Opinion ID: 1999631
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The definition of malice

Text: In responding to the second note requesting reinstruction on the elements of malicious destruction of property, the court reread the standard instruction which it had given earlier, including the following language: An act is done maliciously where it is done on purpose, without adequate provocation, justification, or excuse, and has as its foreseeable consequence damage to or destruction of the property. Malice may be inferred from intentional wrongdoing accompanied by a bad or evil purpose. It is not necessary that the defendant have intended any actual harm which you may find to have resulted from the acts with which he is charged; it is only necessary that you find that he acted with a conscious disregard of a known and substantial risk of harm which the law intended to prevent. Criminal Jury Instructions for the District of Columbia, No. 4.43 (3d ed. 1978). A few moments later, in response to the question in the third note about whether appellant's attempts to evade the police officer were relevant to the issue of malice, the court gave the following instruction which had been submitted by the prosecutor, over the objection of defense counsel: Malice does not necessarily imply ill will, spite, hatred, or hostility by the defendant toward the property destroyed or the persons in possession of that property. Malice is a state of mind that prompts a person to do willfully, that is, on purpose, without adequate provocation, justification or excuse, a wrongful act whose foreseeable consequence is the injury to or destruction of property. In determining whether a wrongful act is done with malice, you may infer that a person ordinarily intends the natural and probable consequences of acts knowingly done and knowingly omitted. However, you should consider all of the circumstances and evidence that you deem relevant in determining whether the government has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted with the required malice. [Emphasis added.] Appellant challenges both of these instructions, particularly the italicized language in the second one, which comes from another standard instruction dealing with proof of intent. [15] We agree that the instructions were not paragons of clarity (which was really not the trial judge's fault, given some fuzziness in the case law), and we think the second one probably should not have been given because it tended to confuse malice with intent, a related but separate concept. Nevertheless, considering the instructions as a whole, we find no reversible error. Appellant asserts that the first instruction is inherently confusing because it defines malice in two different ways, one requiring proof of intentional wrongdoing with a bad or evil purpose, and the other requiring only a conscious disregard of a known and substantial risk. The nub of his argument seems to be his assertion in his reply brief that [t]he first state of mind involves an intent to injure or destroy the property. This is simply incorrect. Appellant acknowledges that his interpretation of the language in the instruction would appear to involve a specific intent. The case law makes clear, however, that malice is not synonymous with, and does not require, a specific intent to injure or destroy the property. The basically awkward terms such as a wicked heart or a bad or evil purpose should not be overemphasized; a finding that the accused intended the actual harm which resulted from his wrongful act is not an essential prerequisite to the existence of malice. All that is required is a conscious disregard of a known and substantial risk of the harm which the statute is intended to prevent. Charles v. United States, 371 A.2d 404, 411 (D.C.1977) (citation omitted). Although malice may be inferred from intentional wrongdoing, Paige v. United States, 183 A.2d 759 (D.C.1962), the only intent required to be proven is the intent to do the act which results in the injuryin other words, a general intent. [16] Thus we disagree with appellant's view that the instruction gives two different definitions of malice, and we reject, as inconsistent with Charles, the proposed instruction which he proffers in his reply brief. [17] Appellant's challenge to the second instruction must likewise fail. He maintains that it permitted the government a double inference, inasmuch as it talked about intent inferred from a knowing act, without explaining that the further act of inferring malice from an intentional act requires additional proof that the act was done with a `bad or evil purpose.' The flaw in this argument is that the second inference of which appellant speaks is not required, either by the instruction or by the case law. The only inference the jury had to draw was that appellant acted with a conscious disregard of a known and substantial risk of the harm which the statute is intended to prevent. Charles, supra, 371 A.2d at 411 (citation omitted). Thus there was no impermissible inference-on-an-inference, and the instruction was not improper. Nevertheless, appellant's challenge is not entirely without substance. We think the second instruction was unwisely given because it blurred the line between malice and intent, a line that is not very clear to begin with. In other circumstances we might well conclude that the prosecutor led the court into error by proffering this instruction and persuading the court to give it. Viewing the instructions as a whole, however, without selecting and comparing separate phrases for literal content, Carter v. United States, 475 A.2d 1118, 1124 (D.C.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1226, 105 S.Ct. 1222, 84 L.Ed.2d 362 (1985), we are satisfied that the jury was made aware of the difference between malice and intent and of what it needed to find in order to return a guilty verdict. We find no reversible error.