Opinion ID: 2166394
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: failure to instruct jury on second degree murder

Text: The defendant's next argument is that the trial judge erred as a matter of law in not instructing the jury on a charge of second degree murder. [35] In the defendant's 1980 and 1984 trials, the jury had been instructed on the lesser-included offense of second degree murder. In 1985, the trial court prepared a draft of jury instructions that it proposed to give and distributed them to counsel for review prior to holding a prayer conference. That draft included a charge on the lesser included offense of second degree murder. During the prayer conference in the 1985 trial, defense counsel told the judge that the defendant did not want the jury charged on second degree murder. The prosecutor was also opposed to the charge on murder in the second degree. The Court agreed to delete such a charge. The next day, defense counsel informed the trial judge that after the defendant himself had read all of the instructions, the defendant now wanted the jury to receive an instruction on second degree murder. The prosecutor continued to oppose such a charge. The trial judge concluded that there was insufficient evidence to warrant the instruction and refused to instruct the jury on second degree murder. He acknowledged that in the 1984 trial, he had given the second degree murder charge, but even then he had not been convinced that it was fully warranted. Bailey now contends that under the principle of law of the case the trial judge was required to instruct the jury on second degree murder. Rulings made by a trial court and not challenged on appeal become the law of the case. Hughes v. State, 490 A.2d 1034. In a subsequent retrial, the trial court's prior rulings must stand unless those rulings were clearly in error or there has been an important change in circumstance. Hughes v. State, 490 A.2d at 1048. During Bailey's fourth trial, no argument is made that there was any change in circumstance. Our focus, therefore, centers upon whether or not the trial court's earlier decisions to give a jury charge on second degree murder when Bailey was tried in 1980 and 1984 were clearly in error. The contentions of the parties in this case have remained consistent. The State contends that Bailey intentionally shot and killed Dukes. Bailey's defense was not that he shot Dukes recklessly or unintentionally but that he did not shoot Dukes at all  Sponaugle did. Bailey's defense put the identity of the murderer at issue not Bailey's state of mind. Delaware law provides that the Court is not obligated to charge the jury with respect to a lesser included offense unless there is a rational basis in the evidence for a verdict acquitting the defendant of the offense charged and convicting him of the included offense. 11 Del.C. § 206(c). We find no rational basis in the record for the Superior Court to have charged the jury with the lesser-included offense of murder in the second degree. There is nothing in the record which would support a jury finding under the particular instruction that Bailey sought. After a similar analysis in Dutton v. State, Del.Supr. 452 A.2d 127 (1982), we concluded that the case gave rise to only one of two choices: guilty of first degree murder or innocent. The evidence in Bailey's case only gave rise to the same two choices. On appeal, Bailey contends that whether or not the facts in the record support a jury instruction on second degree murder, he had a vested right to have the 1985 jury receive such a charge by virtue of the law of the case doctrine. This contention is without merit. The law of the case principle recognizes the obligation of the trial court not to perpetuate clear error. There was no evidentiary basis for the trial court to charge the jury on second degree murder. The trial court in 1985 acted consistently with the 1982 ruling of this Court in Dutton. The trial court properly charged the jury with deliberating between the only two choices available from the evidence. Bailey naturally disagrees with the choice that the jury made but there was no error on the part of the Superior Court in choosing to instruct the jury as it did. Cf. Dutton v. State, 452 A.2d at 146.