Opinion ID: 2372935
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: error in failing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of second-degree manslaughter

Text: If, as the Majority Opinion states, the appellant's pretrial statement does not establish that he was not shooting at the store clerk, meaning (I presume) that fairly read Crane was saying that he intended to shoot at the store clerk, then the trial court erred in instructing on any degree of wanton homicide, including wanton murder; in this scenario the only evidence was of intentional homicide. If, on the other hand, Crane's statement should be construed as claiming that he did not intentionally shoot at the store clerk, but instead shot the gun up in the air, then surely there is a jury issue as to whether shooting up in the air manifested extreme indifference to human life, and Crane was then entitled, as he claims, to a wanton manslaughter instruction. The Commonwealth cannot have it both ways. The wanton endangerment case which the Majority cites, Combs v. Commonwealth, Ky., 652 S.W.2d 859 (1983), is inapposite. Combs was shooting in the direction of people, rather than up in the air. Shooting in the direction of people whom you do not hit, is wanton endangerment. But shooting in the direction of a person whom you hit, is intentional murder, rather than wanton murder. The trial court probably would have been correct to leave the wanton portion out of the murder instruction ( Shannon v. Commonwealth, Ky., 767 S.W.2d 548 (1988)), but surely it was incorrect to charge wanton murder on the basis that Crane was shooting at the store clerk rather than shooting the gun up in the air. On the other hand, if Crane's intent was to shoot up in the air, rather than at the store clerk, the proper charge was wanton manslaughter, and, at the least, failure to permit the jury to consider it was reversible error.