Opinion ID: 2514211
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Defense Instruction on Premeditation

Text: Clark contends the trial court erred in giving the following instruction on premeditation: Instruction number 11: Premeditated means thought over beforehand. When a person, after any deliberation, forms an intent to take human life, the killing may follow immediately after the formation of the settled purpose and it will still be premeditation. Premeditation must involve more than a moment in point of time. The law requires some time, however long or short, in which a design to kill is deliberately formed. RP (Apr. 14, 1997) at 5434 (trial). This instruction is virtually identical to 11 Washington Pattern Jury Instructions: Criminal 26.01.01 (2d ed. 1994) (WPIC), but the latter substitutes premeditated in the second sentence for premeditation. Clark's proposed instruction number 5 included the same information but added that premeditation involves the mental process of thinking beforehand, deliberation, reflection, weighing or reasoning for a period of time, however short. RP (Apr. 11, 1997) at 5416 (trial). As Clark concedes, Br. of Appellant at 158, this court has had numerous occasions to invalidate the court's instruction and has not done so-going so far as to state that further challenge to the instruction is frivolous. In re Personal Restraint of Lord, 123 Wash.2d 296, 317, 868 P.2d 835, 870 P.2d 964 (1994) ( Lord II ); State v. Benn, 120 Wash.2d 631, 657-58, 845 P.2d 289 (1993); State v. Rice, 110 Wash.2d 577, 757 P.2d 889 (1988). Nevertheless Clark urges us to evaluate his argument that the instruction as given places an over-emphasis on the briefness of the time necessary to premeditate and ... minimiz[es] the amount of deliberation (any) that must occur before intent becomes premeditation. Br. of Appellant at 158. Clark's concern is that the instruction erroneously emphasizes that premeditation can occur quickly, with minimal deliberation, prior to the killing. We have rejected the precise formula Clark advanced in his proposed instruction on premeditation in Rice, 110 Wash.2d at 603-04, 757 P.2d 889, in favor of WPIC 26.01.01. Clark does not present a compelling argument why we should reject the holdings from Rice, Benn, and Lord II. Indeed, it is hard to tell from the face of the WPIC instruction how Clark's proposed language adds anything of substance. The inference Clark draws from the given instruction is not the only way, or even the most reasonable way, to construe the instruction. The test for sufficiency of jury instructions is whether they permit each party to argue his theory of the case, are not misleading, and when read as a whole, properly inform the trier of fact of the applicable law. Rice, 110 Wash.2d at 603, 757 P.2d 889 (citing State v. Mark, 94 Wash.2d 520, 526, 618 P.2d 73 (1980)). Instruction number 11, as given, provides ample room for Clark to argue his theory of the case. It is not misleading, and it remains a correct statement of the law. We reject this argument now as we have in the past.