Opinion ID: 2167941
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Requested Manslaughter Verdict.

Text: Upon the completion of the trial, counsel for the appellant made a motion to submit a number of alternative verdicts other than guilty of murder in the second degree, the offense charged in the conviction, and not guilty. He proposed that the verdict include a question permitting the jury to find the defendant guilty of manslaughter under sec. 940.05 (1), Stats. [15] He also asked for other alternative verdicts: Homicide by reckless conduct, sec. 940.06, and homicide by negligent use of a weapon, sec. 940.08. The trial court denied these requests and submitted only two possible verdicts to the jury: Guilty of murder in the second degree, the offense upon which the defendant was tried, and not guilty. The general standard for determining whether or not alternative verdicts ought to be submitted to the jury in a homicide prosecution has been announced on several occasions. The test to be applied in determining whether lesser degrees of the offense charged are to be submitted on request is whether there is some reasonable ground in the evidence, in the judgment of the court, for a conviction of the lesser offense. State v. Stortecky, supra . Putting it in another way, if the evidence, in one reasonable view, would suffice to prove guilt of the higher degree beyond a reasonable doubt, and if, under a different, but reasonable view, the evidence would suffice to prove guilt of the lower degree beyond a reasonable doubt, but leave a reasonable doubt as to some element included in the higher degree but not in the tower, the court should, if requested, submit the lower degree as well as the higher. [16] To determine whether or not there is a reasonable basis in the evidence to have justified submitting an instruction relating to manslaughter, we must inquire into what is the required state of mind of the defendant for conviction under murder in the first degree, sec. 940.01, Stats., [17] murder in the second degree, sec. 940.02, [18] and manslaughter, sec. 940.05 (1). As we have stated, throughout the entire trial there never was any dispute about the fact that Mrs. Hoyt had shot her husband. Neither was there any doubt that the shooting was the cause in fact of her husband's death. The only matter at issue was her psychological state at the time she so acted. For first-degree murder, the prosecution must prove that the homicide was intentional. That is to say that the defendant's course of conduct was undertaken for the purpose of bringing about the victim's death. [19] By definition, second-degree murder is an unintentional killing. The over behavior which produces death must be characterized as conduct evincing a depraved mind. A depraved mind has been defined in these terms: The phrase `a depraved mind' as used in defining murder in the second degree carries the suggestion of an induced or self-created condition of mind, and is to be distinguished from a state of mind generally described as insanity or feeblemindedness resulting from some disease or defect existing from birth or early childhood. The statutory definition of manslaughter which is relevant [20] here is: Whoever causes the death of another human being ... without intent to kill and while in the heat of passion; . . . On its face, the statute treats manslaughter as an unintentional killing. Thus, both manslaughter and second-degree murder assume that the killing was not purposive. The essential difference between the two degrees of homicide does not lie in the nature of the course of conduct, but rather in the state of mind with which the conduct is carried out. Criminal homicide constitutes manslaughter when a homicide which would otherwise be second-degree murder is committed under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there is a reasonable explanation or excuse. The reasonableness of such explanation or excuse shall be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the actor's situation under the circumstances as he believes them to be. [21] In analyzing this formulation, we must ask ourselves, Why does the legislature make a grading between homicides? Why not simply hold that one who kills another should be subjected to an invariant punishment? Legislative gradings of homicides recognize that society places different estimates on the moral reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct in each type of homicide, and that variations in the defendant's character justify variations in the sentence. Distinctions between degrees of homicide on the basis of the state of mind of the defendant permit the trier of fact to make moral evaluations of the defendant's character and within general limits determine the proper punishment. For example, in Wisconsin, the primary practical distinction between first-degree murder and second-degree murder and manslaughter lies in the maximum sentence permitted for conviction of each and in variations in parole eligibility for a person convicted under one of these categories. Anderson convicted of murder in the first degree must be sentenced to life imprisonment and is eligible for parole only after eleven and one-half years of incarceration. A person convicted of murder in the second degree may serve a maximum term of twenty-five years and is eligible for parole only after two years of confinement. On the other hand, a person convicted of manslaughter may be eligible for parole at the end of one year of incarceration, and may not serve a maximum term longer than ten years. The only rational basis of placing a defendant in one category or another is to make some moral evaluation of his act of homicide. This can be done effectively only if we consider the total context in which the crime occurred. The state of mind of the defendant at the time of the shooting is crucial because it bears upon an inference as to his total character and this in turn points to the different degrees of homicide of which he may have been guilty. In the end the question will be whether the defendant's loss of control can be understood in terms to arouse sympathy enough to call for mitigation in the sentence. This court has previously recognized that conduct normally denominated as second-degree murder may be treated as manslaughter if there was some justification or excuse for the conduct under all the circumstances. In Radej v. State [22] the court said: Surely, for a person to point a loaded revolver at a vital part of another's body and discharge it, is to perpetrate an act imminently dangerous to others, and if done without excuse or justification and not in the heat of passion characterizing some lower degree of homicidal offense than murder in the second degree, evinces `a depraved mind, regardless of human life.' A reasonable man could conclude that from her situation at the time of the shooting, Mrs. Hoyt's loss of control was reasonably justified. Her own reports of her feelings and perceptions are those of a person suffering great emotional turmoil, or so a reasonable juror could infer. Her parents' testimony as to her vacant and distraught manner while speaking to them, is further evidence from which a jury could reasonably infer the presence of extreme emotional distress. Given the history of physical and emotional abuse to which Mrs. Hoyt and her child were subjected by the deceased, a reasonable jury could find that the shooting was an act of desperate self-affirmation. The state contends that it was not error to refuse to submit an instruction of manslaughter because during the course of interrogation Mrs. Hoyt acknowledged that she had wanted to kill her husband. The state also contends that the fact that Mrs. Hoyt was able to recall with such vividness the details surrounding the shooting is evidence that no manslaughter verdicts should have been submitted. The evidence to which the state points is of an intention to kill. Had the defendant been charged with first-degree murder the state's argument may have had considerable force. Yet by charging Mrs. Hoyt with second-degree murder, the state itself took the position that the killing was unintentional in the sense that she did not undertake her course of conduct solely for the purpose of bringing about her husband's death. The state cannot be permitted to charge second-degree murder and then resist submission of manslaughter verdicts on the grounds that there was evidence to indicate that the killing was intentional and that before a manslaughter verdict is justified, the evidence must indicate that the defendant's emotional distress was so great as to totally vitiate an intention to kill. By charging murder in the second degree, the state was under no obligation to offer proof of intent to kill. To permit the state to use evidence of intention only defensively to avoid submission of lower verdicts would mean that in every instance in which the state charged second-degree murder in which there was some evidence of a specific intent, submission of a manslaughter verdict would never be justified. It is unreasonable to confront the jury with an either/or choice between second-degree murder or not guilty. Conduct which may be regarded as the basis of second-degree murder appears less morally reprehensible when the defendant's emotional condition and the reasons for such condition are evaluated by the trier of fact. The submission of a verdict of manslaughter permits the jury to make precisely this evaluation. In considering whether the defendant had committed second-degree murder or manslaughter, the differences between what she stated in her confession and her description of how she ended up with the gun in hand before the shooting, as contained in her testimony, are of some importance. In her confession she wrote: . . . I saw the gun on the shelf, reached for it, put it behind my back and walked into the living room thinking I'd scare him into stopping insulting me. On the witness stand she testified: And I saw the door open, it has a mirror on it, and I took my hand and I was going to close the door, and I looked up and my eyes saw this gun. I don't feel like I even reached for it, it just seemed like I was drew to touch that gun andI mean, in a fog, I wasn't thinking, I wasn't planning, I wasn't doing anything. I just reached this gun and I had it in my hands and some leather covering of some sort fell down and I was looking at this gun in my hands, and I was just foggy and I was staring at this gun. And I walked out two steps, I think it was, and I'm out of this room and I was in the hall, and as soon as I realized I was in the hall and I had that gun I quick put it in back of me. And I heard a little noise outside and I walked, turnedthe hall is so smallI turned to the living room and Bill could see me and I was standing with my hands behind my back. The difference points to the emotional state of the defendant at the time of the shooting and is further reason why an alternative manslaughter verdict should have been included here. Therefore, we conclude that the jury should have been permitted to evaluate Mrs. Hoyt's conduct under the standard suggested above and given the chance to conclude that the shooting was an act under emotional distress for which there was a reasonable explanation. The trial court's failure to submit the requested manslaughter verdict was error and constitutes an additional reason for reversing the judgment of conviction and ordering a new trial. We conclude that there was no evidence on the record to justify submission of alternative verdicts of homicide by reckless conduct or homicide by negligent use of a firearm.