Opinion ID: 2960711
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Attempted to cause the death of a Bismarck Police Officer under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.

Text: The jury found Keller guilty of attempted murder. On the verdict form for the attempted murder charge, the jury solely wrote that it found Keller guilty of attempted murder, without specifying which type of murder it found. Unlike Dominguez , here, the jury instruction for the attempted murder under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life contains intentional language. Specifically, it provides Keller “ [a]ttempted to cause the death of a Bismarck Police Officer under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of life.” In Dominguez , the relevant jury instruction provided that if acting “willfully under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life,” that person “intentionally engaged in conduct which constituted a substantial step towards causing the death of another human being.” Id. at ¶ 24. Attempting to cause the death of someone significantly differs from intentionally engaging in conduct which constitutes a step towards causing the death of another human being. Attempting to cause the death of someone amounts to intentional attempted murder. Because both of the attempted murder instruction options for the jury required it to find Keller intentionally attempted to murder a police officer, it is not possible the jury found Keller guilty of the incognizable offense of attempted murder under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life. Accordingly, as to the attempted murder conviction, we conclude Keller has not established part one of the two-part analysis under N.D.C.C. § 29-32.1-01(3)(a)(3) — the existence of a new interpretation of statutory law that is applicable to his case and falls within an exception to the two-year statute of limitations for filing a post-conviction relief application.