Opinion ID: 2075892
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jury Instructions on Lesser Included Offenses

Text: In addition to instructing the jury on the elements of felony murder, as charged in the State's information, the trial court instructed the jury on the lesser included degrees of homicide, namely, second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter. Defendant assigns three errors to these instructions. First, over defense counsel's objection, the trial judge did not tell the jury that, between a greater and a lesser offense (e.g., first degree murder and second degree murder), the jury must presume defendant guilty of the lesser. Second, also over counsel's objection, the judge instructed that the jury must find defendant not guilty of the greater charge before it could consider a lesser included charge: The Defendant is charged with felony murder of Kimberly Giroux, and I will explain what the State must prove for the Defendant to be found guilty of this offense. If the State cannot prove this offense, you will then have to decide whether the State has proven what is known as a lesser included offense, and I will also explain what that term means. . . . . If after consideration of all of the evidence you are satisfied that the State has proven each element of felony murder beyond a reasonable doubt, then you must find the Defendant guilty. If you find that the State has failed to prove any one of these elements beyond a reasonable doubt, then you must find the Defendant not guilty of felony murder. If you find the Defendant not guilty of felony murder, you must go on to consider the lesser included offenses of second degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter. . . . . If the State proves each of these elements [of second degree murder] beyond a reasonable doubt, then you must find the Defendant guilty of second degree murder. If however after consideration of all of the evidence you find the Defendant not guilty of second degree murder, you must then go on to consider the lesser included offense of manslaughter. Manslaughter is divided into two types, voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. . . . . If the State proves all of these elements [of voluntary manslaughter] beyond a reasonable doubt, then you must find the Defendant guilty of voluntary manslaughter. If however after consideration of all of the evidence you have a reasonable doubt about any one of these elements, then you must find the Defendant not guilty of voluntary manslaughter. You should then determine if the Defendant is guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Third, defendant claims that the instructions on voluntary manslaughter amounted to plain error, because they included sudden passion or great provocation as an essential element of that offense. On all three points, defendant is correct that the jury instructions were erroneous. State v. Duff, 150 Vt. 329, 554 A.2d 214 (1988). In the circumstances of this case, however, we hold that these errors are harmless and do not warrant a new trial. In Duff, the defendant admitted committing the homicide ... but claimed that he was guilty of only voluntary manslaughter.... Id. at 331, 554 A.2d at 215. The defendant accordingly introduced evidence to show that he suffered from diminished capacity in order to negate the malice element of murder. Id. at 333, 554 A.2d at 216. In that context, the court's errors in the charge on lesser included offenses were prejudicial and warranted a new trial. The erroneous charge on the offense[] of voluntary manslaughter ... clearly affected the `substantial rights' of this defendant whose entire theory of the case revolved around his argument that [this was] the very crime[] that he had in fact committed. Id. at 338, 554 A.2d at 219 (citation omitted). The effect of the court's other errors on the defendant's substantial rights in Duff was somewhat less certain: While the trial court's erroneous charge as to the presumption of innocence as it applies to the degree of guilt or its erroneous transitional charge would not alone constitute plain error, we cannot ignore the totality of the improprieties when examining the fairness of defendant's trial. Id. (citation omitted). The posture of the instant case is entirely different. Unlike the defendant in Duff, this defendant consistently maintained his innocence of the homicide and robbery. Defendant contends that the  `[f]act that a defendant denies having any involvement in a crime ... does not necessarily preclude him from obtaining an instruction on a lesser included offense if there are facts in evidence that would reasonably support such an instruction.' Brief for Appellant, at 22 (quoting State v. Green, 207 Conn. 1, 14, 540 A.2d 659, 666 (1988)). Without deciding whether this proposition correctly states the law in Vermont, we find that the facts in evidence in this case do not support the instruction on lesser included offenses. Second degree murder would have been the appropriate charge, for example, if no robbery had accompanied the homicide. But the evidence overwhelmingly established that the killing had occurred during the commission of a robbery. Manslaughter would have been the appropriate charge in the absence of maliceeither by reason of sudden passion or great provocation or by reason of diminished capacity. See Duff, 150 Vt. at 331, 554 A.2d at 215. Here, however, there was no evidence whatsoever to suggest that defendant committed a homicide in sudden passion or under great provocation. [2] Nor was there evidence that defendant acted under diminished capacity. [3] It is true that evidence was introduced to show defendant's abuse of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine, both during the month leading up to the homicide, and during the evening after the homicide. [4] No evidence, however, suggested that defendant was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the homicide. In short, the record supports a verdict that defendant was either guilty of felony murder or not guilty of any homicide, but does not support a verdict of a lesser degree of homicide. Vermont Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(a) requires that [a]ny error, defect, irregularity or variance which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded. We have restated the harmless error rule as follows: Harmless error analysis requires the reviewing court to inquire if, absent the alleged error, it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have returned a guilty verdict regardless of the error. Thus, analysis under the harmless error doctrine focuses on the evidence of guilt present in the record. State v. Hamlin, 146 Vt. 97, 106, 499 A.2d 45, 52 (1985) (citations omitted). [5] We conclude that the errors in the jury instructions pertaining to lesser included offenses were harmless. It is clear beyond a reasonable doubt, in a case where the evidence in support of the offense charged was great and the evidence in support of lesser included offenses was virtually nil, that the verdict was unaffected by the errors. The one omission from the trial court's instructions to the jury that might have affected the jury's deliberations, in our view, was the failure to instruct on diminished capacity. Defendant, however, did not request such an instruction, did not object to its omission, did not argue diminished capacity to the jury, [6] and does not squarely raise the question on appeal. Even if the question were properly raised on appeal, defendant's failure to object as required by V.R.Cr.P. 30 [7] must be treated as a failure to preserve the issue for appealunless the omission is so egregious as to amount to plain error. V.R.Cr.P. 52(b); see State v. Roy, 151 Vt. 17, 22, 557 A.2d 884, 887-88 (1989). Any error here was far from obvious indeed, absent a request for an instruction on diminished capacity, we are unwilling to conclude that an error was committed at alland probably had no substantial influence on the jury's deliberations. Unlike Duff, where we found plain error, here the trial did not revolve around a defense theory of diminished capacity. See Duff, 150 Vt. at 338, 554 A.2d at 219.