Opinion ID: 1890194
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Heemstra Holding.

Text: We begin our consideration of the defendant's challenge to the court's submission of the felony-murder alternative of first-degree murder with a review of the Heemstra case. In Heemstra , the defendant and the victim were engaged in an argument when the defendant retrieved a rifle from his vehicle and shot the rifle once, striking and killing the victim. 721 N.W.2d at 551. In Heemstra's later trial for murder, the trial court instructed the jury on two alternatives for first-degree murder: (1) premeditated murder and (2) felony murder. Id. at 552. To convict the defendant, the jury was required to find either that [t]he defendant acted willfully, deliberately, premeditatedly, and with specific intent to kill the victim or that the defendant was participating in the felony of willful injury. Id. at 552-53. The jury convicted the defendant under a general verdict, and Heemstra appealed. Id. at 551. On appeal, this court concluded the trial court had erred in submitting the felony-murder alternative of first-degree murder. Id. at 558-59. We held the predicate felony for felony murder must be independent of the assault that causes the victim's death. Id. at 558. We relied, in part, on the following explanation for this rule given by the New York Court of Appeals: [I]t is not enough to show that the homicide was felonious, or that there was a felonious assault which culminated in homicide. Such a holding would mean that every homicide, not justifiable or excusable, would occur in the commission of a felony, with the result that intent to kill and deliberation and premeditation would never be essential. The felony that eliminates the quality of the intent must be one that is independent of the homicide and of the assault merged therein, as, e.g., robbery or larceny or burglary or rape. Id. (quoting People v. Moran, 246 N.Y. 100, 158 N.E. 35, 36 (1927) (citations omitted)); accord Commonwealth v. Quigley, 391 Mass. 461, 462 N.E.2d 92, 95 (1984) ([I]n felony-murder the conduct which constitutes the felony must be `separate from the acts of personal violence which constitute a necessary part of the homicide itself.') (quoting Wayne R. LaFave & Austin W. Scott, Jr., Criminal Law § 71, at 559 (1972)), abrogation on other grounds recognized by Commonwealth v. Azar, 50 Mass.App.Ct. 767, 742 N.E.2d 1083, 1086 (2001); State v. Branch, 244 Or. 97, 415 P.2d 766, 767 (1966) ([C]ourts ... have held that where the only felony committed (apart from the murder itself) was the assault upon the victim which resulted in the death of the victim, the assault merged with the killing and could not be relied upon by the state as an ingredient of a `felony murder.'). Because the defendant's shooting of the victim in Heemstra caused the victim's death and was the act constituting the predicate felony of willful injury, the predicate felony was not independent of the assault resulting in death. Therefore, we held, the defendant's participation in the felony of willful injury could not serve as the basis for the defendant's conviction of felony murder. Heemstra, 721 N.W.2d at 554, 558-59.