Opinion ID: 1934851
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: malice aforethought as an element of the crime of murder

Text: SDCL 22-16-4 states: Homicide is murder when perpetrated without authority of law and with a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or of any other human being. In accordance with this statutory definition the trial court instructed the jury the essential elements of the offense of murder, each of which the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, are: 1. That the defendant at the time and place alleged in the information inflicted an injury or injuries upon the deceased from which the deceased died. 2. That the defendant did so with premeditated design to effect the death of the deceased. 3. That the killing was without authority of law and without justification. Defendant contends the trial court improperly and erroneously charged the jury by refusing to instruct that malice aforethought, was an essential element of the crime. In support of his contention it is pointed out that SDCL 23-32-4 relating to the form and contents of criminal pleading provides: The indictment or information shall contain the title of the action, the name of the court in which it is presented or filed, and the names of the parties. It shall not be necessary to set out therein, with particularity, the facts relied upon to constitute the offense charged, and it shall only be necessary to allege the commission of the offense in the language by which the crime is usually designated; as, in the case of an accusation of murder, that the accused (naming him) did, at a time and place stated, feloniously, willfully, and with malice aforethought, murder a human being (naming him); or, in case of assault, or assault and battery, or rape, or carnal knowledge or abuse of a person, or assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do great bodily harm or to kill, it shall only be necessary to charge that, at a time and place stated, the accused (naming him) did commit the crime of assault, or assault and battery, or rape, or carnal knowledge or abuse of a person, or assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do great bodily harm or to kill, upon or against the person of a human being (naming him or her, as the case may be); and this form of pleading shall apply in all prosecutions for the commission of any public offense, and upon the trial it shall be competent to prove the manner in which the crime was committed as fully and as particularly as if all the facts constituting the crime had been fully alleged and set forth in the indictment or information presented or filed. (Emphasis added.) The original source of SDCL 23-32-4 was Chapter 242 of the 1913 Session Laws. Its later appearance as SDC 1939, Section 34.3007 was based on Supreme Court Rule 364. It is a procedural rule or statute intended to show the sufficiency of simplified pleading code crimes in indictments and informations in contrast to the technical and formalistic pleading of common law crimes. Unfortunately and confusingly (see State v. Edmunds, 20 S.D. 135, 104 N.W. 1115 and State v. Belt, 79 S.D. 324, 111 N.W.2d 588) the illustration in SDCL 23-32-4 of pleading the crime of murder does not now, and never has, conformed to the substantive law of our state. At least since 1877 (see Pen.C. 1877, Section 242) malice aforethought has not been an essential element of the crime of murder. It is now defined in SDCL 22-16-4, as it has been since 1877, as homicide is murder when perpetrated without authority of law and with a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or of any other human being. The trial court therefore correctly refused defendant's requested instructions which included the element of malice aforethought as an element of the crime charged. Finding no error, the judgment of conviction is accordingly affirmed.