Opinion ID: 2271140
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Trial Court Properly Instructed Jury on First Degree Assault as Lesser-Included Offense of Attempted Murder Under Facts of this Case.

Text: The trial court instructed the jury on first-degree assault and second-degree assault, which it viewed under the facts of this case as lesser-included offenses of the charged offense of attempted murder. The trial court relied on Perry v. Commonwealth [21] as authority for viewing first-degree assault as a lesser-included offense of attempted murder. Hall objected to instructing the jury on first-degree assault, but he consented to instructing the jury on second-degree assault. [22] He argued first-degree assault was not a lesser-included offense of attempted murder. He also claimed that Perry was inapplicable to the facts of his case because his co-defendant principal, Hodge, clearly intended to kill both victims. In Perry, there was evidence the defendant, who shot both victims, intended only to injure one victim. [23] Despite his general objection to a first-degree assault instruction and argument that Perry was not applicable, Hall did not specifically argue at trial that a first-degree assault instruction should not be given because it required particular statutory elements beyond those required for finding attempted murder. He did not specifically claim at trial he was deprived of notice that he would be required to defend against charges containing elements not contained in any charged offense. He did not then articulate an argument that the fact-based approach used to determine lesser-included offenses in Perry should be abandoned in favor of a strict statutory elements approach for determining lesser-included offenses. Hall did argue in his motion for new trial that he was not given notice in the indictment or otherwise that he would have to defend against a charge that included serious physical injury as a necessary element. He also argued in his new-trial motion that Perry's rejection of a strict statutory elements approach for determining lesser-included offense instruction issues was no longer good law in light of Holland v. Commonwealth . [24]
In Perry, the Commonwealth cross-appealed from the trial court's granting the defendant a new trial on the basis the jury was improperly instructed on and convicted the defendant of first-degree assault, although he was not indicted for this offense. [25] The defendant was indicted for attempted murder. He argued he was improperly convicted under the first-degree assault instruction for an offense that included elements of a distinct criminal offense from that for which the appellant had been indicted. . . . [26] We characterized Perry's argument as calling for a strict statutory elements approach for determining whether to instruct on another offense as a lesser-included offense of a charged offense. Such a strict statutory elements approach calls for looking at the elements of crimes as set forth by statute rather than looking at the facts set out in the indictment or the evidence presented at trial. [27] We declined to adopt a strict statutory elements approach, finding it to be an inherently inflexible standard embraced by only a minority of courts. [28] We seemingly acknowledged in Perry that first-degree assault would not be a lesser-included offense of attempted murder under a strict statutory elements approach. We noted: Assault in the first degree requires a state of mind, an act and a result, `serious' physical injury. Attempted murder requires only a state of mind and an act, but does not require any injury. [29] So the statute defining first-degree assault requires finding at least one elementserious physical injurynot required by the statute defining attempted murder. But we concluded the trial court properly instructed on first-degree assault as a lesser-included offense of attempted murder under the facts of that case. We noted determinations of whether one offense could properly be characterized as a lesser-included offense of another offense are governed by Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 505.020(2), which provides: A defendant may be convicted of an offense that is included in any offense with which he is formally charged. An offense is so included when: (a) It is established by proof of the same or less than all the facts required to establish the commission of the offense charged; or (b) It consists of an attempt to commit the offense charged or to commit an offense otherwise included therein; or (c) It differs from the offense charged only in the respect that a lesser kind of culpability suffices to establish its commission; or (d) It differs from the offense charged only in the respect that a less serious injury or risk of injury to the same person, property[,] or public interest suffices to establish its commission. And we determined under the facts of that case first-degree assault could qualify as a lesser-included offense under KRS 505.020(2)(a), which provides that a crime qualifies as a lesser-included offense if [i]t is established by proof of the same or less than all the facts required to establish the commission of the offense charged. . . . [30] Essentially, first-degree assault was established by proof of the same or less than all the facts required to establish attempted murder in Perry because serious physical injury was not at issue. Because Perry shot the victim, causing serious physical injury but not death, the jury could convict Perry of attempted murder if the jury believed he intended to kill the victim. But it could convict Perry of first-degree assault if the jury believed he intended only to injure the victim. We noted that Perry did not dispute that serious physical injury did occur because of the victim's being shot and that Perry's causing serious physical injury would satisfy the substantial step element of attempted murder. [31] Employing a fact-based approach rather than a strict statutory elements approach, [t]he only element in this case which separated a conviction for attempted murder from first-degree assault was the mental state of Perry at the time of the incidents. [32] And we concluded that the jury properly determined from the evidence that Perry only intended to injure the victim, whom he was convicted of assaulting in the first degree, in contrast to their decision that he indeed intended to kill another victim, whom Perry was convicted of attempting to murder. [33] So we determined in Perry that the trial court properly instructed the jury on first-degree assault and reversed the trial court's order granting a new trial on the assault conviction.
Hall contends this Court noted in Holland v. Commonwealth that other jurisdictions have held that first-degree assault is not a lesser-included offense of attempted murder. Hall argues that Perry 's holding to the contrary [34] is no longer good law in light of our comments in Holland. [35] But we agree with the Commonwealth that we acknowledged other jurisdictions' holdings that assault is not a lesser-included offense in dictum in Holland. In Holland, we were not directly faced with a question of whether an assault instruction could be given as a lesser-included offense of attempted murder. [36] Despite our dictum in Holland suggesting that perhaps Perry ought to be re-examined in light of our embracing a same elements test for determining whether an offense is a lesser-included offense for double jeopardy purposes in Commonwealth v. Burge , we have not overruled Perry. Perry has continued to be cited in court cases and secondary sources for the specific proposition that first-degree assault can sometimes be a lesser-included offense of attempted murder. [37] And it is cited for the more general proposition that a strict statutory elements approach should not be utilized to determine if a trial court should instruct a jury on an unindicted offense as a lesser-included offense of a charged offense. Perry is cited as authority for allowing instructions on uncharged offenses where the facts alleged in the indictment or the evidence presented at trial supported such instructions. [38]
We are aware of arguments that a Blockburger-type strict statutory elements approach should govern questions of which offenses a trial court may properly instruct the jury on as lesser-included offenses of charged offenses. [39] But we decline to adopt such a strict statutory elements approach here, especially in light of Hall's failure clearly to advocate such an approach until after the trial was over. We acknowledge a strict statutory elements approach to deciding lesser-included instruction issues might seem more consistent with our use of that same approach to determining lesser-included offenses for purposes of double jeopardy. We also recognize a strict statutory elements approach might appear to offer more certainty and judicial economy. But a strict statutory elements approach has its own disadvantages. [40] Most importantly, that approach may deprive a defendant of an opportunity for a desired lesser-included offense instruction because of differences in statutory elements even where the defendant is willing to concede that additional elements of uncharged offenses are not really at issue in the case. So we decline to adopt a strict statutory elements approach to determining whether a trial court can properly instruct a jury on an uncharged offense as a lesser-included offense of a charged offense.
Having chosen to retain the fact-based approach embraced by Perry rather than adopt the strict statutory elements approach to determine what uncharged offenses a trial court may properly instruct a jury on as lesser-included offenses of charged offenses, we find no reason to disturb Perry's holding that first-degree assault can be a lesser-included offense of attempted murder depending upon the facts of a particular case.