Opinion ID: 1962598
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The absence of an instruction on involuntary manslaughter.

Text: As a final ground for reversal, the defendant asserts that the presiding Justice erred by failing to instruct the jury on the elements of involuntary manslaughter or, under our statute, manslaughter as defined by the common law. 17 M.R.S.A. § 2551. [11] The defendant, however, failed to request an instruction on involuntary manslaughter and made no objection to the charge on the ground that it lacked such an instruction. As we discussed in Part I, the scope of our review is limited by M.R. Crim.P. 30(b) and 52(b) to the question of whether this was an obvious error affecting substantial rights of the defendant. As the issue was phrased in Northup, the question is whether the Justice's failure to give the instruction resulted in manifest injustice such as virtually to deprive the Defendant of a fair trial. 318 A.2d at 499. Northup suggests that we approach this problem by referring to the entire record and assessing the effect of the omission of the instruction in light of all the evidence. Id. see also Hilliker, supra, 327 A.2d at 867. Virtually the only evidence in the record here which might have led a jury to return a verdict of involuntary manslaughter is the defendant's own rather predictable disclaimer (I didn't mean to do it.) and the speculative testimony of a psychiatrist that the defendant might have some difficulty in fully realizing to himself what had actually happened. Reading the record in its entirety, however, it becomes clear that these two fragments of evidence are grossly outweighed by evidence that the defendant knew and intended the natural consequences of his acts. Perhaps the most decisive item of evidence in this regard is the defendant's statement, shortly after he left his victim bound to a tree in the woods that she might be dead now. We make reference to this statement only as an example of the convincing array of evidence which rebuts any inference that the killing was unintended or accidental. Guided by both Northup and Hilliker, [W]e see no reasonable possibility that the jury, if so instructed, would have found that the killing . . . was unintended. Northup, 318 A.2d at 500. This case is distinguishable from State v. Ellis, Me., 325 A.2d 772, 776-77 (1974) where we held under the authority of Northup, that the failure of the presiding Justice to give an instruction on involuntary manslaughter was manifest error. In Ellis, the circumstances of the killing were sufficiently ambiguous that a jury verdict of involuntary manslaughter was at least a reject the defendant's contention that the omission of an involuntary manslaughter instruction constituted a manifest error necessitating a reversal. The entry must be: Appeal denied.