Opinion ID: 2612553
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: does self-defense negate one or more elements of murder?

Text: [8] The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 25 L.Ed.2d 368, 90 S.Ct. 1068 (1970). The United States Supreme Court's opinion in Mullaney v. Wilbur, supra at 698, makes it quite clear that its holding in Winship is not limited to a state's definition of the elements of a crime. Otherwise, [i]t would only be necessary to redefine the elements that constitute different crimes in order to avoid the requirements of Winship. Therefore, in order to determine which facts the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, it is necessary to analyze each element of the particular crime charged. Hanton, at 132. RCW 9A.32.030(1)(a) states, in pertinent part: (1) A person is guilty of murder in the first degree when: (a) With a premeditated intent to cause the death of another person, he causes the death of such person or of a third person ... Since intent is expressly made an element of the crime of first degree murder, the prosecution must prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Hanton, supra ; State v. Roberts, supra . The statute provides: (a) Intent. A person acts with intent or intentionally when he acts with the objective or purpose to accomplish a result which constitutes a crime. (Italics ours.) RCW 9A.08.010(1)(a). Self-defense is explicitly made a lawful act by at least two provisions of the criminal code. First, homicide is justifiable when committed either: (1) In the lawful defense of the slayer, or his or her husband, wife, parent, child, brother, or sister, or of any other person in his presence or company, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design on the part of the person slain to commit a felony or to do some great personal injury to the slayer or to any such person, and there is imminent danger of such design being accomplished; or (2) In the actual resistance of an attempt to commit a felony upon the slayer, in his presence, or upon or in a dwelling, or other place of abode, in which he is. RCW 9A.16.050(1) and (2). Second, use of force is not unlawful when used by a party about to be injured ... in preventing or attempting to prevent an offense against his person. RCW 9A.16.020(3). [9, 10] A person acting in self-defense cannot be acting intentionally as that term is defined in RCW 9A.08.010(1)(a). There can be no intent to kill within the first degree murder statute unless a defendant kills unlawfully, i.e., with the objective or purpose to accomplish a result which constitutes a crime. RCW 9A.08.010(1)(a). Since self-defense is explicitly made a lawful act under Washington law, see RCW 9A.16.020(3), RCW 9A.16.050(1) and (2), State v. Hanton, supra at 133, it negates the element of unlawfulness contained within Washington's statutory definition of criminal intent. Unlike the situation in Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 206, 53 L.Ed.2d 281, 97 S.Ct. 2319 (1977), it is emphatically not plain enough that if the intentional killing is shown, the State intends to deal with the defendant as a murderer unless he demonstrates the mitigating circumstances  here, the absence of unlawfulness. Rather, it appears to us that unlawfulness  including the absence of self-defense  is an essential ingredient of the crime charged. Since proof of self-defense negates the element of intent in first degree murder, requiring an accused to prove self-defense places on him or her the burden of proving absence of an unlawful criminal intent. Such a result is proscribed by Winship, Mullaney, Roberts, and Hanton. Accordingly, we hold that in a first degree murder prosecution, the State must bear the burden of proving absence of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.