Opinion ID: 171694
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The district court's rationale for finding the errant instruction harmless

Text: The district court also concluded that Mr. Taylor was not entitled to an instruction on second-degree murder, but for different reasons. We review the district court's independent legal conclusions de novo. See Rogers v. Gibson, 173 F.3d 1278, 1282 (10th Cir.1999). First, the district court found that due process did not compel a second degree murder instruction in this case because it believed that under Oklahoma law, second degree depraved mind murder is not a lesser included offense of first degree murder. Taylor v. Sirmons, 2007 WL 778043 at . This may have been an understandable interpretation of a confusing line of Oklahoma cases, but it was error. To be sure, Beck requires state trial courts to instruct juries only on offenses that are considered lesser-included offenses of the charged crime as a matter of state law. Hopkins v. Reeves, 524 U.S. 88, 90-91, 118 S.Ct. 1895, 141 L.Ed.2d 76 (1998); see Turrentine v. Mullin, 390 F.3d 1181, 1194 n. 1 (10th Cir.2004). Moreover, we have recognized that there existed a short window between 1997 and 1999 where Oklahoma did not recognize second degree depraved heart murder to be a lesser-included offense of first degree murder. See Willingham v. Mullin, 296 F.3d 917, 923 (10th Cir.2002). As a result, had the OCCA denied Mr. Taylor's Beck claim during this period of time, relying on the ground that second degree murder was not a lesser-included offense of first degree murder, his petition for relief would fail even though second degree murder was a lesser included offense at the time of his trial. See Willingham v. Mullin, 296 F.3d at 922-26. By the time the OCCA decided Mr. Taylor's Beck claim on direct appeal in 2000, however, second degree murder was again considered a lesser-included offense of first degree murder in Oklahoma. See Shrum v. State, 991 P.2d 1032, 1036 n. 8 (Okla.Crim.App.1999). Thus, both at the time of Mr. Taylor's trial and at the time of his direct appeal, second degree murder constituted a lesser-included offense of first degree murder in Oklahoma. In comparison, Mr. Willingham's Beck claim failed because his direct appeal occurred during the window in which second degree murder was not a lesser-included offense. See Willingham v. Mullin, 296 F.3d at 923. Because second degree murder was a lesser-included offense of first degree murder at each critical point in Mr. Taylor's case history, he was entitled to a second degree murder instruction if it was warranted by the facts. The district court's second reason for concluding that Mr. Taylor was not entitled to a second-degree murder instruction was based on a confusion between two different types of instruction. In addition to requesting a second-degree murder instruction based on his claimed lack of intent to kill Mr. Sauer, Mr. Taylor asked for and received a voluntary intoxication instruction based on his ingestion of methamphetamine and other substances shortly before the shootings. The district court seems to have understood this theory as an alternative basis on which Mr. Taylor was asserting a right to a lesser-included instruction. See Taylor v. Sirmons, No. CIV-01-252-JHP-KEW, 2007 WL 778043 at  (E.D.Okla. Mar.12, 2007). Voluntary intoxication, however, is not a lesser-included offense of homicide; rather it is a perfect defense to first degree murder. [] The jury instruction on voluntary intoxication reflects this: If you find that the state has failed to sustain [the burden of proving that the defendant formed the specific criminal intent required to commit first degree murder], by reason of the defendant's intoxication, then the defendant must be found not guilty of those crimes. Jury Instruction 27 (emphasis added). There is some confusion over whether Oklahoma law properly permitted a voluntary intoxication instruction in this case. See, e.g., Aplt. R. Br. 20 n. 8; Aple. Br. 40-41. The district court found that Mr. Taylor was not entitled to a voluntary intoxication instruction, because some Oklahoma cases have indicated that where a criminal defendant is able to give a detailed lucid account of his criminal activity he is not [ ] entitled to a voluntary intoxication instruction. Taylor v. Sirmons, No. CIV-01-252-JHP-KEW, 2007 WL 778043 at  (E.D.Okla. Mar.12, 2007). Nevertheless, even recognizing that an individual's state of intoxication might prove relevant to whether he acted with a depraved mind in extreme disregard of human life, the question is academic in this case because Mr. Taylor does not rely on a voluntary intoxication theory as the sole rationale justifying a second degree murder instruction. See Aplt. R. Br. 20 (The defense scenario [second degree murder] is viable even without an intoxication defense.). Both sides consistently agreed before the Oklahoma courts that defense counsel's strategy at trial did not focus on voluntary intoxication. See Ev. Hear. Tr. IV at 72-73 (Feb. 23, 1999) (counsel for state arguing that if the Court examines. . . the actual trial transcript, the defense of voluntary intoxication was not what Mr. Elliot [defense trial counsel] was using.); id. at 13 (defense trial counsel testifies that he did not intend to raise the defense of voluntary intoxication as a defense). It is therefore immaterial for purposes of our Beck inquiry whether Mr. Taylor was entitled to an instruction based on a voluntary intoxication theory.