Opinion ID: 2630333
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Adequacy of the Felony Murder Instruction

Text: {60} Defendant's first unpreserved complaint is that the district court did not adequately instruct the jury in the felony murder instruction that the predicate felony, kidnapping, had to have been committed under inherently dangerous circumstances. There are several reasons why we must reject this contention, and we need address only the two simplest ones to demonstrate that there was neither harm nor foul in the instructions. {61} The most obvious reason for finding no harm is that, despite the fact the jury found that Defendant committed the elements of felony murder in addition to those of willful and deliberate murder, his single conviction and sentence for first-degree murder was necessarily based on the latter alternative theory, as we previously discussed in Section II.B of this opinion. He was neither convicted nor sentenced for felony murder; therefore, there would be no felony murder conviction for us to reverse, even if there had been a fatal flaw in the felony murder instructions. {62} The clearest reason for finding no foul is that the felony murder instruction did not contain reversible error. In State v. Harrison, we held that there were different ways in which the requirement of an inherently dangerous predicate felony for felony murder could be established. 90 N.M. 439, 442, 564 P.2d 1321, 1324 (1977), superseded by rule on other grounds as stated in Tafoya v. Baca, 103 N.M. 56, 60, 702 P.2d 1001, 1005 (1985). It can be established either by showing that the underlying felony was a first-degree felony, as was the first-degree kidnapping in this case, or by showing that the underlying felony was otherwise inherently dangerous. See Frazier, 2007-NMSC-032, ¶ 8 (In Harrison, we held that only a first-degree felony or an inherently dangerous felony committed under inherently dangerous circumstances could support a felony murder charge.). Even if the jury in this case had not been told that they had to find the kidnapping was done under inherently dangerous circumstances, it was sufficient that they were told they had to find Defendant had committed the killing in the commission of first-degree kidnapping and were given the required elements instructions for that offense. Because Defendant was charged with, received proper instructions concerning, and was found guilty of the first-degree predicate felony, first-degree kidnapping, the instructions would have been sufficient even if we had a conviction and sentence for felony murder before us.