Court Opinion

ID: 9580143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:02:16.347879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:03.910259
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, Justice
(concurring in the result):
Although I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion, I believe that its analysis of the unanimity rule is insufficient and possibly misleading. Therefore, I write separately to explain what I believe to be the appropriate context of the unanimity rule analysis in second degree murder cases in Utah.
Under the ■ Utah Constitution and the Utah Code, a unanimous jury verdict is required in all criminal cases.1 Utah Const. art. I, § 10; U.C.A., 1953, § 77-35-21(b). Moreover, the State must prove each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. U.C.A., 1953, § 76-1-501. The words “element of the offense” mean:
(a) The conduct, attendant circumstances, or results of conduct proscribed, prohibited, or forbidden in the definition of the offense;
(b) The culpable mental state required.

Id.

Although this Court has never established a requirement that a trial court give a unanimity instruction when a defendant could be convicted of a crime under alternate theories, several early Utah cases discussed the problem. In State v. Rasmussen, 92 Utah 357, 68 P.2d 176 (1937), the State charged the defendant with involuntary manslaughter; in the information, it alleged several acts constituting reckless driving, any one of which would have supported a conviction on the offense charged. The jury was instructed that in order to convict the defendant, it had to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he had committed “one or more of the acts” alleged in the information. The plurality opinion found that this instruction constituted prejudicial error because it permitted “each juror to choose any one or more of the five separate unlawful acts ... which, if the minds of the jurors could be screened, might disclose at least five separate verdicts upon five separate and distinct grounds.” 92 Utah at 371, 68 P.2d at 182-83. A majority of the Court, however, disagreed with this assessment of prejudicial error. Three justices writing separately found that the instructions given did not prejudice the defendant because they essentially required jury unanimity on “one or more” of the acts alleged in the information.
In State v. Roedl, 107 Utah 538, 155 P.2d 741 (1945), the defendant challenged the trial court’s instruction on felony-murder in a case in which the information charged him only with “willful, deliberate, mali*176cious, unlawful and premeditated killing,” but the jury was also instructed on felony murder based on robbery. 107 Utah at 550, 155 P.2d at 747. The Court cited Rasmussen (inaccurately) as
[holding that] ... in a prosecution for involuntary manslaughter wherein several ... acts . -.. were alleged to have been committed resulting in death, the jury must unanimously agree on one or more of the specified unlawful acts and they may not combine their conclusions on different specified acts so as to converge on an ultimate verdict of guilty.
107 Utah at 551, 155 P.2d at 747. Roedl, however, found no error in that case because the overwhelming evidence supported the finding of an intentional killing, and the Court was “convinced from a reading of the record that the jury could only have agreed upon the premeditated killing.... ” Id. at 552-53, 155 P.2d at 747-48. In other words, the evidence of robbery and the instruction thereon were determined by the Court to be merely “incidental” and not prejudicial to the defendant’s right to jury unanimity on the elements of the crime charged.
In State v. Bleazard, 103 Utah 113, 133 P.2d 1000 (1943), and in State v. Thompson, 110 Utah 113, 170 P.2d 153 (1946), the Court again considered arguments concerning the trial court’s claimed failure to give a sufficiently specific unanimity instruction. In both cases, however, the Court found that the instructions given in fact required jury unanimity on one of the acts underlying the conviction of the offense charged; therefore, the Court did not separately treat the issue of whether such instructions were generally required. Bleazard, 103 Utah at 118-19, 133 P.2d at 1002-03; Thompson, 110 Utah at 119-21, 170 P.2d at 156-57.2
The cases cited above indicate that a unanimity requirement is not an aberration in Utah jury instructions and in fact has been upheld when used. Thus, instructions requiring unanimity, although not universally required, have been an accepted practice in this state. Furthermore, the implication from the careful consideration of the issue by the Court in the foregoing cases is that jury unanimity on the elements of an offense is an important safeguard in criminal proceedings.
Cases from other jurisdictions have developed principles establishing specific exceptions to the general requirement of jury unanimity. Those exceptions may be summarized as follows: (1) a single crime has been charged, even though it may be committed in alternative ways or by alternative but related acts, (2) those acts are not substantially distinct from each other in terms of either their legal, factual, or conceptual content, and (3) the State has presented substantial evidence supporting each alternative mode of commission of the crime.
The foregoing three exceptions to the unanimity rule have their origins in three seminal cases. In the first, People v. Sullivan, 173 N.Y. 122, 65 N.E. 989 (1903), the court concluded that unanimity was not required when a single crime was charged. Sullivan has been applied most frequently in cases involving questions of variable intent, or mens rea, underlying a single crime. In the second, United States v. Gipson, 553 F.2d 453 (5th Cir.1977), the court of appeals reversed a conviction because the trial court’s instructions permitted the jury to convict the defendant without reaching agreement on what act or group of acts the defendant had committed. The court of appeals held that the jury must substantially agree on “just what the defendant did,” id. at 457, because when “conceptually distinct” alternatives for the actus reus of a crime are charged, the jury must be unanimous on at least one of the alternatives before returning a guilty verdict. (In this regard, Gipson seems to be consistent with the early Utah cases discussed above.) See also Case Comment, *177Right to Jury Unanimity on Material Fact Issues: United States v. Gipson, 91 Harv.L.Rev. 499 (1977).3
Finally, the third exception to the unanimity rule, which requires that the State produce substantial evidence on each supporting alternative method of committing a crime, has its origin in the case of State v. Arndt, 12 Wash.App. 248, 529 P.2d 887 (1974), aff'd, 87 Wash.2d 374, 553 P.2d 1328 (1976). In Arndt, the court said, “If substantial evidence is presented to support each alternative method of committing a single crime, and the alternatives are not repugnant to each other, then unanimity of the jury as to the mode of the commission is not required.” 529 P.2d at 889. See State v. Benite, 6 Conn.App. 667, 507 A.2d 478, 483 (1986).
Thus, before the unanimity rule may be dispensed with, courts must undertake a three-part analysis. The first inquiry is whether the statute defines a single offense that may be committed in more than one way or instead defines multiple offenses. See Sullivan, 173 N.Y. 122, 65 N.E. 989 (1903). When a single offense is defined, the next step is to determine if the alternative modes of commission are separate and distinct from each other in terms of their legal, factual, or conceptual content. This analysis will often focus on whether the modes of commission depend merely on alternative mental states (as, for example in this case, where the jury was required to compare the statutory alternative of “intent to cause serious bodily injury combined with commission of an act clearly dangerous to human life” with “conduct creating grave risk of death combined with evidence of depraved indifference to human life”). On occasion, however, statutes may also refer to actions, as opposed to mental states, which are also virtually indistinguishable in terms of their legal import, although factually distinct. An example is U.C.A., 1953, § 76-6-302, which includes in the definition of aggravated robbery the use of “a firearm or a facsimile of a firearm, knife or a facsimile of a knife or a deadly weapon.” Just as no purpose would be served by requiring juries to be unanimous on alternative mental states, any of which can legitimately be inferred from the same facts, and any of which is sufficient to support a conviction for a single offense. It would be insignificant in an aggravated robbery case whether individual jurors unanimously decided that a firearm used in a robbery was “real” or a “facsimile” in order for them to convict.
Once it has been determined that a single crime has been charged and that the alternative methods of committing it do not contain meaningful differences in their legal or factual content, one further inquiry must be made before a unanimous verdict on the alternatives may be dispensed with. That inquiry is whether there is factual support in the evidence for a conviction under all of the alternatives charged. See Arndt, 12 Wash.App. 248, 529 P.2d 887 (1974). The majority suggests that this analysis is the only one which need be undertaken, asserting:
The decisions are virtually unanimous that a defendant is not entitled to a unanimous verdict on the precise manner in which the crime was committed, or by which of several alternative methods or modes, or under which interpretation of the evidence so long as there is substantial evidence to support each of the methods, modes, or manners charged.
*178This approach is inadequate and ignores the other necessary questions: first, whether the crime charged is a single offense that can be committed in more than one way or, instead, multiple offenses; second, if a single offense is charged, whether the alternative methods of commission are significantly distinct from one another in terms of their legal or factual content; and third, whether there is evidence on each of the alternatives. I agree that the three sections of Utah’s second degree murder statute, under which the defendant in this case was charged, define a single offense that may be committed in three separate ways. I further agree that the three alternatives are not meaningfully distinct from one another because they merely address different forms of mens rea, any or all of which could properly be inferred from the evidence and any or all of which are proper predicates for guilt of the offense charged. Finally, I agree that there was adequate evidence to permit conviction based on any of the three alternative mental states at the time of the killing. Therefore, I concur in the majority’s result, and only object to the overly broad scope of the opinion and its failure to refine adequately the standards for appropriate application of the unanimity rule in other cases..
ZIMMERMAN, J., concurs in the result.

. For an excellent discussion of jury unanimity see Trubitt, Patchwork Verdicts, Different-Jurors Verdicts, and American Jury Theory: Whether Verdicts are Invalidated by Juror Disagreement on Issues, 36 Okla.L.Rev. 473 (1983).

. In Thompson, the Court questioned the construction given Rasmussen in the Roedl decision. Thompson, 110 Utah at 118-19, 170 P.2d at 156. The Thompson decision did not, however, treat the issue of mandatory instructions requiring jury unanimity because it found that the instruction given in that case required unanimity.

. Despite the broad holding in Gipson, that decision has not led to a wholesale reversal of convictions in subsequent cases. Rather, when alternative acts are alleged, the courts have sometimes identified a legislative intent to define an "umbrella” act that is the target of the offense. See, e.g., State v. Bratthauer, 354 N.W.2d 774 (Iowa 1984) (holding driving under the influence of alcohol and driving with blood alcohol level of .10 percent are consistent alternative ways to commit the crime of driving a motor vehicle while intoxicated, id. at 777); accord State v. Franco, 96 Wash.2d 816, 639 P.2d 1320 (1982); Manson v. State, 101 Wis.2d 413, 304 N.W.2d 729 (1981) (treating "use of force” and "imminent use of force” in the Wisconsin Armed Robbery Statute as not conceptually distinct alternatives because the two acts were "practically indistinguishable,” id., 304 N.W.2d at 737); Holland v. State, 91 Wis.2d 134, 280 N.W.2d 288 (1979) (holding that unanimity as to the precise manner of participation in the crime, i.e., directly committing the crime, aiding and abetting, or conspiracy, was hot necessary).