Opinion ID: 170276
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Second degree imminent danger murder instruction

Text: Under Oklahoma law, [h]omicide is murder in the second degree . . . [w]hen perpetrated by an act imminently dangerous to another person and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual. OKLA. STAT. tit. 21, § 701.8. Although Mr. Brown now argues that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on this offense, the State insists that Mr. Brown did not present this contention to the OCCA. In his direct appeal to the OCCA, Mr. Brown argued: THE TRIAL COURT COMMITTED REVERSIBLE ERROR IN REFUSING THE APPELLANT'S REQUEST THAT THE JURY BE INSTRUCTED ON THE OFFENSE OF SECOND DEGREE MURDER At the end of the trial's first stage, the Appellant asked the trial court to instruct the jury on the lesser offense of second degree felony murder, submitting certain instructions which were denied. (OR 394-398). As a result, the jury received no instructions on any lesser offenses. . . . . The jury's inability to consider any offense other than first degree murder thus violated the Appellant's rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and Article II, §§ 7 and 9 of the Oklahoma Constitution. Aplt's Br. to OCCA, at 58-60. The district court determined that although the bulk of the argument was about the second-degree felony murder instruction, Mr. Brown did fairly present the second-degree imminent danger claim to the OCCA by citing the appropriate record pages with the proffered instruction and arguing generally about the lack of instruction as to any lesser included offenses. Because the OCCA did not examine the claim, the district court decided to engage in an independent review of the record and pertinent federal law to determine whether the OCCA's denial of relief was contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. Dist. Ct. Rec. doc. 28, at 20-21 (citing Aycox v. Lytle, 196 F.3d 1174, 1177-78 (10th Cir.1999)). The district court then rejected this claim. We can assume, without deciding, that Mr. Brown presented his argument to the OCCA, because he loses on the merits in any event. In reaching our conclusion on the merits, however, we do not apply Aycox as the district court did. In Aycox, this court concluded that when a state court issues a summary decision which does not articulate a reasoned application of federal law to determined facts, we should defer to the state court's result even if its reasoning is not expressly stated. 196 F.3d at 1177 (emphasis in original). The district court seems to have applied this standard, noting that, after its independent review of the record and federal law, it would determine whether the OCCA's denial of relief was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. However, we hold this case distinguishable from Aycox. Here, rather than issuing a summary decision that resolved all of the petitioner's claims, the OCCA only addressed one of Mr. Brown's two distinct Beck arguments. The entirety of the OCCA's analysis indicates that it read proposition nine of Mr. Brown's brief as challenging only the refusal to instruct on second degree felony murder. Accordingly, our review of the unaddressed Beck challenge is governed by the standard of review explained in Harris v. Poppell, 411 F.3d 1189, 1196 (10th Cir.2005): If the state court did not decide Mr. Harris's federal claim on the merits, and the claim is not otherwise procedurally barred, we address the claim de novo and AEDPA deference does not apply.  (emphasis supplied). As we have noted, under Beck, Mr. Brown was entitled to an instruction on a lesser included non-capital offense if the evidence would have supported a verdict of guilty as to that lesser offense. 447 U.S. at 635, 100 S.Ct. 2382. We must look to Oklahoma law to determine what constitutes a lesser included offense. See Walker v. Attorney Gen. for State of Okla., 167 F.3d 1339, 1349 (10th Cir.1999). (stating that, under Beck, [a] capital defendant is constitutionally entitled to instructions on offenses that state law recognizes as lesser included offenses of the charged crime . . . when such instructions are supported by the evidence) (emphasis added). Although Mr. Brown argues that second degree murder by imminently dangerous conduct is a lesser included offense of first degree felony murder, we conclude that the identification of lesser included offenses is not without difficulty. The OCCA initially applied a strict statutory elements approach which required all of the elements of the lesser included offense to be contained in the greater offense so that it would be impossible to commit the greater offense without also committing the lesser. Shrum v. State, 991 P.2d 1032, 1035 (Okla.Crim.App.1999); see, e.g., Jennings v. State, 643 P.2d 643, 645 (Okl. Crim.App.1982) (stating that [t]he elements of a lesser included offense must necessarily be included in the offense charged). The OCCA later applied looser variations of the elements test, which fell into three categories: the pleadings approach, the evidence approach and a hybrid of the pleadings and evidence approach. Shrum, 991 P.2d at 1035. However, post-Shrum, the OCCA applies only the very flexible evidence test, which considers not only the elements but looks to the crimes the trial evidence tends to prove. Shrum, 991 P.2d at 1036. Because the required application of the evidence test is prospective only to those cases on pending on direct review, Mr. Brown was not entitled to the Shrum evidence test. But, because the trial court may very well have applied it, we consider its relevance here. [T]he proper test of sufficient evidence for instructions on a lesser included offense is whether prima facie evidence of the lesser offense has been presented. Ball v. State, 173 P.3d 81, ¶ 32 (Okla.Crim. App.2007). Under the evidence test, the court considers whether the evidence might allow the jury to acquit the defendant of the greater offense and convict him of the lesser. Jackson v. State, 146 P.3d 1149, 1159 (Okla.Crim.App.2006); Frederick v. State, 37 P.3d 908, 945 (Okla.Crim. App.2001) (quoting Beck, 447 U.S. at 635, 100 S.Ct. 2382 (In the federal courts, it has long been beyond dispute that the defendant is entitled to an instruction on a lesser included offense if the evidence would permit a jury rationally to find him guilty of the lesser offense and acquit him of the greater.)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under the Oklahoma felony murder statute, the death may occur regardless of malice, OKLA. STAT. tit. 21, § 701.7(B), and, as a result, felony murder is a general intent crime. Pickens v. State, 19 P.3d 866, 879 (Okla.Crim.App. 2001) (stating that [f]elony murder, with robbery with a dangerous weapon as the underlying predicate crime, is a general intent crime.). Thus, [t]he defendant's state of mind with respect to the death is irrelevant. Franks v. Alford, 820 F.2d 345, 347 (10th Cir.1987). In contrast, the second degree murder [offense] at issue requires `an act imminently dangerous to another person and evincing a depraved mind. Id. (quoting OKLA. STAT. tit. 21, § 701.8(1)). Thus, depraved mind murder requires proof of a mental state that felony murder does not. Id. Here, the jury found Mr. Brown guilty of robbery with a dangerous weapon. Because felony murder requires no evidence of an intent to cause the death of a victim, we hold that, in this case, instructing the jury on second degree imminent danger/depraved mind murder would not have allowed the jury to acquit Mr. Brown of the greater offense (first degree felony murder) by finding him guilty of the lesser one. Cf. Jackson, 146 P.3d at 1159 (applying Shrum ). We therefore conclude that the trial court did not err in refusing to instruct the jury on imminent danger/depraved mind second-degree murder, and that Mr. Brown is not entitled to habeas relief on this claim.