Opinion ID: 1221868
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Mullaney v. Wilbur and State v. Pendry distinguished

Text: The United States Supreme Court, in Mullaney v. Wilbur, supra , invalidated a jury instruction which said that malice aforethought was to be conclusively implied unless the defendant proved by a fair preponderance of the evidence that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation. 421 U.S. at 686, 95 S.Ct. at 1883. The specific wording of the instruction was not reported. [5] The Supreme Court held that the instruction was a violation of due process because it shifted the burden of proof to the defendant on a material element of the offense with which he was charged. This Court followed Mullaney v. Wilbur, supra , in State v. Pendry, supra , where we said the following instruction was not proper: The Court instructs the jury that the law is that a man is taken to intend that which he does, or which is the natural and necessary consequences of his own act; and, therefore, if they believe from the evidence that Parker Lee Pendry shot and killed the deceased, Cecil Hagerman, by the deliberate use of an instrument likely to produce death, under the circumstances, then the presumption of the law, arising in absence of proof to the contrary, is that he intended the consequences that resulted from said use of said deadly instrument. 227 S.E.2d at 218. State v. Pendry , at the time it was decided, was given only limited retroactive effect. 227 S.E.2d at 224. In Hankerson v. North Carolina, supra , the United States Supreme Court, gave Mullaney v. Wilbur, supra , full retrospective application. The instruction in Hankerson v. North Carolina read: If the State proves beyond a reasonable doubt or it is admitted that the defendant intentionally killed Gregory Ashe with a deadly weapon, or intentionally inflicted a wound upon Gregory Ashe with a deadly weapon, that proximately caused his death, the law raises two presumptions; first, that the killing was unlawful, and second, that it was done with malice.... Then there will be some other things I will charge you about, but, nothing else appearing, if you are satisfied of those two things beyond a reasonable doubt then you would find the defendant guilty of second degree murder.... [I]n order to excuse his act altogether on the grounds of self-defense, the defendant must prove not beyond a reasonable doubt but simply to your satisfaction that he acted in self-defense. 432 U.S. at 236-237, 97 S.Ct. at 2342. This Court, in Jones v. Warden, supra , followed Hankerson v. North Carolina, supra , and extended full retroactive effect to our holding in State v. Pendry, supra . The instruction in Jones v. Warden said: The Court instructs the jury that the law is that a man is taken to intend that which he does, or which is the natural and necessary consequences of his own act; and, therefore, if they believe from the evidence that Roger Dale Jones shot and killed the deceased, Crockett Boothe, by the deliberate use of an instrument likely to produce death, under the circumstances, then the presumption of law, arising in absence of proof to the contrary, is that he intended the consequences that resulted from said use of said deadly instrument. 241 S.E.2d at 915. We must compare the Mullaney v. Wilbur type instruction with the Sandstrom v. Montana type instruction. If they are the same, we need go no further to hold for the appellant. The type of instruction found in Sandstrom v. Montana, supra , State v. O'Connell, supra , and in this case, is, however, different from those found in the four cases discussed above. In this case the trial judge simply instructed the jury that the law is that a person is presumed to intend that which he does or which is the natural or necessary consequences of his own act. [6] The instruction in this case, like those in Sandstrom v. Montana, supra , and State v. O'Connell, supra , did not contain the detailed recitation of facts that is found in the instructions in the Mullaney line of cases. The instruction here did not emphasize, or even mention, the use of a deadly weapon or instrument. Even more significant, however, is that in each of the instructions in the Mullaney line of cases the burden of proof was explicitly shifted to the defendant, i.e., the jury was instructed that there was an obligation on the part of the defendant to disprove some aspect of the case or else a presumption would provide that element of the State's case. That is not the situation found in the case presently before us or in Sandstrom v. Montana, supra , and State v. O'Connell, supra . Indeed, in the case here under consideration, the jury was forcefully instructed that the defendant had no burden whatsoever and that the State had it all. See n. 6, supra. Another important distinction is that, although the substantive issue decided in Sandstrom v. Montana and State v. O'Connell is similar to the substantive issue decided in Mullaney v. Wilbur and State v. Pendry , the basis of the holding in Sandstrom and O'Connell was different. The instruction in Sandstrom v. Montana , unlike the one in Mullaney v. Wilbur , did not explicitly shift the burden of proof to the defendant; nor was the Sandstrom instruction held to be a conclusive presumption which would have fallen under Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952), and United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U.S. 422, 98 S.Ct. 2864, 57 L.Ed.2d 854 (1978). The United States Supreme Court, however, found that there was a danger that the jury may have interpreted the ... instruction as constituting either a burden-shifting presumption like that in Mullaney, or a conclusive presumption like those in Morissette and United States Gypsum Co. ... 442 U.S. at 524, 99 S.Ct. at 2459. The key element was not what was said to the jury so much as the possibility that the jury might have misunderstood what was said. The Supreme Court, on that basis, held the giving of the instruction to be error. Similar reasoning was used in State v. O'Connell, supra . The type of instruction used at Bowman's trial in 1969 is, therefore, different from those used in the Mullaney line of cases and must be analyzed under Sandstrom v. Montana and State v. O'Connell rather than under Mullaney v. Wilbur and State v. Pendry .