Opinion ID: 2202924
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Felony Murder Statute is unfair

Text: Reardon has briefed and argued before the Law Court a third point on appeal, the so-called unfairness issue. He claims that the felony-murder rule, as developed in Maine pursuant to statutory enactment and providing homicide liability for deaths occurring in the course of certain select felonies, is fundamentally unfair in punishing individuals for unintended incidents in violation of the basic principle of criminal jurisprudence that punishment for crime be founded on individual misconduct. Nothing in this record shows that this issue was raised in the trial court; accordingly, we review it only for obvious error affecting the substantial rights of the defendant, even though the question involved purports to be of constitutional scope. State v. Crocker, 435 A.2d 58, 62 (Me.1981); State v. Flick, 425 A.2d 167, 174 (Me.1981); M.R. Crim.P. 52(b). Since the defendant's argument inferentially suggests the alleged invalidity of his conviction because of the unconstitutionality of the felony-murder statute involved in the case, it is proper to entertain the point, even though advanced for the first time on appeal. State v. Boisvert, 348 A.2d 7, 10 (Me.1975); State v. Boyajian, 344 A.2d 410, 412 (Me.1975). We see no constitutional defect in this statute, nor any fundamental unfairness in its operation. The Criminal Code has established a scale of differences in forbidding conduct resulting in the death of a human being. A person is guilty of murder, if he intentionally or knowingly causes the death of another human being, or he engages in conduct which manifests a depraved indifference to the value of human life and which in fact causes the death of another human being. 17-A M.R.S.A. § 201. Thus, the Legislature in depraved indifference murder has determined that death-producing conduct objectively manifesting savagery or brutality is a killing of the highest degree of blameworthiness and made punishable by the severest penalties provided for by law, the same as in the case of an intentional or knowing killing, to wit, for life or for any term of years that is not less than 25. 17-A M.R.S.A. §§ 201, 1251. See State v. Crocker, 435 A.2d 58, at 67 (Me. 1981). If the death of another human being is caused in the commission of or in an attempt to commit, or in an immediate flight after the commission of or attempt to commit, any one of the enumerated felonies of murder, robbery, burglary, kidnapping, arson, rape, gross sexual misconduct, or escape, the person committing the homicidal act and any other participant in the felony is guilty of felony murder, provided the homicidal act or conduct in fact causes the death of that human being, and provided also such death is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the commission of such felony. 17-A M.R.S.A. § 202(1). The Code further provides as an affirmative defense to prosecution for felony murder that the defendant A. Did not commit the homicidal act or in any way solicit, command, induce, procure or aid the commission thereof; B. Was not armed with a dangerous weapon, or other weapon which under circumstances indicated a readiness to inflict serious bodily injury; C. Reasonably believed that no other participant was armed with such weapon; and D. Reasonably believed that no other participant intended to engage in conduct likely to result in death or serious bodily injury. Felony murder is a Class A crime, punishable by a definite period of imprisonment not to exceed 20 years. 17-A M.R.S.A. §§ 202, 1252. We do observe that both definitions of depraved indifference murder and felony murder expressly require, as an essential element of either crime, that the forbidden conduct constituting depraved indifference to the value of human life in the one case and the conduct of the perpetrator of the felony in the other in fact cause the death of a human being. The Legislature, by virtue of 17-A M.R.S.A. § 34(4)(B), further provided that a culpable mental state on the part of the person causing the death of the person need not be proved with respect to the issue of death causation, because the statute defining either crime expressly requires that the forbidden conduct in fact causes the death of another human being. Thus, in either case, the depraved indifference murder and felony murder statutes set out to punish death-producing conduct without any need to prove a culpable subjective mental state of mind on the part of the actor. See State v. Legasse, 410 A.2d 537, 540 (Me.1980); State v. Goodall, 407 A.2d 268, 279-80 (1979). But, in the punishment aspect, the Legislature has provided different treatment, since the penalty for depraved indifference murder is the same as for intentional-knowing murder, while that for felony murder may not be more than the 20-year limit for Class A crimes. We must recognize that, in setting up a comprehensive schedule of penalties fundamentally fair and proportional to the particular criminal behavior subject to punishment, the Legislature may consider, as we believe it did, that death-producing conduct which manifests a depraved indifference to the value of human life, even when objectively viewed, is so highly charged with death-producing potential that it merits punishment in equal degree with an intentional or knowing homicide. By the same token, the Legislature could properly evaluate to a lesser degree of blameworthiness the homicide which results from the more remote death-producing conduct involved in the perpetration of the stated felonies under the felony murder statute. We note also that, in the scale of punishment, at the time of the commission of the instant crime, a reckless or criminal negligence homicide (involuntary manslaughter) or causing the death of another human being under circumstances which would otherwise be murder except that the actor causes the death while under the influence of extreme anger or extreme fear brought about by adequate provocation (voluntary manslaughter) is punishable as a Class A crime, except when death occurs as the result of the reckless or criminally negligent operation of a motor vehicle in which case the manslaughter is punishable as a Class C crime. [2] Thus, Maine's Criminal Code ascribes the same degree of moral culpability to death-producing conduct in the felony murder scenario as in circumstances where voluntary manslaughter or involuntary non-motor-vehicular manslaughter is involved. In State v. Pray, 378 A.2d 1322, 1324 (Me.1977), we pointed out that, even before the adoption of the new Criminal Code, this Court had come to the position of requiring in the application of the felony murder rule, as with the Code, proof beyond a reasonable doubt not only of a causal relationship between the felony being committed or attempted and the death, but also that the manner or method of its commission or attempted commission presents a serious threat to human life, or, in the words of the Code, that the ensuing death is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of such commission or attempted commission. See also State v. Wallace, 333 A.2d 72, 81 (Me.1975). In Pray, we rejected the common law concept of unlawful-act manslaughter which we said Maine's new Criminal Code was abolishing (the Code became effective after the commission of the offense in this case). So, we imported as an element of unlawful-act involuntary manslaughter a similar requisite of perceptibility of risk of death which was then recognized in felony murder. We further said in Pray at 1324 that Maine's new Criminal Code substituted several types of reckless and negligent homicide in the place of common law unlawful-act manslaughter and adopted a homicide punishment scheme which makes the penalty commensurate with the defendant's culpability. We concluded in State v. Crocker, 435 A.2d at 58 that [a]lthough it is true that the differences between mere civil liability, manslaughter, and murder are a matter of degree, we will not for that reason alone disturb the legislative determination that established that scale of differences. We see no fundamental unfairness, as claimed by the defendant, in the State's comprehensive grading for sentencing purposes between the several types of criminal homicides. Reardon's argument to the contrary is without merit. In the criminal homicide field the jurisprudence of this State has been constant in maintaining that the subjective mental, emotional or other behavioral state or condition of the defendant not be an indispensibly controlling factor in evaluation of the punitive seriousness of the crime. State v. Rollins, 295 A.2d 914, 920 (Me.1972). Our Criminal Code has continued this policy of criminal jurisprudence by providing identical penalty categories for homicides in felony murder situations and non-motor-vehicular homicides punishable as manslaughter. All are based on objective standards of human behavioral responses. Id. at 921. The potential sanction of imprisonment for the period of twenty years in both categories does not denote such punitive severity as to shock the conscience of the public, nor our own respective or collective sense of fairness. By no means was the defendant in this case subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of either the State or Federal Constitution. See State v. Alexander, 257 A.2d 778, 783 (Me.1969). We do not believe that a fourteen-year prison term for felony murder, coupled as it was with a similar term for robbery to be served concurrently, is disproportionate to the offense of criminal homicide or offends any prevailing notion of decency and fairness. See State v. Frye, 390 A.2d 520, 521 (Me.1978). The entry will be: Judgments of conviction affirmed. All concurring.