Opinion ID: 2178146
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reversibility

Text: Finding error in the trial court's refusal to give the criminal negligence involuntary manslaughter instruction, we now evaluate whether such error requires a new trial in this case. The Supreme Court has recognized that the refusal to provide a lesser-included offense instruction may leave the jury with only two alternatives: conviction of the greater offense or acquittal. [T]he unavailability of the third option of convicting on a lesser included offense may encourage the jury to convict for an impermissible reasonits belief that the defendant is guilty of some serious crime and should be punished.... Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 642, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980). Consistent with such concern, we have found the erroneous refusal to provide a lesser-included offense instruction to be reversible error on numerous occasions. See, e.g., Brockington v. United States, 699 A.2d 1117 (D.C.1997) (possession instruction denied); Shuler, supra (second degree murder instruction denied); Moore v. United States, 599 A.2d 1381 (D.C.1991) (assault instruction denied); Comber, supra (involuntary manslaughter instruction denied). In each of our reversing cases, however, the jury had no lesser offense for which it could convict the defendant. [10] The fundamental concern in Beck  was the all-or-nothing nature of the decision with which the jury was presented and that `[t]he absence of a lesser included offense instruction increase[d] the risk that the jury ... [would] convict ... simply to avoid setting the defendant free.' Schad v. Arizona, 501 U.S. 624, 646, 111 S.Ct. 2491, 115 L.Ed.2d 555 (1991) (quoting Spaziano v. Florida, 468 U.S. 447, 455, 104 S.Ct. 3154, 82 L.Ed.2d 340 (1984)). Such concern does not exist where, as here, the jury [is] not faced with an all-or-nothing choice between the [greater] offense ... and innocence. Id. at 647, 111 S.Ct. 2491. An intermediate option between the greater offense and acquittal diminishes the harm in any error because it would be remarkable for the jury, believing a defendant to be not guilty of the greater offense but guilty of an uncharged offense, to nonetheless convict the defendant of the greater offense even though a significant lesser offense is available to the jury. Cf. Moore, supra, 599 A.2d at 1387 (In reversing for error, we noted, [i]n Schad, the jury was not left with the choice of acquitting the defendant altogether and finding him guilty of first degree murder. Rather, it had a third option of convicting him of the lesser included offense of second degree murder. In the present case, the jury was compelled either to acquit Moore on the mayhem charge or to find him guilty as charged. No intermediate option was available.) (footnote omitted). In the case at bar, rather than an all-or-nothing choice of second-degree murder or acquittal, the jury had before it the intermediate options of both voluntary and misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter. Appellant contends that the absence of the criminal negligence involuntary manslaughter instruction denied the jury the opportunity to consider the offense most consistent with appellant's theory of the evidence. Such denial, argues appellant, could have contributed to the jury's finding of guilt for voluntary manslaughter. The Supreme Court rejected precisely such an argument in Schad. [11] The fact that the jury's intermediate option is a different lesser-included offense than desired by the defendant does not diminish the reliability of the jury's conviction on a greater offense. [12] We will not assume, as appellant's theory requires, that the jury, believing appellant to be not guilty of second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, or misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter, but guilty of a reckless act (i.e. criminal negligence involuntary manslaughter) was loath to acquit him completely and, thus, chose voluntary manslaughter rather than misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter as its means of keeping him off the streets. Schad, supra, 501 U.S. at 647, 111 S.Ct. 2491; see also Outlaw v. United States, 806 A.2d 1192, 1200-01 (D.C.2002) (Although the trial court did not give a self-defense instruction, it instructed the jury on mitigation of malice or intent, and the defense of imperfect self-defense. Despite these instructions, the jury returned a second-degree murder verdict, which is inconsistent with imperfect self-defense. If the jury rejected the imperfect self-defense theory, it is logical to conclude that it would also reject the full self-defense theory. Consequently, even assuming error due to the failure to give a self-defense instruction, the error would be harmless.) (citing Schad, supra, 501 U.S. at 647-48, 111 S.Ct. 2491) (footnote omitted). Moreover, the jury was not presented here with two extreme choices of an extraordinarily serious conviction, on the one hand, and an inconsequential slap on the wrist, on the other, separated by a vast chasm that a criminal negligence involuntary manslaughter instruction would have bridged. As our opinion in Comber explores at length, manslaughter considered as a whole is a lesser-included offense of murder. The distinction between voluntary and involuntary manslaughter is in the state of mind of the defendant. In voluntary manslaughter, the defendant acts with murderous intent, but his acts are mitigated to voluntary manslaughter. In involuntary manslaughter, the defendant does not act with murderous intent but he is held liable nonetheless either because his reckless acts involved an extreme risk or because his acts were in violation of some other criminal statute and created a foreseeable risk of appreciable injury. Thus, just as murder may be committed either by a conscious disregard of an extreme risk or in the commission of an enumerated felony, so involuntary manslaughter as a single offense may be committed by performing death producing acts either where the defendant is not aware of their extreme risk or in the course of the commission of some other criminal offense short of the enumerated felonies. [13] Conviction of involuntary manslaughter on the latter ground is hardly insignificant. The court properly directed the jury that in order to convict the appellant of misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter, it had to find both that the defendant caused the death of the decedent ... while committing or attempting to commit assault. And that he committed or attempted to commit assault in a manner that created a reasonably foreseeable risk of appreciable injury. Moreover, the trial court did not identify the charge as misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter to the jury. The customary designation of the crime as misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter hardly renders the crime a minor one. [14] Cf. Comber, supra, 584 A.2d at 49 n. 33 (Although we use the phrase `misdemeanor-manslaughter rule' in this opinion, we recognize that the term may be something of a misnomer, in that felonies which might not otherwise suffice to give rise to felony murder liability ... might serve as a basis for `unlawful act' involuntary manslaughter liability.). In light of the jury's conviction of appellant for voluntary manslaughter, in the face of a misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter instruction, the trial court's error in refusing to instruct on the alternate basis for involuntary manslaughter does not constitute grounds for a new trial.