Opinion ID: 2085062
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Scope of the Merger Doctrine in New York

Text: We developed and discussed our own distinctive brand of merger in several key cases decided in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when felony murder, even if unintentional, was punishable by death. In Buel v People (78 NY 492 [1879]), the defendant, who apparently strangled his victim while raping her, contended that the felony (the rape) merged with the homicide since violence was a requisite element of the rape; therefore, the defendant argued, the rape was not a separate and distinct offense from the killing and so the judge should not have instructed the jury on felony murder. [3] We disagreed: While force and violence constitute an important element of the crime of rape, they do not constitute the entire body of that offence. The unlawful or carnal knowledge is the essence of that crime; and without this, no matter what degree of force or violence may be employed, rape is not established ( id. at 497 [emphasis added]). The defendant in People v Huter (184 NY 237 [1906]), after fleeing from premises in which he had committed a burglary, shot and killed a police officer who was pursuing him. When the defendant was convicted of felony murder predicated on burglary, [4] we were asked to review. Concluding that the defendant had ceased to be engaged in the commission of a burglary at the time of the murder, we reversed the judgment and conviction. We then turned our attention to the much mooted question of whether the assault in which the defendant was engaged at the time of the killing merged into the homicide, a question that would doubtless come up upon retrial ( id. at 242-243). Citing Buel, we stated that [i]n order . . . to constitute [felony murder], . . . the violence may constitute a part of the homicide, yet the other elements constituting the felony in which [the defendant] is engaged must be so distinct from that of the homicide as not to be an ingredient of the homicide, indictable therewith or convictable thereunder ( Huter, 184 NY at 244 [emphasis added]). In People v Wagner (245 NY 143 [1927]), the proprietor of a boarding house detected a lodger acting suspiciously. When she confronted the lodger outside the bathroom on the boarding house's second floor, he suddenly struck her in the head with a blackjack. The proprietor cried out for help, and another occupant of the boarding house rushed to her assistance. The rescuer struck the defendant a blow, and the proprietor broke free and ran down the stairs and out the front door, shouting for help. She heard shots and ran back into the boarding house and upstairs, where she saw the defendant and her rescuer lying side by side on the floor. When the proprietor took off her shoe and began to beat the defendant about the head with it, he arose, struck her in the face and made his escape. Her rescuer died of gunshot wounds that the defendant had inflicted on him. The trial court, among other things, [5] charged the jury that defendant was guilty of felony murder [6] if he killed the victim while engaged in a felonious assault upon either the victim or the proprietor. Citing Huter, we held that the trial court erred in charging the jury regarding the assault on the victim, which was an ingredient of the resulting homicide and therefore not an independent crime. The error was harmless, though, because the homicide was committed when the felonious assault on the proprietor was still in progress, and this assault was an independent felony. Our decision in Wagner also relied on People v Patini (208 NY 176 [1913]), another case in which a Good Samaritan intervened in an assault on someone else only to lose his own life ( see also People v Giblin, 115 NY 196 [1889] [wife killed when she rushed into store to assist her husband, who was scuffling with gunman who had shot him in altercation over payment for purchases]). Patini, which involved a felonious assault upon the brother of the victim, was grounded at least in part on our interpretation of the word otherwise in section 1044 (2) of the former Penal Law to include[] a felony upon a person other than the one killed ( Patini, 208 NY at 178; see also People v Miles, 143 NY 383 [1894]). In People v Moran (246 NY 100 [1927]), the defendant, after he and his companions were halted by two policemen, drew a revolver and fired two shots at one officer and a third at the other, killing them both. The trial judge charged the jury upon the single theory of felony murder, which we held to be error in light of the merger doctrine. That is, if, as was charged, the defendant shot the second officer while trying to escape after having shot the first officer, then the first felonythe assault upon the first officerwas over, while the second felonya felonious assault upon the second officerwas not independent of the homicide, [i]t was the homicide itself ( id. at 103). With Chief Judge Cardozo speaking for a unanimous Court, we explained the purpose of the merger doctrine: Homicide is murder in the first degree when perpetrated with a deliberate and premeditated design to kill, or, without such design, while engaged in the commission of a felony. To make the quality of the intent indifferent, it is not enough to show that the homicide was felonious, or that there was a felonious assault which culminated in homicide. Such a holding would mean that every homicide, not justifiable or excusable, would occur in the commission of a felony, with the result that intent to kill and deliberation and premeditation would never be essential. The felony that eliminates the quality of the intent must be one that is independent of the homicide and of the assault merged therein, as, e.g., robbery or larceny or burglary or rape  ( id. at 102 [emphasis added and citations omitted]). In other words, the merger doctrine prevented prosecutors from using felony murder to sidestep proof of a culpable mental state in the majority of cases. Next, the jury in People v La Marca (3 NY2d 452 [1957]) convicted the defendant, who kidnapped a one-month-old infant later found dead in a wooded area, of kidnapping and of having killed the infant while engaged in the commission of the kidnapping. The defendant urged that the felony murder count should have been dismissed because the acts constituting the kidnapping merged into the homicide. In rejecting this argument, we first noted that while other jurisdictions limited felony murder to specified felonies, our Legislature had chosen a different path, decreeing a homicide to be a capital offense if perpetrated in the commission or attempted commission of any felony. As a result, [o]ne necessary qualification . . . engrafted by us on New York's felony murder rule was the merger doctrine; i.e., that the underlying felony must be independent of the homicide because otherwise, every homicide, not justifiable or excusable, would occur in the commission of a felonynamely, the assault which ended in deathwith the result that premeditation, deliberation and intent to kill would never have to be established ( id. at 465). We cited Huter, Wagner and Moran for this proposition. We reasoned in La Marca that the underlying felony of kidnapping was independent of the murder. Just as in Buel, while force and violence were an important element of the kidnapping, its essence was something altogether separate, i.e., [a] taking or detaining of the infant with intent to keep or conceal . . . or to extort . . . money ( La Marca, 3 NY2d at 466). To sum up, the merger doctrine developed as a limitation that we engrafted on felony murder in order to maintain distinctions between culpable mental states. This was necessary because the felony murder statutes at the time encompassed assault as a predicate crime, potentially converting every homicide into capital felony murder since assault is an ingredient of every homicide. We consistently declined to expand merger to crimes in addition to assault since the essence of crimes such as rape, kidnapping, robbery, larceny or burglary is independent of the homicide. [7] In several cases, we sustained a conviction for felony murder notwithstanding merger when the underlying assault was committed on someone other than the murder victim. This result, however, was premised at least in part on language (the word otherwise) appearing in both section 183 of the Penal Code and its successor provision, section 1044 (2) of the former Penal Law. Thus, the status of our merger jurisprudence in 1973 when we decided Miller.