Opinion ID: 1936097
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: whether the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on an offense for which the jury was authorized to find jackson guilty

Text: Jackson was indicted and found guilty of four counts of capital murder, killing while engaged in the commission of child abuse and/or battery, pursuant to Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-19(2)(f). The statute provides in relevant part: § 97-3-19. Homicide; murder defined; capital murder. (2) The killing of a human being without the authority of law by any means or in any manner shall be capital murder in the following cases: (f) When done with or without design to effect death, by any person engaged in the commission of the crime of felonious abuse or battery of a child in violation of subsection (2) of section 97-5-39, or in any attempt to commit such felony; Miss. Code Ann. § 97-5-39 provides that any person who shall intentionally (a) burn any child, (b) torture any child or, (c) except in self-defense or in order to prevent bodily harm to a third party, whip, strike, or otherwise abuse or mutilate any child in such a manner as to cause serious bodily harm, shall be guilty of felonious abuse and/or battery of a child ... One act alone may constitute abuse and/or battery; the statute does not require that the abuse be dispensed over a period of time before a charge for felonious abuse will arise. Faraga v. State, 514 So.2d 295, 302 (Miss. 1987). In Faraga, this Court rejected a merger doctrine challenge to § 97-3-19(2)(f) and reiterated that [t]he intent of the Legislature was that serious child abusers would be guilty of capital murder if the child died. 514 So.2d at 302. Thus, Faraga's capital murder conviction for the death of his two-month old infant was affirmed. In Butler v. State, 608 So.2d 314 (Miss. 1992), where a mother appealed her conviction under § 97-3-19(2)(f) for the death of her nine-month old son who died of internal injuries after she punched him in the abdomen when he would not stop crying, this Court held that she was entitled to a lesser included offense instruction on manslaughter pursuant to Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-27. That statute provides: § 97-3-27. Homicide; killing while committing felony. The killing of a human being without malice, by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, while such other is engaged in the perpetration of any felony, except rape, burglary, arson or robbery, or while such is attempting to commit any felony besides such as are above enumerated and excepted, shall be manslaughter. Finding that in addition to § 97-3-19(2)(f), conviction was authorized under § 97-3-27 for the killing of an infant in the course of felonious child abuse, the Butler Court stated: If Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-19(2)(f) required, in order to convict, that the killing have been intentional, then clearly Butler would have been entitled to a manslaughter instruction based on Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-27 as a lesser included offense, the only ingredient lacking being intent. Should she be deprived of such instruction when the statutes, as in this case, are for all intents and purposes identical? Mease v. State, 539 So.2d 1324, 1329-30 (Miss. 1989); see also Mackbee v. State, 575 So.2d 16, 23 (Miss. 1990); Harper v. State, 478 So.2d 1017, 1021 (Miss. 1985). It is well established that when there are two separate criminal statutes for the same offense, the State has a choice of deciding the statute under which to prosecute. Rowland v. State, 531 So.2d 627, 631-32 (Miss. 1988); Craig v. State, 520 So.2d 487, 491 (Miss. 1988); Cumbest v. State, 456 So.2d 209, 223 (Miss. 1984). It is also settled that in such cases the accused is not entitled to have the jury instructed on the statute carrying the lesser penalty. Identical offenses do not authorize the lesser included offense instructions. Rowland, 531 So.2d at 631-32. We do not depart from these principles in the general run of criminal prosecutions. In this case, however, we have a defendant who, under the capital murder statute, was sentenced to death when there was another criminal statute for the same offense with the maximum penalty of twenty years imprisonment. Compare Miss. Code Ann. §§ 97-3-25 (1972), 97-3-21 (Supp. 1991). We conclude that Butler was entitled to have the jury instructed that she could be convicted under Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-27, the manslaughter statute. For over half a century, this Court has approved circuit courts granting heat of passion manslaughter instructions to the State in a homicide prosecution which is either murder or justifiable homicide committed in lawful self defense, and there is no element whatever of a heat of passion slaying under Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-35 (1972). See Mease v. State, 539 So.2d at 1338 (Hawkins, P.J., concurring). It is not an even-handed administration of justice in turn to deny the defense a manslaughter instruction where the accused, as is the case here, could have been lawfully indicted and prosecuted for manslaughter as easily as capital murder. And especially is this true where one verdict can bring a sentence of death and the other a maximum of twenty years imprisonment. Indeed, we do not think any prosecuting attorney should have it in his power to prosecute a defendant for capital murder when the same offense could be prosecuted under a statute with less severe penalty and also prevent a jury from considering when she should be found guilty only under the statute carrying the lesser punishment. Butler, 608 So.2d at 319-320. Jackson argues that in light of Butler, he was entitled to a manslaughter instruction pursuant to Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-27. At trial, Jackson objected to Instruction C-CR-7 because it does not provide for the jury to consider murder or manslaughter and the defendant believes the Court should grant him instructions on the lesser included offenses of both murder and manslaughter. This instruction as to Counts 1 through 4, are virtually peremptory on the question of capital murder. The State countered that it relied on the Faraga decision's one-act rule in turning to the capital murder statute. Jackson further contends that the evidence justifies a lesser-included offense instruction pursuant to Miss. Code Ann. § 97-3-35. We disagree. A lesser-included offense instruction is required only where a reasonable juror could not on the evidence exclude the lesser-included offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Mackbee v. State, 575 So.2d 16, 23 (Miss. 1990); Boyd v. State, 557 So.2d 1178, 1181 (Miss. 1989). § 97-3-35 provides as follows: § 97-3-35. Homicide; killing without malice in the heat of passion. The killing of a human being, without malice, in the heat of passion, but in a cruel or unusual manner, or by the use of a dangerous weapon, without authority of law and not in necessary self-defense, shall be manslaughter. Jackson's statement to police indicates that he planned the robbery believing that his mother and the rest of the household would be at church. His attorney conceded that the only evidence to support a heat of passion manslaughter instruction was that Jackson had gotten into a fight with Regina because she did not know the combination to the safe. However, although he used Andrea as a shield while he and Regina were struggling, there is no evidence that he stabbed the baby or killed the other children at that time. Especially in light of Jackson's comment to Regina that he had come to kill them previously and was going to kill them that night, we find no basis for the requested instruction. Jackson further contends that the circuit court's failure to grant a lesser-included offense instruction under either § 97-3-37 or § 97-3-35 violated his eighth amendment rights. He relies upon Schad v. Arizona, 501 U.S. 624, 111 S.Ct. 2491, 115 L.Ed.2d 555 (1991) for the proposition that the United States Supreme Court's fundamental concern in Beck [ v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980)] was that a jury convinced that the defendant had committed some violent crime but not convinced that he was guilty of a capital crime might nonetheless vote for a capital conviction if the only alternative was to set the defendant free with no punishment at all. Schad, 501 U.S. at 646, 111 S.Ct. at 2504, 115 L.Ed.2d at 574. However, the jury in the case sub judice was instructed that Jackson could be sentenced to life in prison.