Opinion ID: 1849099
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 17

Heading: whether the circuit court erred in granting state's jury instruction s-2 as to the degrees of homicide.

Text: ś 87. Conley argues the trial judge committed reversible error in granting the State's jury instruction S-2, which reads as follows: The Court instructs the Jury that before you can reach a verdict in this case, all twelve of you must agree upon the same verdict. This means that any verdict of the Jury must be unanimous. The Court further instructs the Jury that if you believe from the evidence in this case, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant committed the crime of murder while in the commission of the crime of the kidnapping of one Whitney Berry, then you should find the defendant guilty of capital murder, and the form of your verdict, which should be written on a separate sheet of paper and need not be signed, may be in the following form: We, the Jury, find the defendant guilty of capital murder. If all twelve of you are unable to unanimously agree as to a verdict on the guilt of the defendant of capital murder, you may consider the lesser-included offense of murder. A lesser-included offense is a charge which contains some elements of the greater charge but not all of them. If you believe from the evidence in this case, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant did wilfully, unlawfully, feloniously and of his malice aforethought kill and murder one Whitney Berry, a human being, but not while in the commission of the crime of kidnapping of the said Whitney Berry, then you should find the defendant guilty of murder, and the form of your verdict, which should be written on a separate sheet of paper and need not be signed, may be in the following form: We, the Jury, find the defendant guilty of murder. The Court further instructs the Jury that if all twelve of you are unable to unanimously agree on the above charges, you may consider the lesser-included offense of manslaughter by culpable negligence. If you believe from the evidence in this case, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant did unlawfully, feloniously and by his culpable negligence kill and slay one Whitney Berry, a human being, by then and there removing the personal flotation device from the said Whitney Berry, a human being, contrary to Mississippi law, and did allow the said Whitney Berry to enter the water without sufficient protection, then you should find the defendant guilty of manslaughter by culpable negligence, and the form of your verdict, which should be written on a separate sheet of paper and need not be signed, may be in the following form: We, the Jury, find the defendant guilty of manslaughter by culpable negligence. The Court further instructs the Jury that if you find the defendant not guilty of manslaughter by culpable negligence, the form of your verdict may be in the following form: We, the Jury, find the defendant not guilty of manslaughter by culpable negligence. In its further explanation of the degrees of homicide, the court instructed the jury on the elements of capital murder as follows: The Court instructs the Jury that the State has the burden of proving from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Glen Conley did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously and of malice aforethought did kill and murder Whitney Berry at a time when Glen Conley was then and there engaged in the commission of the crime of kidnapping of Whitney Berry. If the state fails to prove each and every essential element or if the Jury believes from the facts that Glen Conley did not willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, with malice aforethought kill Whitney Berry then you should return a verdict of not guilty. ś 88. Conley asserts that instruction S-2 was lacking in the essential elements in each degree of homicide. He asserts that it would have been better to grant a series of proper instructions, outlining the steps in each degree. Conley urges that S-2 failed to properly instruct the jury; yet, he fails to state how or in what manner the instruction is infirm other than making an allegation that certain elements of the crimes are excluded. Conley never specifies precisely to which elements he is referring. Jury instructions will always be considered as a whole as opposed to the singling out of any instruction. Nicholson ex rel. Gollott v. State, 672 So.2d 744, 752 (Miss.1996). ś 89. As discussed in issue eleven, the portion of S-2 instructing the jury on manslaughter by culpable negligence was not proper. However, as the jury found Conley to be guilty of capital murder, this was determined to be harmless error. As for the remaining portion of S-2, this Court finds that the jury instructions, taken as a whole, properly instructed the jury as to the degrees of homicide. The instructions correctly placed the burden on the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the underlying felony with which Conley was charged and for the charge of capital murder. Therefore, the trial court did not err in granting State's jury instruction S-2.