Opinion ID: 2570523
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Malice versus willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation

Text: First, the State asserts that: (1) the means enumerated in NRS 200.030(1)(a) constitute willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation as a matter of law, and (2) willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation subsume malice aforethought as a matter of law. Thus, the State contends, the child abuse in this case established willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation which in turn established malice. We reject both prongs of the state's argument. The means enumerated in subsection (1)(a) do not necessarily constitute willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation, though there is authority for construing the statute in this manner. See Graham v. State, 116 Nev. ____, 992 P.2d 255 (2000). The original enumerated means are poison, lying in wait, and torture, whereas child abuse was added to subsection (1)(a) only recently. [10] Although the three traditional enumerated means are normally consistent with deliberate, premeditated action, cf. LaFave & Scott, Criminal Law § 7.1, at 605, child abuse can be and often is a rash, impulsive crime. It is unnecessary to analyze murder by means of child abuse in terms of deliberation and premeditation because the soundest view is simply that a murder perpetrated by an enumerated means is first-degree murder by force of statute, without legal concern with or factual inquiry into willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation. See Graham, 116 Nev. at ____, 992 P.2d at 257-58; State v. Johnson, 317 N.C. 193, 344 S.E.2d 775, 781 (1986); People v. Thomas, 41 Cal.2d 470, 261 P.2d 1, 3 (1953). The second prong of the state's argument contains a more pronounced flaw because malice is not subsumed by willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation. This court has so stated, but without much explanation. See, e.g., Hern v. State, 97 Nev. 529, 532, 635 P.2d 278, 280 (1981). But the proposition can be easily illustrated. For example, it is possible for a police sniper to act willfully, deliberately, and premeditatedly but without malice in fatally shooting a man who has taken hostages and threatens their lives. The legal defense of defense of self or others justifies a homicide and negates the element of malice. [E]ven a deliberate killing, if done in actual self-defense, is justifiable; the intent is not unlawfully to take the life of another. Kelso v. State, 95 Nev. 37, 42, 588 P.2d 1035, 1039 (1979); see also State v. Vaughan, 22 Nev. 285, 299-302, 39 P. 733, 735-36 (1895).