Opinion ID: 2075491
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: defendant's analysis of the felony-murder statute

Text: The defendant seeks to rewrite statutory law in order to reduce his conviction from first-degree murder to second-degree murder. He argued unsuccessfully at trial below, and reiterates the argument here, that statutory first-degree felony murder requires actual malice aforethought, rather than malice imputed from the felony. Because defendant's malice may only be inferred from the circumstances of the rape, defendant argues that he was entitled to a judgment of acquittal on the charge of first-degree murder. In State v. Villani, 491 A.2d 976 (R.I. 1985), we made it quite clear that any homicide committed during the course of a felony enumerated in § 11-23-1 is first-degree murder. While noting that other jurisdictions have reached the same conclusion by inferring the necessary malice from the elements of the underlying felony, we went on to state that felony murder is murder in the first degree simply because the Legislature has said so. 491 A.2d at 980. The defendant tries to distinguish his own case from typical felony murders in that Alice Carcieri's death was unintentional on his part and due to natural causes. We do not find that these circumstances warrant our construing § 11-23-1 contrary to clear legislative intent. Next defendant attempts to give new meaning to the statute in order to support his argument for actual malice. The first sentence of § 11-23-1 defines murder as an unlawful killing    with malice aforethought. The second sentence specifies which types of murders are prosecuted as murder in the first degree. Because this sentence uses the word murder rather than a neutral substitute such as killing, defendant argues that the initial definition requiring malice aforethought must be read into this section as a prerequisite for all first-degree murders, including all felony murders. Although defendant proffers a creative interpretation of the language the Legislature chose to use, he succeeds only in arguing himself into a corner. First, the statute, in defining murder, does not require that the malice aforethought be actual. Therefore, defendant must concede that inferred or imputed malice may also fall within the definition. Second, defendant's argument makes the statute meaningless. If all statutory murder required actual malice, then there would be no need for the felony-murder classification because every first-degree-murder conviction would be based on the presence or absence of actual malice, not on any underlying felony. Furthermore, the statute's classification of all other murders as second degree would never apply because, according to defendant's interpretation, the use of the word murder in defining second-degree murder implies that they, too, require actual malice aforethought. Therefore, all second-degree murders would actually meet the requirements for first-degree murder, and there would be no such thing as second-degree murder. The defendant tries to circumvent this absurdity by arguing that when the Legislature used the word murder to define first-degree murder, it was referring to the immediately preceding definition, requiring malice aforethought. When it used the same word to define second-degree murder, however, it was relying on some nebulous commonlaw definition. We do not believe that the Legislature was so arbitrary in its choice of terminology. The defendant focuses on the Legislature's precise use of the word murder to define first-degree murder but then ignores the use of the same word to define second-degree murder. Clearly if the Legislature had intended such an interpretation, it would have rewritten the third sentence to read, Any other killing is murder in the second degree. As the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia has recognized, murder may signify any homicide. State v. Sims, 162 W. Va. 212, 229, 248 S.E.2d 834, 844 (1978). The defendant also argues that the felony-murder rule is falling into general disrepute. Although this argument might be entertained in other circumstances, this is not an appropriate case for reconsideration of the doctrine. The underlying felony of rape clearly fits within the statute.