Opinion ID: 2607400
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: causal and temporal relationships between the felony and resulting homicide

Text: There is a further infirmity in the instructional process of this case and this majority's confirmatory decision. It arises from the Cloman, 574 P.2d 410 concept that temporal relationship is unimportant by instruction regarding the causal relationship between the felony and the homicide. The practical mistake is that, in fact, a causal connection constituting more than accident or coincidence is required and the temporal relationship is a relevant factor to the causal determination. To state otherwise is to ignore the fundamental basis of felony murder recently addressed by the United States Supreme Court in Schad v. Arizona, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 2491, 115 L.Ed.2d 555 (1991), and even more recently by the New Mexico Supreme Court in State v. Ortega, 112 N.M. 554, 817 P.2d 1196 (1991). See John Calvin Jeffries & Paul B. Stephan, Defenses, Presumptions, and Burden of Proof in the Criminal Law, 88 Yale L.J. 1325, 1383 (1979) and Herbert Wechsler & Jerome Michael, A Rationale of the Law of Homicide: I, 37 Colum.L.Rev. 701, 723 (1937). The case law and legal literature regarding felony murder is near endless. See Engberg v. Meyer, 820 P.2d 70 (Wyo.1991), Urbigkit, C.J., dissenting in part and concurring in part. Perhaps as many as a hundred or more law journals could be listed and the individual cases number in the thousands. [6] One of the most thoughtful cases comes from New Mexico in Ortega, 817 P.2d at 1201: Few legal doctrines have been as maligned and yet have shown as great a resiliency as the felony-murder rule. Criticism of the rule constitutes a lexicon of everything that scholars and jurists can find wrong with a legal doctrine: it has been described as `astonishing' and `monstrous,' an insupportable `legal fiction' [citing State v. Harrison, 90 N.M. 439, 442, 564 P.2d 1321, 1324 (1977)], `an unsightly wart on the skin of the criminal law,' and as an `anachronistic remnant' that has `no logical or practical basis for existence in modern law.' Roth & Sundby, The Felony-Murder Rule: A Doctrine at Constitutional Crossroads, 70 Cornell L.Rev. 446, 446 (1985) (footnotes omitted)   . As indicated in this passage, dissatisfaction with the felony-murder doctrine has been widely expressed by both courts and commentators. [7] Within the totality of the law, whether derived from Justice Souter writing for the plurality in Schad, Justice Scalia writing the special concurrence, or Justice White in dissent, or anywhere else in the ocean of words, there is a ratio decidendi for felony murder defined as transferred intent. Simplistically, commission of the felony provides the mens rea to substitute for the premeditation required otherwise for first degree murder. This is the reason that, dependent upon jurisdiction, the kind of felonyor in some states the kind of felony murderdetermines the mens rea factor whether the felony commission is sufficient to make the felony murder into a capital or first degree murder offense. See Herbert Wechsler & Jerome Michael, supra, 37 Colum.L.Rev. 701 and Rollin M. Perkins, A Rationale of Mens Rea, 52 Harv.L.Rev. 905 (1939). See also People v. Lee, 234 Cal.App.3d 1214, 286 Cal.Rptr. 117, 121 (1991) and People v. Phillips, 64 Cal.2d 574, 51 Cal.Rptr. 225, 414 P.2d 353 (1966). The mens reaintentstate of the mind in commission of the felony serves to transfer first degree murder guilt from the felony to any resulting homicide. This logical progression demonstrates why the dicta in Cloman or the cases cited in support do not provide a foundationally firm legal principle to be applied without relevancy and legitimacy in every case where there was a felony and there was a homicide and nothing more. The mens rea of the felony has to relate to the event of homicide in a relational fashion. Leslie G. Sachs, Note, Due Process Concerns and the Requirement of a Strict Causal Relationship in Felony Murder Cases: Conner v. Director of Division of Adult Corrections, 23 Creighton L.Rev. 629 (1990). The viciousness of any arbitrary and illogical rule is clearly demonstrable here. If we assume, as we should, for a theory of defense perspective that the onlyand solecriminal activity of Bouwkamp was committed as an accessory after the fact, then to approve conviction of first degree murder, we have to reconstruct what the offense of accessory after the fact really is in order to utilize its separation, both in time and conduct arbitrarily to create a mens rea for guilt of a potential capital offense first degree murder. If the time sequence is unimportant, then the unwitting activity of the innocent doctor in assisting John Wilkes Booth after the President Lincoln assassination properly created a death penalty responsibility. The harborer, assistor, and the family protector, if covered by the accessory statute, even though the conduct occurs some substantial time laterweeks or even years then becomes guilty of the felony murder and consequently, at least academically, subject to the same punishment as the principal, which could be death. We regress by this illogical rationale to the totalitarian societal application of instant death for assistance in escape. In Cloman, the evidence demonstrated that the robbery and homicides were intrinsically related as a single cause of conduct initiated by intent to rob. Herein, within the theory of Bouwkamp's defense, the same single unit of behavior cannot similarly be applied. Consequently, the temporal, unimportant instruction in Cloman could not mislead the jury, although here it becomes a directed verdict on a factual issue against Bouwkamp. We have in effect a Sandstrom presumption by disregarding the otherwise proof of cause requirement. I have never believed that presumptions should ever constitutionally be used to replace proof of fact as a thesis of criminal law. Obviously, Sandstrom developed from the same recognition that the shortcut by presumption can obviate the proof of required element of the offense fits precisely into my dissenting objection in this case to a broad statement used to override requirement for a proper jury inquiry and consequent factual decision. [8] Within some jurisdictions, this status has been detailed within a res gestae structure of description. One of the excellent sources of discussion is State v. Fouquette, 67 Nev. 505, 221 P.2d 404, 416-17 (1950), cert. denied, 341 U.S. 932, 71 S.Ct. 799, 95 L.Ed. 1361 (1951), cert. denied, 342 U.S. 928, 72 S.Ct. 369, 96 L.Ed. 691 (1952): When a killing is done in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate robbery, or any other of the enumerated felonies, it is not essential for the state to prove that it was willful, deliberate, and premeditated.          When the homicide is within the res gestae of the initial crime, and is an emanation thereof, it is committed in the perpetration of that crime in the statutory sense.    The res gestae embraces not only the actual facts of the transaction and the circumstances surrounding it, but the matters immediately antecedent to and having a direct causal connection with it, as well as acts immediately following it and so closely connected with it as to form in reality a part of the occurrence. Differing from the theory of Bouwkamp that his participation was as an accessory after the fact, the Nevada Supreme Court further explained: In this case, the murder was clearly within the res gestae of the robbery, because it was so connected and associated with the robbery as to virtually and effectively become a part of it. Under no possible theory can it be properly said that the murder was committed as an independent act disassociated from the robbery. It is certain, therefore, that the murder was committed in the perpetration of the robbery, within the true intent and fair meaning of the statute[.]    It makes no difference in this case whether appellant unintentionally killed the deceased, as he claims, or whether the killing of deceased by appellant was intentional, as the jury might well have found, because one who kills another in the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate any arson, rape, robbery, or burglary, is guilty of murder in the first degree by force of the statute   , regardless of any question whether the killing was intentional or unintentional. Id. See also State v. Wooten, 295 N.C. 378, 245 S.E.2d 699 (1978). Unfortunately, the Cloman rule, when applied in this case, essentially advertised that it is unimportant whether the felony is within the interrelated events causing the homicide. Use of the characterization res gestae may either create a play on words or present a concept without reality in definition. It all depends on how the res gestae in whichever characterization is to be defined. Is it time defined, cause defined, or even place defined? Or is it anything that just happened? As recognized in 2 Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Evidence § 288, at 233 (14th ed. 1986): It is clear, then, that there is no way whereby the scope of the res gestae rule may be defined with precision. Although the vagaries in the use of the term res gestae have been frequently criticized, as in United States v. Matot (1944, CA2 Vt) 146 F.2d 197, there seems to be little indication that its meaning will be clarified in the future, no doubt because of the academic character of the problem, and also because of the weight and influence of prior decisions. Id. at 234 n. 38. As the footnote further recognizes, this vagueness and imprecision in the term has caused its removal from modern rules of evidence as a definitional term. In evidentiary terms, the rule has been stated: The res gestae has been defined as those circumstances which are the undesigned incidents of a peculiar litigated act and which are admissible when illustrative of such act. The incidents may be separated from the act itself by a lapse of time more or less appreciable. However, they must stand in immediate causal relation to the act. They are admissible, though hearsay, because, from the nature of things, it is the act that creates the hearsay, and not the hearsay the act. Kuether v. Kansas City Light & Power Co., 220 Mo.App. 452, 276 S.W. 105, 110 (1925) (emphasis added). The invalidity of the characterization as a term for felony murder rules as derived from an evidentiary concept is certainly highly exacerbated when the term is applied to define the relationship of discreet events occurring within a continuum of time and complexity of causes and from differentiated intents. Judge Hand best explained in a case involving the accused's theory of defense where intent was an issue: The prosecution seeks to defend the exclusion on the theory that the testimony would have been self-serving, and that it was not part of the res gestae. What else but self-serving the testimony of an accused person on his direct examination is likely to be, we find it difficult to understand; and as for res gestae, it is a phrase which has been accountable for so much confusion that it had best be denied any place whatever in legal terminology; if it means anything but an unwillingness to think at all, what it covers cannot be put in less intelligible terms. United States v. Matot, 146 F.2d 197, 198 (2nd Cir.1944) (emphasis added). Edward J. Imwinkelried, Paul C. Giannelli, Francis A. Gilligan & Fredric I. Lederer, Courtroom Criminal Evidence § 1202, at 283 (1987) states:  Res gestae is such a vague expression that it would be better if neither attorneys nor courts used the expression. Consistent in this recognition, the Maine court after quoting from 6 Wigmore, Evidence § 1767 at 255 (Chadbourn rev. 1976) in State v. Hafford, 410 A.2d 219, 220-21 (Me.1980), recognized: Although many of our pre-Rules cases have in terms discussed the  res gestae exception,    and although Rule 803(2) [Maine's rule of evidence] was intended to codify the decisional law as developed in that line of cases,    the drafters of our Rules of Evidences specifically avoided using the term res gestae in order to expunge that phrase from our Maine law of evidence.    Continued use of that label by the bench and bar would serve only to confuse and mislead. The real issue for analysis in this case in accord with the theory of defense and the testimony of the defendant is how does an accessory after the fact fall into inclusion or exclusion of res gestae? The softness of the conceptional definition and its indefiniteness in application, as recognized above, generally caused abandonment of the term for use in criminal law as a specificity determinant. The term means whatever, or perhaps nothing really determinable. Judge Hand was emphatically correct in dissection in Matot, 146 F.2d at 198. Res gestae technically, as converted from Latin to English, means things done, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 1003 (1986), but is used to describe variably the facts that form the environment of a litigated issue to the whole of the transaction under investigation. Black's Law Dictionary, supra, at 1173. See also Case v. Vearrindy, 339 Mich. 579, 64 N.W.2d 670 (1954) and Knapik v. Edison Bros., Inc., 313 S.W.2d 335 (Tex.Civ.App.1958). See Kathryn Annette King, Comment, The Res Gestae Doctrine: Manifestations in the Common Law of Alabama and Its Role Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, 42 Ala.L.Rev. 1363 (1991). Perhaps the most rational description in understandable terms when considered for evidentiary admissibility purposes is that within the res gestae, a statement is part of the transaction and not about the transaction. Although res gestae is not now included as a term within W.R.E. 803, the predecessor authority of the court in Johnson v. State, 8 Wyo. 494, 58 P. 761 (1899) found the delineation in having sprung out of the principal fact and under the direct and immediate influence of the transaction. It is patently obvious that an accessory after the fact criminal activity cannot be fit into these descriptions. In State v. Kump, 76 Wyo. 273, 301 P.2d 808, 815 (1956), this court quoted Chicago City Ry. Co. v. Uhter, 212 Ill. 174, 72 N.E. 195, 199 (1904): `That which occurs before or after the act is done is not a part of the res gestae, although the interval of the separation is very brief.' In the Kump case, a bad attitude toward the victim in advance of the homicide, as repeated from prior statements, was not contemporaneous. They did not illustrate that act of homicide. The transactions, or acts, were entirely separate and distinct and were erroneously admitted in evidence. Kump, 301 P.2d at 815. I find the same principle still persuasive which serves to abjure usage of a res gestae temporal materiality principle espoused here. Causal relationship is absolutely required and the temporal status has a specific connection to the factually determined causal relationship. If the status of involvement is that of an accessory after the fact by definition, the conduct is separate and distinct. Otherwise, the conduct was either as a principal or in aiding and abetting with the responsibility as a principal. Wyo.Stat. § 6-1-201 (1988) is defined as accessory before the fact. [9] Jewell, 409 S.E.2d 757. In looking at the required causal relationship between a homicide and a felony, we are not involved in Bouwkamp with the consideration of a cover-up homicide to conceal commission of a felony. That character of crime is illustrated by Conner v. Director of Div. of Adult Corrections, State of Iowa, 870 F.2d 1384 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 953, 110 S.Ct. 363, 107 L.Ed.2d 350 (1989); Conner v. State, 362 N.W.2d 449 (Iowa 1985); and State v. Conner, 241 N.W.2d 447 (Iowa 1976). In the cases, the contributory relationship is recognized as homicide committed in conjunction with the commission of a felony, Conner, 870 F.2d at 1387; aiding and abetting in the robbery and to conceal the rape and robbery, Conner, 241 N.W.2d 447; and murder committed in perpetration of the felony so that the killing was a material part of the felony, Conner, 362 N.W.2d 449. This majority now turns the principle illustrated by the Conner cases upside down in restating a later felony committed to have a res gestae relationship with the original homicide earlier completed. Within the theory of defendant's case and testimony, where he had no part in commission of the homicide at all, the subsequent accessory after the fact simply does not create the structure or the connexity required for felony murder. The basic support for the felony murder principle results from the transference of that mens rea from the felony to the resulting homicide and the thesis cannot be applied to a circumstance where a felony is committed without preplanning after the killing was completed. In simplistic terms, the inquiry is whether the homicide resulted from a commission of the felony and not whether a felony occurred after the homicide was completed. The Wyoming statute, in itself, would seem to be self-defined in clear terms: (a) Whoever    in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any sexual assault, arson, robbery, burglary, escape, resisting arrest or kidnapping, kills any human being is guilty of murder in the first degree. Wyo.Stat. § 6-2-101 (1991 Supp.). This statute cannot be overlaid upon the accessory after the fact statute: (a)    with intent to hinder, delay or prevent the discovery, detection, apprehension, prosecution, detention, conviction or punishment of another for the commission of a crime, he renders assistance to the person. Wyo.Stat. § 6-5-202. The actual test is homicide in perpetration of the felony. Moore v. Wyrick, 766 F.2d 1253 (8th Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1032, 106 S.Ct. 1242, 89 L.Ed.2d 350 (1986). See also Spivey v. State, 114 Ark. 267, 169 S.W. 949 (1914) where the victim's written note, prehomicide, surmised that he was about to be invited to his own assassination. The note, in text, was not admissible as res gestae, even though, in fact, apparently accurate about the eventual result of his invitation to a nighttime visit to the home of his about-to-be-divorced and soon-to-be-widowed wife. The Pennsylvania court recognized in Com. v. Lark, 518 Pa. 290, 543 A.2d 491 (1988), as defined in Scadden v. State, 732 P.2d 1036 (Wyo.1987), that res gestae sometimes accorded the complete story rationale by proving its immediate context of happening near the place and time. See State v. Williams, 454 So.2d 1211, 1214 (La.App.1984) (quoting State v. Haarala, 398 So.2d 1093, 1097 (La.1981)), `close connexity in time and location   .' The Oklahoma court likewise in Sevier v. State, 355 P.2d 1018, 1023 (Okl.Cr.1960), recognized: Though the term `res gestae' is almost indefinable there are certain prerequisites necessary in identifying testimony as part of the res gestae. The relationship between the felony and the homicide which it precipitated was similarly recognized in definition and discussion in Smith v. State, 447 So.2d 1327 (1983), aff'd, 447 So.2d 1334 (Ala.1984). In State v. Sherry, 233 Kan. 920, 667 P.2d 367 (1983), the principal occurrence was an intended drug sale about which the participant's comments constituted the res gestae. The recognition of the temporal relationship is demonstrated in the 1923 Illinois case of People v. Jarvis, 306 Ill. 611, 138 N.E. 102 (1923), where later events which may have constituted further criminal conduct which had no causal connection with the initial shooting of the deceased were not admissible as part of the res gestae. The entire inquiry is directed to the causal relationship between the subordinate event and the offense to which the connexity is attached. The test not being the closeness of time of such declarations or acts to the act charged, but their causal relation therewith. Id. 138 N.E. at 103. The connexity or res gestae or applicability test for felony murder to relate the underlying felony to the resulting homicide is frequently stated in terms of time, distance, and the causal relationship   . State v. Hearron, 228 Kan. 693, 619 P.2d 1157, 1160 (1980). Time, distance, and the causal relationship between the underlying felony and the killing are factors to be considered in determining whether the killing is a part of the felony and, therefore, subject to the felony-murder rule. Whether the underlying felony had been abandoned or completed prior to the killing so as to remove it from the ambit of the felony-murder rule is ordinarily a question of fact for the jury to decide. Id. See also Rider, 625 P.2d 425. It is stated as time, place and causal connection, State v. Corneau, 109 N.M. 81, 781 P.2d 1159 (1989), in addressing the res gestae of the felony and further stated as felony continued in progress in regard to escape time, State v. Wayne, 169 W.Va. 785, 289 S.E.2d 480 (1982). See also State v. Lee, 13 Wash.App. 900, 538 P.2d 538, 542 (1975), where the causal connection was considered: This causal connection has been referred to as within the res gestae of the intended crime. In commenting on the historical background of the felony-murder doctrine, the court in State v. Suit, 129 N.J.Super. 336, 323 A.2d 541, 546 (1974), noted: The doctrine arose and is premised upon a theory of transferred intent, that is, that one perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate an inherently dangerous felony possesses a malevolent state of mind which the law calls malice .... It is this intent which transfers into that element of malice necessary to sustain a charge of first-degree murder and is imputed to the person who kills during the felony. Thus, when killing occurs in the commission of a robbery, it is murder in the first degree, even though death was not intended. The Montana court in State v. Weinberger, 206 Mont. 110, 671 P.2d 567, 569 (1983) recognized a quote from 2 Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law § 149, at 221 (14th ed. 1978): It is not the purpose of the felony-murder rule to foist authorship of a homicide upon a felon; the purpose is merely to clothe the felon's act of killing with malice. The Montana court then quoted from Commonwealth v. Redline, 391 Pa. 486, 137 A.2d 472, 476 (1958): In adjudging a felony-murder, it is to be remembered at all times that the thing which is imputed to a felon for a killing incidental to his felony is malice and not the act of killing. The mere coincidence of homicide and felony is not enough to satisfy the requirements of the felony-murder doctrine. `It is necessary ... to show that the conduct causing death was done in furtherance of the design to commit the felony. Death must be a consequence of the felony ... and not merely coincidence.' (Citing authority.) (Emphasis in original.) Weinberger, 671 P.2d at 569. In application of the rule, the Montana court found inadequacy of proof, plan or design and insufficiency of the evidence to establish the underlying felony to be chargeable to the incident of homicide. The application of the Weinberger causal relation rule clearly applies to the theory of defense of Bouwkamp that his participation occurred only as an accessory after the fact. If that was true, he could not have been guilty of felony murder. The felony as the principal occurrence was recognized again by the Kansas court in State v. Peterson, 236 Kan. 821, 696 P.2d 387, 394 (1985): Res gestae is a broader concept than an exception to the hearsay rule. It actually deals with admissibility of evidence of acts or declarations before, during or after happenings of the principal event. Those acts done or declarations made before, during or after the happening of the principal occurrence may be admitted as part of the res gestae where those acts or declarations are so closely connected with the principal occurrence as to form in reality a part of the occurrence. A foundational case frequently referenced is State v. Diebold, 152 Wash. 68, 277 P. 394, 395-96 (1929) where it was stated: As to when a homicide may be said to have been committed in the course of the perpetration of another crime, the rule is laid down in 13 R.C.L. 845, as follows: It may be stated generally that a homicide is committed in the perpetration of another crime, when the accused, intending to commit some crime other than the homicide, is engaged in the performance of any one of the acts which such intent requires for its full execution, and, while so engaged, and within the res gestae of the intended crime, and in consequence thereof, the killing results. It must appear that there was such actual legal relation between the killing and the crime committed or attempted, that the killing can be said to have occurred as a part of the perpetration of the crime, or in furtherance of an attempt or purpose to commit it. In the usual terse legal phraseology, death must have been the probable consequence of the unlawful act   . In Diebold, appellant was a taxi driver who illegally borrowed a vehicle and thereafter, upon becoming extremely intoxicated, ran the vehicle into the decedent. Felony murder was asserted based on the original unlawful taking of the vehicle, even though the defendant was in the process of vehicle return when the death resulted. The Washington court determined that felony murder could not be applied from the initial vehicle taking where nothing in the nature of pursuit or flight was involved. See, however, State v. Leech, 54 Wash.App. 597, 775 P.2d 463 (1989), where a firefighter died in fighting the defendant's arsonstarted fire. Likewise in King v. Com., 6 Va.App. 351, 368 S.E.2d 704 (1988), following the earlier case of Wooden v. Com., 222 Va. 758, 284 S.E.2d 811 (1981), the death of the co-felon in an airplane crash while the duo were involved in transporting marijuana could not create a felony murder basis for conviction. Davis v. Com., 12 Va.App. 408, 404 S.E.2d 377 (1991) was directly contrary in factual status where the defendant was trying to escape from motor vehicular pursuit since he was a habitual offender. The illegal driving in attempt to escape and resulting death of an innocent person added up to felony murder. Likewise, the act of driving when forbidden to do so in order to avoid detection accrued felony murder liability where the police automobile chase followed burglary of a car in State in Interest of J.R., 234 N.J.Super. 388, 560 A.2d 1279 (1988). Asportation and continuing transaction can be utilized to find the res gestae for application to a robbery homicide felony murder. The gravamen of the offense is the intent to commit the underlying felony, not the intent to commit the killing. State v. Lassen, 679 S.W.2d 363 (Mo.App.1984). The principle addressed in the case, although not factually found, is that larceny from the body of one killed as an afterthought does not constitute a capital felony. Although the killing may precede, coincide or follow the robbery and still be committed in the perpetration, initial felonious intent is required. Differentiating from some proximate cause authorities, the rule is also stated: `A killing is committed... within the purview of a felony-murder statute when there is no break in the chain of events leading from the initial felony to the act causing death, so that the homicide is linked to or part of the series of incidents forming one continual transaction.' State v. Covington, 290 N.C. 313, 226 S.E.2d 629, 639-40 (1976) (quoting State v. Thompson, 280 N.C. 202, 185 S.E.2d 666, 673 (1972)). The issue is factual if the intent to commit the felony as the initiating event of the transaction is denied. Wooten, 245 S.E.2d 699. Obviously, if the facts impeach the denial testimony, presentation of the jury issue and approval of the resulting jury verdict appropriately results. The court in Wooten recognized that proof of intent to steal at the time of the homicide was required for conviction of first degree murder under the felony murder doctrine. Id. at 706. When the homicide is within the res gestae of the initial crime and is an emanation thereof, it is committed in the perpetration of that crime in the statutory sense. State v. Milentz, 547 S.W.2d 164 (Mo.App.1977); State v. Adams, 339 Mo. 926, 98 S.W.2d 632 (1936). It was similarly stated in California: It is sufficient that the homicide be related to the felony and have resulted as a natural and probable consequence thereof   . People v. Taylor, 112 Cal.App.3d 348, 358, 169 Cal.Rptr. 290, 295 (1980) (emphasis added). See also People v. Chavez, 37 Cal.2d 656, 234 P.2d 632 (1951). The appropriate resolution of the relationship required is fact sensitive under the circumstances presented which means the sequence of events is significant but may not be controlling on a temporal basis alone. The proper examination is whether a homicide occurred as a result of commission of a felony in order that the transferred intent from the commission of the felony creates the mens rea required where otherwise premeditation should exist to define a first degree murder offense. The juxtaposition and the lack of specificity in the language used for majority decision is just plain wrong. The dogma in Cloman which graduated to the supposed rule in Price is factually inapplicable and inappropriate for further application to this case. The singular logical fallacy resulted from this court's determination by applied characterizations rather than use of facts to reason to a logical conclusion. In philosophy, at least, a Sandstrom presumption was created. It is apparent that a temporal relationship is not meaningless, that the homicide is required to be a result of the intended commission of the felony and an accessory after the fact does not create the felony murder responsibility for an earlier homicide that may have occurred without the participation or assistance of the defendant. The majority's conception to the contrary is clearly and almost uniformly contrary to the established state of the law. The unimportant relationship instruction which was given under these circumstances should constitute reversible error. It presumptively and significantly misled the jury about the relationship between the charged crime and controverted conduct. That instruction is best consigned to the never again to be used file and a logically valid alternative should be given in replacement. In a Cloman circumstance, the instruction usage is harmless nonsense; where it matters in a case like this, it becomes a factual inaccuracy conceptualized into a legal presumption.