Court Opinion

ID: 9781722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:17:25.567662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:34.676446
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
concurring: I agree with the majority’s result, including its determination that a lesser included offense instruction on aggravated battery should not have been given in this case. I write separately only to document that I have misgivings about the court-made rule governing lesser included offense instructions in felony-murder cases, i.e., the giving of lesser included offense instructions is driven in the first instance by the relative strength of the evidence of the underlying felony.
The general rule is that a criminal defendant is entitled to an instruction on all lesser included offenses which are supported by trial evidence. State v. Simmons, 282 Kan. 728, 741-42, 148 P.3d 525 (2006). Indeed, we have said such instructions should be given even though the evidence of the lesser included offense is weak, inconclusive, and consists solely of the defendant’s testimony. State v. Hunt, 270 Kan. 203, 208, 14 P.3d 430 (2000). The felony-murder rule turns the analysis on its head by focusing on the evidentiary support for the charged crime, rather than looking at the evidence to support the lesser included crime.
This court has explained that the reason for the exceptional rule in felony-murder cases is that “ ‘[a] defendant’s commission of the underlying felony supplies elements which must be absent from the lesser degrees of homicide, and a jury should be instructed only on lesser offenses of which the defendant reasonably may be convicted.’ State v. Altum, 262 Kan. 733, 738, 941 P.2d 1348 (1997).” State v. Edgar, 281 Kan. 47, 57, 127 P.3d 1016 (2006). To me, that rationale would support the notion that lesser degrees of homicide or other intentional crimes against persons simply are not lesser included offenses of the unique crime of felony murder. It does not lead me to the extraordinary rule focusing on the strength of the evidentiary support for the underlying felony.