Opinion ID: 197851
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Instructions on Malice

Text: 74 Petitioner has advanced four claims of error in the trial court's jury instructions. None was made at trial. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the district court have considered them at considerable length and found no merit. At this juncture, we see no point in addressing issues of exhaustion, other procedural problems, or even the correctness vel non of the several instructions. Just as was the case with the Bruton error we have discussed, the substantive question is whether, in this collateral consideration of the record as a whole, any errors, singly or collectively, have been demonstrated by the Commonwealth as having had no substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict. Libby v. Duval, 19 F.3d 733, 738-40 (1st Cir.1994) (applying Brecht harmless error review to error in giving mandatory presumption instruction). 75 Petitioner's underlying theme is that the instructions failed in various ways to satisfy Massachusetts case law on how to charge malice, a state of mind that is a prerequisite for finding either first or second degree murder. Massachusetts cases establish that malice can be proven in one of three ways: (1) showing that the defendant, without justification or excuse, possessed an intent to kill, (2) showing that the defendant, without justification or excuse, possessed an intent to cause grievous bodily harm, or (3) showing circumstances in which a reasonably prudent person would have known there was a plain and strong likelihood that death or grievous bodily harm would result. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Grey, 399 Mass. 469, 470 n. 1, 505 N.E.2d 171, 173 n. 1 (1987); Commonwealth v. Huot, 380 Mass. 403, 408, 403 N.E.2d 411, 414 (1980). 5 Although the trial court discussed malice at considerable length, it did not list the three alternatives as such. 76 As might well be expected in a criminal prosecution of three defendants charged with the most serious offenses, the court's instructions were lengthy, encompassing forty pages of transcript. Those relevant to the claims at issue occupied some fifteen pages. Petitioner's claims are based on passages appearing on three of these pages. Our task is to view these statements in the context of a complicated and lengthy set of instructions and to assess the extent to which they would likely have affected the jury's thought processes. 77 We discuss first an instruction that petitioner describes as automatically equating use of a deadly weapon with malice. The court said: 78 A killing may be malice, and consequently murder, even though the slayer did not wish to cause death. If a man intentionally and without legal justification uses upon the body of another a deadly weapon, such as a gun or a knife, and death results, a jury may infer that malice aforethought is present. 79 Petitioner asserts that the court never explained that there must be an intent to kill, or to do grievous bodily harm, or that a prudent person would have known that he was creating a plain and strong likelihood of death. 80 This assertion overlooks a number of other efforts by the court to explain the kinds of actions that would be required to reach the malice threshold. We mention three. The first came several pages earlier than the above quoted passage and addressed the definition of a dangerous weapon. Although the court was discussing the charges against Blanchard, who was being prosecuted as an accessory after the fact to the crime of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, it had to explain the offense of the principals. It identified two kinds of dangerous weapons, quoting from an unidentified case in describing the second type: 81 One type is by design a dangerous weapon, guns, daggers, they are designed to do serious bodily injury to people.... 82 [Another type] may also be defined as an instrument ... which, because of the manner in which it is used, or attempted to be used, endangers the life or inflicts great bodily harm, or is calculated as likely to produce death or serious bodily injury.... 83 It is for you to decide in this case whether as to a particular charge, an instrument such as a foot covering, was used in such a manner that in the particular circumstances of the case, it was a dangerous weapon. 84 With this discussion of a dangerous weapon and its use, the court, a few pages after the passage first quoted, fleshes out malice aforethought by stating that if the jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt that an assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon has been committed, causing death, and 85 that the murder was the natural and probable consequence of the commission of the crime, and ... that that crime, assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, is a crime that involved inherent danger to human life, then the fact of the commission of that crime, with death resulting, allows you to find the presence of malice aforethought from those facts. So that under those circumstances, you would have at least a murder in the second-degree. (Emphasis added.) 86 From this overview of the instructions, it is clear, whether required or not, that all three alternative ways of meeting the malice requirement were discussed by the court. Petitioner himself concedes that the court instructed, according to the first prong of malice, that malice may be found from an intent to kill. The third prong, knowledge of a prudent person that his actions created a plain and strong likelihood of death or grievous bodily harm, was substantially covered by the court's references to using an instrument in a way calculated as likely to produce death or serious bodily injury, to murder being the natural and probable consequence of the use of the dangerous weapon, and to a crime that involved inherent danger to human life. Any difference between these comments and the plain and strong likelihood language of the cases is so slight as not to weigh significantly in the scales of probable injurious effect. 87 As for the second prong, intent to do grievous bodily harm, the fact that the jury rendered a special finding of extreme atrocity and cruelty excluded any possibility that the jury was misled by the absence of a haec verba instruction. For the court, in addressing the requisites of first degree murder, after saying that more than ordinary atrocity or cruelty was needed, said: 88 Repeated violent blows have been held to evince such ferocity as would warrant a finding of extreme atrocity or cruelty. The court added, quoting from a case: 89 Evidence that a defendant struck the fatal blow 'for kicks,'  using the colloquial expression. A crime that was committed with such savagery and brutality, where there were repeated violent blows, which were held to evince a particular ferocity that would constitute extreme atrocity and cruelty. 90 In our view, there is accordingly no likelihood that the jury would have acted on the assumption that mere use, simpliciter, of a deadly weapon, resulting in death, without the requisite intent or knowledge of consequences, was a sufficient basis for its conclusions. The same extracts from the instructions suffices to dispose of two other claimed errors. 91 Very similar to the first claim is the assertion that the court erred in creating a mandatory presumption, in violation of the teaching of Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979), by use of the following language: 92 If you have a death resulting under the circumstances I described by one who has committed a felony, an assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, then you have a murder in the second-degree. 93 This excerpt is found in the penultimate paragraph of the entire charge and is clearly part of a thumbnail summary. It is immediately preceded by a page listing the circumstances it references; the jurors were instructed that to find malice aforethought from the commission of the crime of assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, they must conclude that the crime is one in which the natural and probable consequence is death and one which involves inherent danger to human life. 94 The language pinpointed by petitioner, suggesting a mandatory presumption, seems to us effectively qualified and explained by the earlier passage. See Hill v. Maloney, 927 F.2d 646, 649 (1st Cir.1990). In any event, even if any error remains, there is in our judgment no likelihood that it had any substantial influence upon the jury's deliberations. 95 The same analysis and conclusion apply to petitioner's third claim of error, directed to this extract: 96 There also, of course, can be actual malice. You can find there is ill will and there is hatred and harboring of a grudge, motives of revenge or punishment. 97 Petitioner claims that this instruction permitted the jury to find malice upon proof of a mere intent to injure, considerably watering down the required intent or knowledge. 98 Once again, a statement is taken out of context and without regard to other qualifying instructions. In the first place, the statement follows a reference to situations permitting the inference of malice from use of a deadly weapon, and is part of a systematic effort to limn the contours of malice without at that point filling in details. In the second place, petitioner strains the text in his effort to find error, going beyond the listed examples which suggest mental states prior to the petitioner's involvement in a fight--ill will, hatred, a grudge, revenge, punishment. Ordinarily one would not characterize an instantaneous decision to step into a fight to help a friend as malice. 99 But, even according ill will the meaning of intent to injure urged by petitioner, the passages we have quoted above adequately flesh out the kind of action that must accompany the motive of ill will to meet the requirement of malice. Moreover, we cannot imagine how a jury could arrive at a finding of extreme atrocity and cruelty if it felt that petitioner harbored a mere intent to injure, rather than at least an intent to cause grievous bodily harm. This instruction, if not explained and cured by context and other instructions, most certainly possessed no likelihood of influencing the jury's deliberations. 100 The final claim of error is that, contrary to Massachusetts law, the jury was instructed that it might consider whether defendant had an impaired capacity because of his consumption of alcohol solely as to first-degree murder, but not on any other degree of offense. Petitioner cites Commonwealth v. Henson, 394 Mass. 584, 476 N.E.2d 947 (1985), for the proposition that voluntary intoxication is relevant to all three species of malice, and thus to second-degree murder as well. The government responds that, even if there were an error of state law, such is not a basis for habeas corpus relief if there is no violation of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States, citing Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 67-68, 112 S.Ct. 475, 479-80, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991), and it points out that the defense of voluntary intoxication is not constitutionally required. See Montana v. Egelhoff, 518 U.S. 37, 56-58, 116 S.Ct. 2013, 2024, 135 L.Ed.2d 361 (1996); Robinson v. Ponte, 933 F.2d 101, 104-105 (1st Cir.1991). We do not reject the government's argument, but prefer to rest on what we think is dictated by the jury's decision. 101 In the somewhat restrained review we conduct under the dictates of Brecht, we have difficulty in understanding how, in light of the court's lengthy instructions on alcohol-induced impairment of mental capacity to engage knowingly in acts of extreme atrocity or cruelty, one could argue that restricting such instruction to first degree murder was prejudicial. After all, there was no conviction as to any offense except first degree murder by extreme atrocity or cruelty. As to this, the court went beyond saying that the jury could consider defendant's mental and emotional state in light of his alcohol consumption. It added: 102 Let me be a little bit more precise regarding that. If the jurors determine from the evidence that a defendant had substantially reduced mental capacity at the time that the murder or the crime was committed, they can consider the effect, if any, that the defendant's impaired capacity had on his ability to comprehend the consequences of his choices. Thus, a defendant's mental impairment is to be weighed in evaluating the evidence of the manner and means of inflicting death.... 103 In light of the special verdict finding of extreme atrocity or cruelty, pursuant to these instructions, we do not see how it was possible for the absence of a voluntary intoxication instruction on the issue of malice to have prejudiced petitioner. Although a negative finding as to extreme atrocity or cruelty would not, under the instructions, have barred a second degree murder conviction, the finding of extreme atrocity, notwithstanding the evidence of drunkenness, presupposed a determination of ability to comprehend the consequences of his choices. That the jury found first degree murder in these circumstances eliminates the possibility that the absence of instruction on second degree murder was prejudicial. In sum, we discern no likelihood that this claimed error influenced the jury's thought processes. 104 Accordingly, our review of the instructions indicates no error cognizable under habeas corpus strictures. 105 AFFIRMED.