Opinion ID: 2054150
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: A Lesser-Included Offense

Text: Notwithstanding our conclusion that murder in the first degree requires an additional element distinct from murder in the second degree, it is clear that murder in the second degree and murder in the first degree are not separate crimes in that each of them does not require proof of a fact that the other does not. Blockburger, 284 U.S. at 304, 52 S.Ct. at 182, 76 L.Ed. at 309. That is, murder in the second degree does not contain elements distinct from those required to prove murder in the first degree; murder in the first degree requires the element of premeditation that is not required for murder in the second degree. Therefore, second-degree murder is a lesser-included offense of first-degree murder. State v. Casasanta, 29 R.I. 587, 598, 73 A. 312, 317 (1909). Accordingly, it would be impermissible to charge a defendant with murder in the second degree and, subsequent to disposition of the charge, then charge him or her with first-degree murder. Brown, 432 U.S. at 168, 97 S.Ct. at 2227, 53 L.Ed.2d at 196. This is illustrative of the doctrine that a trial for a lesser-included offense will preclude a successive trial for a greater offense. Id. Trial of lesser-included offenses contemporaneously with the trial for the greater offense does not violate principles of double jeopardy. State v. Walsh, 113 R.I. 118, 122-23, 318 A.2d 463, 466 (1974). Because defendant in the instant case was placed on trial for first-degree murder, he was also on trial for all lesser-included offenses and, thus, was simultaneously on trial for murder in the second degree and manslaughter. The defendant's right against double jeopardy was therefore not violated when he was initially tried. The operative inquiry thus becomes whether the retrial of the lesser-included offenses is violative of the double-jeopardy clause.