Opinion ID: 852652
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Elements of Crimes Versus Penalty Enhancers

Text: This Court has affirmed multiple convictions based on the same act where multiple victims were involved. See, e.g., Metzler v. State, 540 N.E.2d 606, 607 (Ind.1989) (defendant who drove his truck through the front of a pub injuring eighteen people and killing another was convicted of murder and attempted murder). This is an application of the common view, classically stated in State v. Snyder, 50 N.H. 150, 156 (1870) that If A discharges a gun at B, and it is so heavily loaded that the ball goes through B and enters the body of C, and kills both B and C, A might be indicted and convicted for the murder of each, as a separate offence, as much as though he had shot each one separately, although there was but a single act of A in shooting both. See also George C. Thomas, III, Double Jeopardy: The History, The Law 163-64 (1998). In this example, the same section of the law (the murder prohibition) is violated by the same act of the defendant (shoots the gun) but a separate element is supplied by the consequence (the death of B and the death of C). Cf. Furnace v. State, 153 Ind. 93, 94, 54 N.E. 441, 441 (1899) (the stealing of several articles of property at one and the same time, as a part of the same transaction, can constitute but one offense against the State, notwithstanding the fact that such articles belonged to several owners); Annotation, Single or Separate Larceny Predicated Upon Stealing Property From Different Owners at the Same Time, 37 A.L.R.3d § 3 at 1410 (1971); but see 3 Wharton's Criminal Law § 347 (15th ed.1995) (some courts have found multiple larcenies committed when several articles of property are stolen by the defendant from different owners at the same time and at the same place). Some crimes are defined such that the consequence is not an element of the crime, but can enhance the penalty. The consequence is of course a fact necessary to conviction of the elevated crime, and therefore must be found by a jury under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 476, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). In that sense the enhancing factor is an element of the elevated crime, but if the consequence serves primarily to enhance the penalty for a crime that is committed without the consequence, multiple consequences do not establish multiple crimes. This principle was established in Kelly v. State, 539 N.E.2d 25, 26 (Ind. 1989), where a single automobile accident resulted in the death of one person and serious injuries to another. The trial court sentenced Kelly to consecutive sentences for his convictions on two counts: operating a vehicle while intoxicated (OWI) resulting in death, and OWI causing serious bodily injury. Section 2 of the statute that defined OWI provided: A person who operates a vehicle while intoxicated commits a class A misdemeanor. Indiana Code § 9-11-2-2 (Burns 1987). Two subsequent sections provided that a violation of section 2 was a class D felony if the crime results in serious bodily injury to another person, I.C. § 9-11-2-4 (Burns 1987), and a class C felony if the crime results in the death of another person. I.C. § 9-11-2-5 (Burns 1987). We expressly approved the opinion of the Court of Appeals appearing as Kelly v. State, 527 N.E.2d 1148 (Ind.Ct.App.1988), and held that an OWI resulting in injuries to more than one person nevertheless constituted only one crime. Kelly, 539 N.E.2d at 26. Under the OWI statute the multiple bodily injuries do not increase the number of crimes, only the severity of the penalty. Id. The Court of Appeals opinion in Kelly pointed out that in crimes such as murder, manslaughter, battery and reckless homicide, the gravamen of the offense is causing the death or injury of another person, i.e., the result is part of the definition of the crime. 527 N.E.2d at 1155. Otherwise stated, in those crimes the resulting death, injury or touching is an element of the crime. The crime is complete if the required actus reus and mental state are present. Thus, as the Court of Appeals explained in Kelly, if a murder or battery results in multiple deaths or injuries to more than one person, multiple crimes have been committed and the injury to each victim constitutes a separate offense. Id. However, OWI requires no specific consequence of the operator's action. Rather, OWI is a completed crime when the intoxicated person operates the vehicle, even if no harm results, and the legislature chose to use the result of serious bodily injury or death as a factor enhancing the punishment for the crime rather than as an aspect of the crime itself. Id. As a result, Kelly could be convicted of only a single OWI despite the resulting multiple victims. Id.