Opinion ID: 895584
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Background of Nevada’s Kazalyn Instruction

Text: The Nevada statutes define first degree murder, in relevant part, as murder perpetrated by “willful, deliberate and premeditated killing.” Nev. Rev. Stat. § 200.030(1)(a). In Kazalyn, the Nevada Supreme Court approved the instruction for first degree murder that is at the center of Babb’s habeas claim: 16 BABB V . LOZOWSKY Premeditation is a design, a determination to kill, distinctly formed in the mind at any moment before or at the time of the killing. Premeditation need not be for a day, an hour or even a minute. It may be as instantaneous as successive thoughts of the mind. If the jury believes from the evidence that the act constituting the killing has been preceded by and has been the result of premeditation, no matter how rapidly the premeditation is followed by the act constituting the killing, it is willful, deliberate and premeditated murder. 825 P.2d at 583 (emphasis added). Eight years later, in Byford, the Nevada Supreme Court determined that the Kazalyn instruction was deficient because it defined only premeditation, and failed to provide an independent definition for deliberation. 994 P.2d at 713. The Nevada Supreme Court in Byford noted that in its prior decisions, the terms premeditated, deliberate and willful were considered a single phrase rather than independent elements of the mens rea for first degree murder. Id. (citing Greene v. State, 931 P.2d 54, 61 (Nev. 1997); Powell v. State, 838 P.2d 921, 926–27 (Nev. 1992), vacated on other grounds by 511 U.S. 79 (1994); and Scott v. State, 554 P.2d 735, 737 n.2 (Nev. 1976)). The court determined that, by failing to treat the terms as independent elements, the Kazalyn instruction improperly blurred the distinction between first and second degree murder. Id. at 713. The Nevada Supreme Court also noted that “[i]t is clear from the statute that all three elements, willfulness, deliberation, and premeditation, must BABB V . LOZOWSKY 17 be proven beyond a reasonable doubt before an accused can be convicted of first degree murder.” Id. at 713–14 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). Byford set out instructions providing separate definitions for willfulness, 18 BABB V . LOZOWSKY deliberation and premeditation.3 The Byford court did not 3 The new instructions provide: Murder of the first degree is murder which is perpetrated by means of any kind of willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing. All three elements – willfulness, deliberation and premeditation – must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt before an accused can be convicted of first degree murder. W ilfulness is the intent to kill. There need be no appreciable space of time between formation of the intent to kill and the act of killing. Deliberation is the process of determining upon a course of action to kill as a result of thought, including weighing the reasons for and against the action and considering the consequences of the action. A deliberate determination may be arrived at in a short period of time. But in all cases the determination must not be formed in passion, or if formed in passion it must be carried out after there has been time for the passion to subside and deliberation to occur. A mere unconsidered and rash impulse is not deliberate, even though it includes the intent to kill. Premeditation is a design, a determination to kill, distinctly formed in the mind by the time of the killing. Premeditation need not be for a day, an hour or even a minute. It may be as instantaneous as successive thoughts of the mind. For if the jury believes from the evidence that the act constituting the killing has been preceded by and has been the result of premeditation, no matter how rapidly the act follows the premeditation, it is premeditated. The law does not undertake to measure in units of BABB V . LOZOWSKY 19 cite any constitutional basis for its ruling. Id. at 714–15. After Byford, the Nevada Supreme Court held in Garner v. State, 6 P.3d 1013, 1025 (Nev. 2000), overruled on other grounds by Sharma v. State, 56 P.3d (Nev. 2002), that the new first degree murder instructions would not be applied to cases whose appeals were pending on direct review at the time Byford was decided. The Garner court noted that although newly declared constitutional rules had to be applied to cases pending on direct appeal, Byford had no constitutional basis. Id. at 1025 (citing Griffith v. Kentucky, 479 U.S. 314 (1987)). In 2007, this Court granted habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 to a Nevada inmate who claimed that the Kazalyn instruction violated his right to a fair trial under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Polk, 503 F.3d at 913. The Polk Court noted that, although the Nevada Supreme Court in Byford had not addressed the constitutional implications of its decision, the Kazalyn instruction violated time the length of the period during which the thought must be pondered before it can ripen into an intent to kill which is truly deliberate and premeditated. The time will vary with different individuals and under varying circumstances. The true test is not the duration of time, but rather the extent of the reflection. A cold, calculated judgment and decision may be arrived at in a short period of time, but a mere unconsidered and rash impulse, even though it includes an intent to kill, is not deliberation and premeditation as will fix an unlawful killing as murder of the first degree. Byford, 994 P.2d at 714–15. 20 BABB V . LOZOWSKY federal due process because it relieved the state of the burden of proving all elements of the crime by permitting the jury to find willful, deliberate, and premeditated murder so long as it found premeditation. Id. at 910. The Court specifically quoted language in Byford stating that it was clear from the statute that all three elements had to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. This Court thus concluded that by relieving the State of the burden of proving each element beyond a reasonable doubt, the Kazalyn instruction violated established federal law, including In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970), Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307 (1985) and Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510 (1979). Id. at 911. Subsequently, however, the Nevada Supreme Court held in Nika v. State, 198 P.3d 839, 849 (Nev. 2008), that the Byford decision was not a clarification of the murder statute – that is, Byford had not righted prior decisions’ incorrect interpretations of Nevada’s murder statute. Rather, the Nika court explained, Byford had announced a new interpretation of the murder statute, which changed the law. Id. The Nika court declared that any language in Byford and Garner suggesting that Byford was a clarification rather than a new rule was dicta. Id. at 849–50. According to Nika, this Court in Polk was wrong in concluding that the Kazalyn instruction was a violation of due process because the instruction accurately represented the elements of first degree murder up until Byford was decided. Thus, before Byford was decided, the Kazalyn instruction did not improperly relieve the State of the burden of proving all the elements of first degree murder. Id. at 850. The Nika court also determined, however, that its prior decision in Garner wrongly held that the federal Constitution did not require application of the new rule to convictions that BABB V . LOZOWSKY 21 were not yet final at the time Byford was decided. The Nika decision explained that because the change effected by Byford narrowed the scope of the criminal statute, it should, as a matter of due process, apply to anyone whose conviction was not final at the time Byford was decided. Id. (citing Bunkley v. Florida, 538 U.S. 835, 841–42 (2003) (per curiam)).