Court Opinion

ID: 9853567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:50:23.696813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:51.258525
License: Public Domain

Judge Webb
concurring in the result.
I concur in the result but I believe the defendant’s third assignment of error deserves some discussion. I believe our Supreme Court erred in State v. Greene, No. 254A85, filed 5 November 1985 and the defendant may want to petition the Supreme Court to hear this case and change their opinion in Greene.
When State v. Greene, 74 N.C. App. 21, 328 S.E. 2d 1 (1985) was filed by this Court there was a dissent in which it was said that involuntary manslaughter is not a lesser included offense of the other degrees of homicide and the defendant, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter on a murder indictment, had been convicted of a crime with which he was not charged. For that reason the dissenting judge said it was error to submit involuntary manslaughter to the jury and voted to arrest judgment. The dissenting judge said that involuntary manslaughter has as an element the commission of some unlawful or culpably negligent act which is not an element in murder. The Supreme Court rejected the reasoning of the dissent and held that involuntary manslaughter is a lesser included offense of murder. It said that neither the commission of an unlawful or culpably negligent act is an element of involuntary manslaughter and that murder contains all the elements of involuntary manslaughter.
I do not believe the reasoning of the Supreme Court can withstand a logical analysis. It defines involuntary manslaughter as “the unintentional killing of a human being without malice, proximately caused by (1) an unlawful act not amounting to a felony or not naturally dangerous to human life, or (2) a culpably negligent act or omission.” It then says, “If the State proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was caused either by an unlawful act not amounting to a felony or by culpably negligent conduct, it has proven that the killing was unlawful.” This should be a good example of the proof of an element of a crime. An element of a crime is something that must be proved in order to convict a defendant of the crime. Nevertheless the Supreme Court says in Greene that neither an unlawful act not amounting to a felony nor a culpably negligent act is an element of involuntary manslaughter “but are two methods of proving the essential element that the killing was unlawful.”
*747I believe this reasoning by the Supreme Court is inconsistent with the theory upon which essential elements of crimes are based. If it is necessary to prove something in order to convict a person of a crime that something is an essential element of the crime. If there is not some evidence of culpable negligence or an unlawful act not amounting to a felony it is error to submit involuntary manslaughter to the jury. State v. Ray, 299 N.C. 151, 261 S.E. 2d 789 (1980). This makes them essential elements of involuntary manslaughter.
The Supreme Court also said, “The single essential element common to all four degrees of homicide is that there be an unlawful killing of a human being.” If this is to be the law a new element has been added to homicide. A judge in this state has never been required to charge that a jury must find an unlawful killing in addition to the other elements in order to find a defendant guilty of any degree of homicide. The expression “unlawful killing” is simply a description of the homicides which are criminal and has never been considered an element of a crime.
I believe the defendant has the logic of the law on his side but we are bound by Greene to overrule this assignment of error.