Opinion ID: 1887553
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: whether the trial court committed reversible error by failing to instruct the jury on the definition of deliberate design when asked to do so by the defendant

Text: ¶ 15. Deliberate design is an element the State is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt before a defendant can be convicted of murder. See Miss.Code Ann. § 97-3-19(1)(a) (1994). ¶ 16. Miller offered the following jury instruction, D-12, defining deliberate design. D-12: The Court instructs the Jury that Deliberate Design means intent to kill without authority of law, or killing without legal justification, legal excuse or under circumstances that reduce the act to a lesser crime. Deliberate design indicates full awareness of what one is doing, and generally implies careful and unhurried consideration of the consequences. The trial court refused Miller's instruction. The State did not offer an instruction defining deliberate design. Miller now argues the trial court committed reversible error in refusing to grant the offered instruction because the jury was not adequately instructed on the meaning of deliberate design. ¶ 17. Miller relies on our decision in Catchings v. State, 684 So.2d 591 (Miss. 1996), to support his argument that his conviction should be reversed because the jury was not adequately instructed on the elements of murder. In Catchings, the defendant requested a definitional instruction on deliberate design, but the court refused to grant the instruction because the elements of murder were sufficiently defined by other accepted instruction. Catchings, 684 So.2d at 599. Miller asserts that, although his case is similar to Catchings, the fundamental difference is that the Catchings jury was fully instructed on all the elements of murder, while Miller's jury was not. ¶ 18. In Catchings we refused to reverse the defendant's murder conviction because the manslaughter instruction given was not warranted under the facts of the case. Id. at 595. Catchings sought reversal because the trial court had refused an instruction defining deliberate design. Id. However, we reasoned that because there was so little evidence supporting manslaughter, the failure to grant the definitional instruction on deliberate design made no difference in the outcome of the case. Id. at 595. ¶ 19. Recently in Williams v. State, 729 So.2d 1181 (Miss.1998), we addressed a similar situation. Williams was convicted of murder and challenged his conviction based on improper instructions. The Williams jury was instructed on the elements of murder and manslaughter, but was not given an instruction which adequately described the required elements of deliberation or premeditation for murder. We described the evidence of deliberate design against Williams as weak and reversed and remanded for a new trial. Williams, at 1181. We summed up the focus in Williams this way: What is under consideration in this case is whether, in a prosecution for deliberate design murder, where a manslaughter instruction is warranted and granted, the jury should be instructed as to how to determine the aforethought portion of malice aforethought or the deliberation portion of deliberate design. We hold that such an instruction is proper in such a case as this, and error in this case to refuse a proper instruction.... Williams, at 1184. ¶ 20. The reversal of the murder conviction in Williams was distinguished from the affirmance of the murder conviction in Catchings because the manslaughter instruction in Williams was clearly warranted as there is ample evidence from which the jury could infer that Williams acted on impulse or in the heat of passion. No such evidence existed in Catchings. Id. at 1184. ¶ 21. In the case sub judice, the evidence supporting the State's theory of murder is overwhelming. Miller told a friend he was going to kill Aultman because she rejected him. Miller called Aultman outside the church to his van. Miller pulled the shotgun out of his van and shot Aultman. Miller gave police a note he had written stating that he killed her because she hurt me and If she can't be mine she can't be anybody. Miller confessed that he had killed Aultman during an interrogation by Investigator Steele. Miller agrees with this description of events, except that he says the gun went off when he was startled by kids playing in the churchyard.. The particular defense asserted by Miller, an accidental shooting occurring after a deliberate confrontation, was fully put by the particular manslaughter instruction he received. That manslaughter instruction did not require a jury to distinguish between a deliberate act done on sudden impulse in the heat of passion and one done according to some preformed intent. In these circumstances, the jury did not need the additional guidance of the deliberate design instruction proffered. ¶ 22. Based on our prior rulings in Catchings and Williams, this assignment has no merit.