Opinion ID: 2588523
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: lesser included offense analysis

Text: The Court of Appeals found the instructions and verdict forms to be clearly erroneous because the jury should have been instructed that severity level 7 aggravated battery was a lesser included offense of severity level 4 aggravated battery. The Court of Appeals cited State v. Ochoa, 20 Kan. App. 2d 1014, Syl. ¶ 3, 895 P.2d 198 (1995), disapproved in part State v. Valentine, 260 Kan. 431, 434-35, 921 P.2d 770 (1996), which held: Under K.S.A. 1994 Supp. 21-3414, severity levels 5, 7, and 8 aggravated battery are included offenses of level 4 aggravated battery. We agree with the Court of Appeals that the severity level 7 aggravated battery, charging that Winters intentionally caused bodily harm to another person in a manner whereby great bodily harm could be inflicted, was a lesser included offense of severity level 4 aggravated battery. However, we reach that conclusion through a different analysis than that utilized by the Court of Appeals. In the Ochoa case relied upon by the Court of Appeals, the court analyzed the aggravated battery offenses under a previous version of K.S.A. 21-3107(2)(d) which defined an included crime, in part, as a crime necessarily proved if the crime charged were proved. 20 Kan. App. 2d at 1018-21. This particular subsection of the statute, which was the basis for the two-prong test of State v. Fike, 243 Kan. 365, 757 P.2d 724 (1988), was deleted from the statute in 1998. See L. 1998, ch. 185, § 1. K.S.A. 2002 Supp. 21-3107 now provides in relevant part: (2) Upon prosecution for a crime, the defendant may be convicted of either the crime charged or a lesser included crime, but not both. A lesser included crime is: (a) A lesser degree of the same crime; (b) a crime where all elements of the lesser crime are identical to some of the elements of the crime charged; (c) an attempt to commit the crime charged; or (d) an attempt to commit a crime defined under subsection (2)(a) or (2)(b). In this case, the jury was instructed that to find Winters guilty of aggravated battery as defined in Instruction No. 3, it had to find that the defendant intentionally caused great bodily harm to another person. (Severity level 4 aggravated battery pursuant to K.S.A. 21-3414[a][1][A].) To find Winters guilty of aggravated battery as defined in Instruction No. 4, the jury had to find that he intentionally caused bodily harm to another person [. . .] in any manner whereby great bodily harm, disfigurement or death can be inflicted. (Severity level 7 aggravated battery pursuant to K.S.A. 21-3414[a][1][B].) Thus, for both offenses the jury had to find that Winters intentionally caused bodily harm to another person. See PIK Crim. 3d 56.18. The two offenses differ in the result of the defendant's action: a severity level 4 aggravated battery results in great bodily harm and a severity level 7 aggravated battery results when done in any manner whereby great bodily harm, disfigurement or death can be inflicted. However, the element of in any manner whereby great bodily harm, disfigurement or death can be inflicted is an integral part of the element of great bodily harm because one who intentionally causes great bodily harm to another must necessarily do so in a manner whereby great bodily harm can be inflicted. Thus, all elements of the severity level 7 aggravated battery, alleging that a defendant intentionally caused bodily harm to another person in any manner whereby great bodily harm, disfigurement or death can be inflicted, are identical to some of the elements of the severity level 4 aggravated battery; therefore, the severity level 7 aggravated battery is a lesser included offense of the severity level 4 aggravated battery pursuant to K.S.A. 2002 Supp. 21-3107(2)(b). Consequently, the jury should have been instructed that it could find Winters guilty of a severity level 4 aggravated battery or the lesser included crime of a severity level 7 aggravated battery or the lesser included crime of battery or not guilty. It was error to instruct the jury as if the severity level 7 and severity level 4 aggravated battery charges were alternative crimes rather than to instruct that the severity level 7 aggravated battery was a lesser included crime of the severity level 4 aggravated battery.