Opinion ID: 2046959
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Conflating Depraved Indifference Murder with Second Degree Manslaughter

Text: To the extent that it endorses Register, the majority also conflates depraved indifference murder with reckless manslaughter. After today, depraved indifference murder can thus be used as a proxy for not one but two separate crimes. In concluding that depraved indifference murder has a mens rea of ordinary recklessness, the Court in Register essentially took the depraved out of depraved indifference, so that depraved indifference murder is virtually indistinguishable from reckless manslaughter. According to Register, depraved indifference murder and reckless manslaughter have the identical mens rea element of recklessness. The only difference between the two crimes lies in the so-called objective circumstances surrounding the criminal act. If the defendant's conduct created a substantial risk of death, the crime is second degree manslaughter. If, however, the defendant's conduct created a grave risk of death, the crime is depraved indifference murder ( Register, 60 NY2d at 276-277). Register conflates the two crimes not only by giving them the same mens rea, but also by seeking to differentiate them only in terms of objective circumstances that are all but indistinguishable. Thus, for the factfinder, everything turns on whether the defendant's conduct created a grave risk of death as opposed to a substantial risk of death. I think it is too much to ask of any juror. The difference between reckless manslaughter, which carries a minimum punishment of one year in prison, and depraved indifference murder, which carries a minimum punishment of 15 years in prison, should not turn on the razor-thin distinction between substantial and grave. [18] Indeed, the Register Court's formulation has the effect of treating defendants with the exact same mental culpability unequally by giving them vastly different sentences even though their moral culpability is identical. This consequence violates a fundamental principle of the criminal law, which seeks to punish defendants in proportion to the blameworthiness of their offense. A person who intentionally kills another is considered more culpable (and deserving of greater punishment) than one who, through mere carelessness, causes the death of another. The Penal Law (as well as the Model Penal Code) recognizes this by creating different levels of culpability, with negligence being the least culpable and intentionality being the most culpable ( see Penal Law § 15.05; Model Penal Code § 2.02). [19] If depraved indifference murder and reckless manslaughter have the same mens rea (i.e., ordinary recklessness), then two defendants with exactly the same mental culpability can be separately convicted of two different crimes (murder and reckless manslaughter) and receive vastly different punishments. As one harsh critic of Register has asked, How can it be just to punish for murder, one offender whose mental culpability is no greater than that of another guilty only of manslaughterthereby exposing the former to an additional fifteen years of imprisonment? (Gegan, More Cases of Depraved Mind Murder: The Problem of Mens Rea, 64 St John's L Rev at 435.) Although the majority cites the Model Penal Code in support of its analysis, that reliance is misplaced. The Code reinforces the proposition that depraved indifference murder contains a different and much more culpable mens rea requirement than reckless manslaughter. This is clear for several reasons. To begin with, the Code expressly provides that the extreme indifference standard states a culpability requirement in addition to those used generally throughout the Model Code  (Model Penal Code, § 210.2, at 22 n 37 [emphasis added]). The culpability requirements used generally throughout the Model Code are negligence, recklessness, knowledge, and purpose ( id. at § 2.02, at 22 n 37). By declaring that depraved indifference murder has a culpability requirement in addition to these four mental states, it follows inexorably that depraved indifference murder does not have ordinary recklessness as its mental state. On the contrary, the Code repeatedly describes the requisite mental state for depraved indifference murder as extreme recklessness which rises to the level of `extreme indifference to the value of human life' ( id. at § 210.2, at 25). [20] By stating that the recklessness must rise to another level, the Code leaves no doubt that depraved indifference murder has a graver (i.e., more substantial) mens rea element than reckless manslaughter. Indeed, in discussing the difference between the two crimes, the Code explains that  [o]rdinary recklessness [as defined by section 2.02 (2) (c)] is made sufficient for a conviction of manslaughter   . In a prosecution for murder, however, the Code calls for the further judgment whether the actor's conscious disregard of the risk, under the circumstances, manifests extreme indifference to the value of human life  ( id. at 21 [emphasis added]). Moreover, in discussing the role of the jury in a prosecution for depraved indifference murder, the Code cautions that a trial court should provide instructions which make it clear that recklessness that can fairly be assimilated to purpose or knowledge should be treated as [depraved indifference] murder and that less extreme recklessness should be punished as manslaughter ( id. at 22 [emphasis added]). Given the Code's meticulous gradations of culpability into four neat categories (negligence, recklessness, knowledge and purpose), it is notable that the Code describes the requisite mens rea for reckless manslaughter as less extreme recklessness than the mens rea for depraved indifference murder. For the latter, the mens rea is closer to intent. As the Code Commentary notes, depraved indifference murder reflects the judgment that there is a kind of reckless homicide that cannot fairly be distinguished in grading terms from homicides committed purposely or knowingly  ( id. at 21 [emphasis added]). If depraved indifference murder had a mens rea of simple recklessness, the crime would be less blameworthy than intentional murder and would fairly be distinguished in grading terms from homicides committed purposely or knowingly ( id. ). Second, the Code states that its formulation for depraved indifference murder reflects both the common law and much pre-existing statutory treatment usually cast in terms of conduct evidencing a `depraved heart regardless of human life' or some similar words ( id. at 22). This statement is revealing because under the common law, the crime's mens rea was marked by the defendant's malignant heart or depraved mind. The mens rea was not (and except in the Register rationale has never been) ordinary recklessness. Indeed, even under New York's predecessor statutes to Penal Law § 125.25, the requisite mens rea was a depraved mind ( Register, 60 NY2d at 277). Thus, by construing its depraved indifference murder provision in accord with the common law, the Code clearly contemplates that depraved indifference murder has a mens rea not of ordinary recklessness but of a depraved indifference that exceeds recklessness. Third, the Code uses precisely the same examples of acts constituting depraved indifference murder as have been described elsewhere in this opinion and, indeed, as this Court itself described 150 years ago in Darry. The familiar examples cited by the Code are shooting into a crowd or into an occupied house or automobile ( id. at 22). These illustrations epitomize a mental depravity and indifferent frame of mind considerably more heinous than mere recklessness. The distinction between ordinary recklessness and depravity is important because it differentiates depraved indifference murder from manslaughter in the second degree (mere recklessness) and consigns depraved indifference murder to a very narrow class of inordinately horrific homicides. Indeed, the 1967 Commentaries to Penal Law § 125.25 highlight this distinction, emphasizing that the mens rea element of depraved indifference murder is extreme recklessness ( see Denzer and McQuillan, Practice Commentary, McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 39, Penal Law § 125.25, at 235 [1967]). [21] It is this inhuman level of depravitythis depraved kind of wantonnessthat defines depraved indifference murder ( see id. ). If we are to be faithful to the meaning and rationale of the depraved indifference murder statuteand thus require extreme recklessness evincing depraved indifference as the mens reathe People's case must fail. Never did the People argue to the jury that defendant's conduct was reckless in any degree. They never deviated from their contention that defendant intended to kill the decedent. Accordingly, in my view, defendant's conviction for depraved indifference murder cannot stand. [22]