would affect the ability to reason and to cause a temporary loss of self control in an ordinary person of average disposition. The provocation is not sufficient if an ordinary person would have cooled off before acting. [Emphasis added.] This provocation instruction contains language similar to that of the instruction given by the court on self-defense: The defendant was in fact put in fear by the apparent immediate danger of death or great bodily harm and killed Paul Vigil because of that fear; and.... [a] reasonable person in the same circumstances as the defendant would have acted as the defendant did. [Emphasis added.] See SCRA 14-5171. Defendant was involved in an angry dispute which was possibly racially motivated; he was chased, attacked, and brutally beaten; he was prevented from leaving; and he pulled out a gun and shot one of his assailants. As Defendant suggests, the jury could easily have found that these circumstances fell within the definition of self-defense. However, upon considering the instruction on voluntary manslaughter, the jury may also have found in these same facts the element of provocation. Both instructions describe a situation which arouses fear in the Defendant; both ask the jury to decide whether a reasonable person would have responded to that fear as did the Defendant. And yet these two instructions are mutually exclusive. Either the Defendant is guilty of having been provoked into voluntary manslaughter or he is innocent because he killed in self-defense. It is plausible that a reasonable juror might be confused by first finding sufficient provocation to reduce the charge from second degree murder to voluntary manslaughter, and to then discard the concept of provocation and use the same facts that evinced provocation to prove self-defense. The instructions on provocation and self-defense are each accurate and unambiguous. However, as applied to the facts of this case they are confusing. Defendant suggests that it is impossible to determine whether the jury understood that the claim of self-defense supersedes the element of provocation. See State v. Garcia, 83 N.M. 51, 54, 487 P.2d 1356, 1359 (Ct.App.1971) (Since we are unable to determine whether the confusing instruction was followed by the jurors, and since this is a homicide case where the theory of self-defense is a critical issue, the confusing instruction was error requiring reversal.) (citing Horton, 57 N.M. at 261, 258 P.2d at 374). Any confusion could have been eliminated if the jury had been told that it was required to find Defendant not guilty if his conduct met the definition of self-defense. In the future, when a case presents similar circumstances, juries should be so instructed.