Opinion ID: 2085062
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: The Burglary Aggravating Factor

Text: The People charged defendant with first-degree felony murder, for which the underlying felony was second-degree burglary. As relevant here, first-degree felony murder occurs when a defendant, [w]ith intent to cause the death of another person,. . . causes the death of such person . . . ; and . . . the victim was killed while the defendant was in the course of committing. . . and in furtherance of . . . burglary in the . . . second degree (Penal Law § 125.27 [1] [a] [vii]). In turn, and again as relevant here, [a] person is guilty of burglary in the second degree when he knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a building with intent to commit a crime therein, and . . . [t]he building is a dwelling (Penal Law § 140.25 [2]). The People contend that defendant committed burglary in the second degree because he knowingly enter[ed] or remain[ed] unlawfully in his wife's dwelling, her hospital room (it was after visiting hours; an order of protection forbade defendant from seeing his wife, although he contests notice of it) with intent to commit a crime therein; namely, intentional murder. Further, inten[ding] to cause [her] death, and caus[ing] [her] death, defendant killed his wife while in the course of committing and in furtherance of the burglary when he forced potassium cyanide down her throat as she lay virtually helpless on her hospital bed. Hence, the People argue, defendant committed first-degree felony murder, a capital offense in this case. The jury agreed. Defendant contests his conviction for first-degree felony murder on two grounds. First, he argues that the phrase in furtherance of in Penal Law § 125.27 (1) (a) (vii) requires a murder to advance or facilitate the commission of the predicate felony. In the circumstances of this case, he contends, it is logically impossible for the murder to advance or facilitate the burglary because the two crimes share the identical criminal objective, intentional murder. Second, principally relying on People v Green (27 Cal 3d 1, 609 P2d 468 [1980]), defendant asserts that absent an independent criminal objective, the burglary merged into the murder; therefore, the burglary cannot serve as an aggravating factor without contravening the Eighth Amendment's mandate that any aggravating factor must genuinely narrow the class of defendants eligible for a capital sentence. The majority skirts defendant's in furtherance of argument and, instead, grounds its opinion on the felony murder merger (or merger) doctrine, holding that the burglary aggravating factor may not be predicated solely on the intent to commit intentional murder. The majority reaches this conclusion principally (it would appear) because of an inability to believe that the Legislature meant what it actually said ( see majority op at 65). Further, the majority labors mightily to slip the strictures of our precedent by belittling Miller as a traditional, not a first-degree, felony murder case, which dealt with an assaultive, not murderous intent. [1] Then the majority treats the holding in Miller as virtual dictum since the two concurring judgesalthough obviously unsuccessfullypromoted a narrower basis for reaching the result. Finally, the majority relies on Arkansas and Delaware cases; and, while pointing out the Legislature's unquestioned resolve to enact a death penalty statute satisfying the requirements of the Eighth Amendment as enunciated in Gregg v Georgia (428 US 153 [1976]), extensively discusses Green, a case in which the California Supreme Court judicially narrowed that state's circa-1970's capital felony murder special circumstance to conform with Gregg.
First and foremost, this case presents us with a pure issue of statutory interpretation. As a general rule, [t]he primary consideration of courts in interpreting a statute is to `ascertain and give effect to the intention of the Legislature' ( Riley v County of Broome, 95 NY2d 455, 463 [2000], quoting McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 92 [a], at 177). Moreover, the plain meaning of the statutory text is the best evidence of legislative intent and, in fact, the only authoritative basis for interpretation ( Riley v County of Broome, 95 NY2d at 463 [Of course, the words of the statute are the best evidence of the Legislature's intent. As a general rule, unambiguous language of a statute is alone determinative]). Reiterating the statutory language relevant here, a defendant commits first-degree felony murder when [w]ith intent to cause the death of another person, he causes the death of such person. . .; and . . . the victim was killed while the defendant was in the course of committing . . . and in furtherance of . . . burglary in the . . . second degree (Penal Law § 125.27 [1] [a] [vii]). Further, a defendant is guilty of burglary in the second degree when he knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a building with intent to commit a crime therein, and . . . [t]he building is a dwelling (Penal Law § 140.25 [2]). Obviously, nothing in the wording of the first-degree felony murder statute in any way limits the type of crime that a burglar must intend to commit or, put another way, excludes intentional murder as the sole criminal objective of a second-degree burglary. Relatedly, the second-degree burglary statute manifestly fails to limit the type of crime that a burglar must intend to commit or to exclude intentional murder from those crimes. Moreover, we haveuntil todayalways construed the second-degree burglary statute as broadly as its unambiguous language demonstrates the Legislature intended ( see e.g. People v Mackey, 49 NY2d 274, 279 [1980] [holding that a defendant charged with burglary in the second degree is not entitled to a bill of particulars specifying which crime he intended to commit within the building since the Revised Penal Law's definition of burglary is satisfied if the intruder's intent, existing at the time of the unlawful entry or remaining, is to commit any crime (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added)]). We must presume that the Legislature was aware of our decisions interpreting the second-degree burglary statute as broadly as its words naturally allow ( see e.g. People v Robinson, 95 NY2d 179, 184 [2000]). Further, when words hav[e] a precise and well settled legal meaning in the jurisprudence of the state[, they] are to be understood in such sense when used in statutes, unless a different meaning is plainly indicated  (McKinney's Cons Laws of NY, Book 1, Statutes § 233, at 396 [emphasis added]). For the different meaning to which the majority subscribes to have been plainly intended here, the Legislature would have to have (as it easily could have) drafted the first-degree felony murder provision to exclude burglary predicated on intentional murder from its ambit. That the Legislature did not make this particular drafting choice is telling in light of the numerous ways in which the first-degree felony murder provision was, in fact, limited or, in the language of Gregg, narrowed by the Legislature. That is, the Legislature created the first-degree felony murder provision by borrowing the language of the second-degree felony murder provision, with its well settled legal meanings, and then limiting or narrowing this language in several key respects. Most importantly, first-degree felony murder, unlike second-degree felony murder, requires an intentional killing. First-degree felony murder also provides for more limited accessorial liability; [2] and includes a predicate felony not found in the second-degree felony murder provision; namely, an intentional killing while in immediate flight from attempting second-degree murder. Significantly, the Legislature also cut back on the underlying felonies upon which first-degree (as opposed to second-degree) felony murder may be predicated, including, as is especially relevant for present purposes, the types of burglary. That is, second-degree felony murder may be predicated on any degree of burglary, while first-degree felony murder can rest only on first- or, as in this case, second-degree burglary. By excluding third-degree burglary (which references entry into a building), the Legislature deliberately limited first-degree felony murder to those burglaries that expressly involve invasions of a dwelling, the place where a citizen reasonably expects to be most secure and is, in fact, most vulnerable to serious injury or death when cornered by an intruder bent on murder, as happened here. In short, the Legislature, while carefully limiting the scope of the first-degree felony murder provision with respect to the types of burglary covered, otherwise did not see fit to exclude a burglary committed with intentional murder as its criminal objective. While the majority may find this hard to accept, the choice is the Legislature'snot oursto make.
The felony murder merger doctrinea judicial gloss developed in the context of traditional (that is, unintentional) felony murder bars felony murder when the predicate felony is subsumed in the homicide. With the advent of the revised Penal Law, we cast off merger in Miller. By holding that first-degree felony murder predicated on burglary must have a criminal objective independent of intentional murder, the majority has now revived (and, in fact, expanded) merger in our jurisprudence in ways that the Legislature could never have anticipated.
We developed and discussed our own distinctive brand of merger in several key cases decided in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when felony murder, even if unintentional, was punishable by death. In Buel v People (78 NY 492 [1879]), the defendant, who apparently strangled his victim while raping her, contended that the felony (the rape) merged with the homicide since violence was a requisite element of the rape; therefore, the defendant argued, the rape was not a separate and distinct offense from the killing and so the judge should not have instructed the jury on felony murder. [3] We disagreed: While force and violence constitute an important element of the crime of rape, they do not constitute the entire body of that offence. The unlawful or carnal knowledge is the essence of that crime; and without this, no matter what degree of force or violence may be employed, rape is not established ( id. at 497 [emphasis added]). The defendant in People v Huter (184 NY 237 [1906]), after fleeing from premises in which he had committed a burglary, shot and killed a police officer who was pursuing him. When the defendant was convicted of felony murder predicated on burglary, [4] we were asked to review. Concluding that the defendant had ceased to be engaged in the commission of a burglary at the time of the murder, we reversed the judgment and conviction. We then turned our attention to the much mooted question of whether the assault in which the defendant was engaged at the time of the killing merged into the homicide, a question that would doubtless come up upon retrial ( id. at 242-243). Citing Buel, we stated that [i]n order . . . to constitute [felony murder], . . . the violence may constitute a part of the homicide, yet the other elements constituting the felony in which [the defendant] is engaged must be so distinct from that of the homicide as not to be an ingredient of the homicide, indictable therewith or convictable thereunder ( Huter, 184 NY at 244 [emphasis added]). In People v Wagner (245 NY 143 [1927]), the proprietor of a boarding house detected a lodger acting suspiciously. When she confronted the lodger outside the bathroom on the boarding house's second floor, he suddenly struck her in the head with a blackjack. The proprietor cried out for help, and another occupant of the boarding house rushed to her assistance. The rescuer struck the defendant a blow, and the proprietor broke free and ran down the stairs and out the front door, shouting for help. She heard shots and ran back into the boarding house and upstairs, where she saw the defendant and her rescuer lying side by side on the floor. When the proprietor took off her shoe and began to beat the defendant about the head with it, he arose, struck her in the face and made his escape. Her rescuer died of gunshot wounds that the defendant had inflicted on him. The trial court, among other things, [5] charged the jury that defendant was guilty of felony murder [6] if he killed the victim while engaged in a felonious assault upon either the victim or the proprietor. Citing Huter, we held that the trial court erred in charging the jury regarding the assault on the victim, which was an ingredient of the resulting homicide and therefore not an independent crime. The error was harmless, though, because the homicide was committed when the felonious assault on the proprietor was still in progress, and this assault was an independent felony. Our decision in Wagner also relied on People v Patini (208 NY 176 [1913]), another case in which a Good Samaritan intervened in an assault on someone else only to lose his own life ( see also People v Giblin, 115 NY 196 [1889] [wife killed when she rushed into store to assist her husband, who was scuffling with gunman who had shot him in altercation over payment for purchases]). Patini, which involved a felonious assault upon the brother of the victim, was grounded at least in part on our interpretation of the word otherwise in section 1044 (2) of the former Penal Law to include[] a felony upon a person other than the one killed ( Patini, 208 NY at 178; see also People v Miles, 143 NY 383 [1894]). In People v Moran (246 NY 100 [1927]), the defendant, after he and his companions were halted by two policemen, drew a revolver and fired two shots at one officer and a third at the other, killing them both. The trial judge charged the jury upon the single theory of felony murder, which we held to be error in light of the merger doctrine. That is, if, as was charged, the defendant shot the second officer while trying to escape after having shot the first officer, then the first felonythe assault upon the first officerwas over, while the second felonya felonious assault upon the second officerwas not independent of the homicide, [i]t was the homicide itself ( id. at 103). With Chief Judge Cardozo speaking for a unanimous Court, we explained the purpose of the merger doctrine: Homicide is murder in the first degree when perpetrated with a deliberate and premeditated design to kill, or, without such design, while engaged in the commission of a felony. To make the quality of the intent indifferent, it 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. at 102 [emphasis added and citations omitted]). In other words, the merger doctrine prevented prosecutors from using felony murder to sidestep proof of a culpable mental state in the majority of cases. Next, the jury in People v La Marca (3 NY2d 452 [1957]) convicted the defendant, who kidnapped a one-month-old infant later found dead in a wooded area, of kidnapping and of having killed the infant while engaged in the commission of the kidnapping. The defendant urged that the felony murder count should have been dismissed because the acts constituting the kidnapping merged into the homicide. In rejecting this argument, we first noted that while other jurisdictions limited felony murder to specified felonies, our Legislature had chosen a different path, decreeing a homicide to be a capital offense if perpetrated in the commission or attempted commission of any felony. As a result, [o]ne necessary qualification . . . engrafted by us on New York's felony murder rule was the merger doctrine; i.e., that the underlying felony must be independent of the homicide because otherwise, every homicide, not justifiable or excusable, would occur in the commission of a felonynamely, the assault which ended in deathwith the result that premeditation, deliberation and intent to kill would never have to be established ( id. at 465). We cited Huter, Wagner and Moran for this proposition. We reasoned in La Marca that the underlying felony of kidnapping was independent of the murder. Just as in Buel, while force and violence were an important element of the kidnapping, its essence was something altogether separate, i.e., [a] taking or detaining of the infant with intent to keep or conceal . . . or to extort . . . money ( La Marca, 3 NY2d at 466). To sum up, the merger doctrine developed as a limitation that we engrafted on felony murder in order to maintain distinctions between culpable mental states. This was necessary because the felony murder statutes at the time encompassed assault as a predicate crime, potentially converting every homicide into capital felony murder since assault is an ingredient of every homicide. We consistently declined to expand merger to crimes in addition to assault since the essence of crimes such as rape, kidnapping, robbery, larceny or burglary is independent of the homicide. [7] In several cases, we sustained a conviction for felony murder notwithstanding merger when the underlying assault was committed on someone other than the murder victim. This result, however, was premised at least in part on language (the word otherwise) appearing in both section 183 of the Penal Code and its successor provision, section 1044 (2) of the former Penal Law. Thus, the status of our merger jurisprudence in 1973 when we decided Miller.
Miller barged uninvited into Fennell's apartment to assault him with a spray can (apparently to disable him with choking gas) and a butcher knife, and wound up killing Fennell's roommate, Aleem, who came to Fennell's aid. In other words, the facts were essentially indistinguishable from those of our Good Samaritan cases, such as Wagner, Patini and Giblin ( see also People v Luscomb, 292 NY 390 [1944]). The statute under which Miller was prosecuted was, however, quite different as was the People's theory. Miller was indicted for and convicted of, among other things, felony murder predicated on burglary to commit an assault. The trial court set aside this conviction on the ground that the People had not established burglary. The trial court, the majority in the Appellate Division and Miller all subscribed to the view that assault, the target crime of the burglary, was actually the underlying felony; therefore, the conviction could not stand because the felony murder statute, Penal Law § 125.25 (3), did not list assault as a predicate crime. Accordingly, we phrased the issue upon appeal as whether a burglary based upon the crime of assault can properly serve as the predicate for a felony-murder conviction ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 158). As we correctly saw it, Miller was urging us to extend the merger doctrine so that neither the assault against Fennell nor the assault against Aleem would qualify as the target crime of the burglary. This we refused to do, noting that the considerations prompting us to announce the merger doctrine in the first place were no longer germane because the Legislature had amended the Penal Law to remove the fundamental defect that merger was designed to cure ( id. at 159). Specifically, under the old felony murder statutes (section 1044 [2] of the former Penal Law and its predecessors) any felony, including assault, could be the predicate for murder. Thus, [s]ince, a fortiori, every homicide, not excusable or justifiable, occurs during the commission of assault, every homicide would constitute a felony murder ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 160). The Legislature remedied this fundamental defect in the revised Penal Law (Penal Law § 125.25 [3]), however, by enumerating specific felonies, not including assault and all involving violence or substantial risk of physical injury, which were the predicate crimes for felony murder ( id. ). The legislative purpose for this limitation was `to exclude from felony murder, cases of accidental or not reasonably foreseeable fatality occurring in an unlikely manner in the course of a non-violent felony' ( id. [citation omitted]). We further describedin detailthe Legislature's obvious motivation or purpose for including burglary in the list of enumerated predicate crimes for felony murder: [P]ersons within domiciles are in greater peril from those entering the domicile with criminal intent, than persons on the street who are being subjected to the same criminal intent. Thus, the burglary statutes prescribe greater punishment for a criminal act committed within the domicile than for the same act committed on the street. Where, as here, the criminal act underlying the burglary is an assault with a dangerous weapon, the likelihood that the assault will culminate in a homicide is significantly increased by the situs of the assault. When the assault takes place within the domicile, the victim may be more likely to resist the assault; the victim is also less likely to be able to avoid the consequences of the assault, since [the] paths of retreat and escape may be barred or severely restricted by furniture, walls and other obstructions incidental to buildings. Further, it is also more likely that when the assault occurs in the victim's domicile, there will be present family or close friends who will come to the victim's aid and be killed ( id. at 160-161). Since the Legislature did not exclude from the definition of burglary, a burglary based upon the intent to assault, but intended that the definition be `satisfied if the intruder's intent, existing at the time of the unlawful entry or remaining, is to commit any crime' ( id. at 161 [citation omitted; emphasis in original]), we concluded that any burglary, even one premised on an intent to assault, could support a felony murder conviction. Tellingly, in Miller we also expressly reject[ed] the reasoning and holding of People v Wilson (1 Cal 3d 431, 462 P2d 22 [1969]) ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 161 n 3). Along with its California progeny, Wilson anchors the majority's holding that capital felony murder predicated on burglary must have a criminal objective independent of intentional murder. In Wilson, the defendant, armed with a shotgun, broke a glass window in the outside door of his estranged wife's apartment building and entered her apartment, where she and three men were present. Initially, the defendant shot two of the men, killing one. He placed the muzzle of his shotgun against the door of the bathroom into which his wife had fled in a futile search for refuge, and shot the door off its hinges. The defendant's wife was found dead in the bathtub, having been shot twice in the chest at close range. The defendant was eventually found guilty of first-degree felony murder of his wife based on the crime of burglary, and second-degree felony murder of the other victim, based on assault with a deadly weapon. [8] The California Supreme Court reversed both convictions with merger as the rationale. As to the second-degree felony murder count, this result followed directly from traditional merger principles, adopted by the court in People v Ireland (70 Cal 2d 522, 539-540, 450 P2d 580, 589-590 [1969] [second-degree felony murder improperly predicated on crime of assault with a deadly weapon because this felony was an integral part of the homicide]). The court reversed the first-degree murder count because the burglary was not independent of the assault, however, and thereby expanded merger. Moreover, in support of this expansion, the court purported to follow New York merger doctrine. Specifically, the court noted that in Ireland (70 Cal 2d at 540, 450 P2d at 591) it had overruled, in relevant part, People v Hamilton (55 Cal 2d 881, 901, 362 P2d 473, 485 [1961]) and People v Talbot (64 Cal 2d 691, 703, 414 P2d 633, 641 [1966]), both of which had indicated that . . . the New York `merger' doctrine . . . is not to be applied in this jurisdiction [i.e., California] to preclude a first degree felony-murder instruction based upon a burglary as to which the intended felony is the homicide itself or an offense included therein ( Wilson, 1 Cal 3d at 439-440, 462 P2d at 27-28 [emphasis added]). [9] This statement implies that our traditional merger doctrine in fact would have precluded felony murder based upon a burglary as to which homicide or assault was the target crime. As previously discussed, however, we never broadened merger beyond assault proper. Indeed, Chief Judge Cardozo specifically cited burglary as an example of a felony independent of the homicide and therefore not merged in it for purposes of felony murder ( see Moran, 246 NY at 102; see also La Marca, 3 NY2d at 466). And in Miller, of course, we declared the merger doctrine nugatory anyway in light of revised Penal Law § 125.25 (3). We also specifically (and directly contrary to Wilson ) held that a burglary premised on an intent to assault would support a felony murder conviction. No wonder, then, that we made an emphatic point in Miller to disassociate ourselves from Wilson. Of course, today the majority completely reverses field, embracing Wilson and its progeny, which unquestionably support its holding, [10] and backing away furiously from Miller, which unquestionably does not. Accordingly, the majority advances a number of superficial distinctions designed to distance itself from Miller. First, the majority contends, Miller obviously does not govern because there we interpreted Penal Law § 125.25 (3) whereas this case involves Penal Law § 125.27 (1) (a) (vii) (majority op at 65). But, of course, the operative language in these two provisions is identical. The Legislature concededly borrow[ed] (majority op at 67) from the language of Penal Law § 125.25 (3) to fashion a narrower version of it as Penal Law § 125.27 (1) (a) (vii). We must presume that the Legislature was aware of Miller when adopting the first-degree murder statute ( see e.g. People v Robinson, 95 NY2d at 184). Thus, the only reasonable inference to draw is that the Legislature intended (and expected) a burglary underlying a charge of first-degree felony murder to encompass  any crime ( People v Miller, 32 NY2d at 161 [internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis in original]; see also Mackey, 49 NY2d at 279); and any crime manifestly includes intentional murder. Further, the Legislature would have had no reason to expect (and indeed would have had every reason not to expect) us to find Wilson and California-style merger [11] suddenly persuasive, and to revive and expand the merger doctrine so as to restrict the scope of burglary under the first-degree felony murder statute. Moreover, given the purpose of the merger doctrineto preserve the distinctions among the culpable mental states of murderthe majority's revival and expansion of it for first-degree felony murder, where intent must always be proven, but not for second-degree felony murder, which may be unintentional, makes no logical sense. [12] Next, the majority opines, Miller is different because it dealt with assault, not murder, and so we would, in fact, be extend[ing] Miller if we were to decide that a burglary based upon the crime of intentional murder can properly serve as the predicate for first-degree (or, for that matter, second-degree) [13] felony murder (majority op at 66 [emphasis omitted]). The dispute in Miller was, indeed, whether a burglary based upon an assault would support a conviction for felony murder; however, this was because, it was argued, the assault merged in the murder and so the assault and the murder became one and the same. We rejected merger, and concluded that the criminal objective of the predicate burglary could be any crime, which surely includes intentional murder as well as assault. I fail to see how we would be extend[ing] Miller by reading the decision to mean what it manifestly says. Finally, the majority seems to prefer the reasoning of the concurrence in Miller, and to accept defendant's argument that the majority opinion in that case swept too broadly, or at least more broadly than was necessary to support the result (majority op at 66). To state the obvious, though, Miller 's holdings are to be found in the majority opinion, not the concurrence; the reasoning of the concurrence was not accepted by the Miller majority. Further, the concurrence's rationale is problematic. Specifically, the concurrence would have predicated [the result] on the narrower ground that even under the old law, when the doctrine of merger was in full bloom, a conviction of felony murder was sustained where the underlying offense was assault if the assault was committed on a person other than the one killed ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 161 [Jones, J., concurring]). Wagner and the other cases cited for this unexceptionable proposition, [14] however, were all decided under the old law (section 1044 [2] of the former Penal Law), and so their holdings were grounded in statutory language superseded in the revised Penal Law ( see discussion at 120-124). Additionally, these were all assault cases, not burglary-predicated-on-assault cases, as Miller was. It bears repeating that even . . . when the doctrine of merger was in full bloom ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 161), we consistently declined to extend merger beyond assault to other crimes (e.g., rape, kidnapping, larceny, robbery or burglary). Although force and violence were (or might be) an element of these other crimes, their essence (e.g., for burglary, the unlawful entering or remaining in a building) was independent of homicide.
Lacking support in New York statutes and precedent, the majority finally retreats to foreign cases to support its holding that capital felony murder must have a criminal objective independent of the intentional murder (majority op at 69). As the majority acknowledges, two of these sister-state cases Williams v State (818 A2d 906 [Del 2002]) and Parker v State (292 Ark 421, 731 SW2d 756 [1987])are nothing more than interpretations of Delaware's and Arkansas' rather different capital statutes. Additionally, Williams and Parker both deal with capital felony murder statutes that are closer to our traditional (second-degree) felony murder statute than to our first-degree felony murder statute. Specifically, these statutes do not require an intentional killing, and instead appear designed to reduce the disproportionate number of accidental homicides which occur during the commission of the enumerated predicate felonies ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 161). Indeed, Delaware requires a reckless[ ] murder ( see Del Code Ann, tit 11, § 636 [a] [2]), while in Arkansas, the killing had to have been under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life ( Parker, 292 Ark at 425, 731 SW2d at 758). It is, thus, quite surprising that the majority considers Parker and Williams so convincing. After all, the majority views our own traditional felony murder jurisprudence in Miller as irrelevant mainly because that crime, like the crimes addressed in Williams and Parker, does not require an intentional murder (majority op at 65). By contrast, the Arkansas Supreme Court itself considered Miller entirely relevant, but rejected the Miller distinction between a murder committed in an occupied dwelling as opposed to out of doors. The court concluded that what might make sense in New York did not automatically make sense in Arkansas because of its different statutes ( Parker, 292 Ark at 426-427, 731 SW2d at 759). The majority cannot have it both ways. If Miller is of no value here, as the majority contends, then Williams and Parker are at least equally useless. Alternatively, if it is legitimate to rely on foreign cases dealing with statutes similar to the statute underlying Miller, then Miller must be relevant here. Ultimately, the majority rests its conclusion principally upon the opinion of the California Supreme Court in People v Green (27 Cal 3d 1, 609 P2d 468, supra ) (majority op at 70-71). Our decisions in Miller and People v Harris (98 NY2d 452 [2002]), however, undermine any reliance on Green. In Green, the California Supreme Court justified the need for an independent objective by reference to Eighth Amendment narrowing concepts. In Harris, however, we expressly rejected a claim that the first-degree felony murder statute did not comport with the narrowing requirements of the Eighth Amendment ( Harris, 98 NY2d at 475-477). There is no reason for us to shrink from that conclusion here. We noted in Miller that it was apparent that the Legislature, in including burglary as one of the enumerated felonies as a basis for felony murder, recognized that persons within domiciles are in greater peril from those entering the domicile with criminal intent, than persons on the street who are being subjected to the same criminal intent ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 160). The concern for preventing violence in domiciles that led the Legislature to include burglary in the second-degree felony murder statute informs the first-degree statute under consideration here. As discussed earlier, the traditional, second-degree statute is predicated upon burglary of any degree ( see Penal Law § 125.25 [3]). But when the Legislature borrowed from that statute, it slightly narrowed intentional felony murder so as to include only first-degree or second-degree burglary ( see Penal Law § 125.27 [1] [a] [vii]). Significantly, only those two degrees of burglary expressly encompass crimes committed in a dwelling ( see Penal Law § 140.25 [2]; § 140.30); third-degree burglary references only a building ( see Penal Law § 140.20). Thus, the Legislature clearly structured the first-degree felony murder statute to deter and punish intentional killings in a dwelling. The legislative goal of protecting the citizens of our state from burglars with a murderous intent nullifies any Eighth Amendment fears. As just discussed, we took note in Miller of the extremely rational legislative recogni[tion] of the greater peril faced by persons in their homes ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 160). Because of that greater peril, the Legislature ensured that the burglary statutes prescribe greater punishment for a criminal act committed within the domicile than for the same act committed on the street ( Miller, 32 NY2d at 160). The greater punishment for committing the same act in a dwelling rather than on the street obviates the need for the burglary here to have had an objective independent of murder. The Legislature quite rationally concluded that a burglarlike defendantwho fulfills a specific murderous intent is deserving of greater punishment than a defendant who commits the same act . . . on the street ( id. ). Thus, providing the death penalty for the crime committed here in no way runs afoul of the Eighth Amendment ( Harris, 98 NY2d at 476). Indeed, it is not merely an intent to kill, but rather burglarizing a dwelling to fulfill that murderous intent which differentiates (and correspondingly narrows) this murder from its lesser included offense of second-degree intentional murder. Simply put, the Eighth Amendment concerns expressed by the California Supreme Court in Green are not present here. [15] The Eighth Amendment does not require that a burglary underlying a felony murder (especially an intentional murder) be predicated upon an independent criminal objective ( see e.g. State v Tillman, 750 P2d 546, 571 [Utah 1987]; Smith v State, 499 So 2d 750, 754 [Miss 1986]; see also State v Dann, 205 Ariz 557, 568 n 7, 74 P3d 231, 242 n 7 [2003] [implying that merger doctrine would not preclude capital felony murder conviction for burglary premised on intent to kill]).