Court Opinion

ID: 9672456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:55:27.49508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:16.329494
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring in result.
I concur in the result reached by the majority. In retrospect the instruction which Skjonsby’s trial counsel requested on voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense to murder as a result of Skjons-by’s “extreme emotional disturbance” may have been justified. In State v. Skjonsby, 319 N.W.2d 764 (N.D.1982), we appeared to conclude that because such a defense was inconsistent with his contention that his actions were in self-defense or accidental, no such instruction was warranted. That conclusion is apparently contrary to established law in North Dakota, although in State v. Thiel, 411 N.W.2d 66 (N.D.1987), a majority of the court attempted to distinguish the decision in Skjonsby from prior decisions such as State v. Hazlett, 16 N.D. 426, 113 N.W. 374 (1907), which held that a defendant is entitled to an instruction on all defenses of which there is any support in the evidence, whether such defenses are consistent or inconsistent. I write specially because I am concerned that despite the attempt in Thiel to reconcile our decision in Skjonsby, the latter decision may nevertheless be read to mean that inconsistent defenses are not permissible or that substantial evidence must exist before an instruction on an inconsistent defense is warranted. Skjonsby may appear to have imposed too strict requirements for such an instruction.
That issue is not, however, before us in this instance. Rather, Skjonsby argues that others, including his trial counsel, invented the self-defense theory and forced him to participate, and that his counsel should have realized that the self-defense theory was a fabrication which should have led to further investigations which would have demonstrated the falsity of that theory-
In addition to what is said in the majority opinion, it is obvious that trial counsel, if he *831invented the self-defense theory, would not have requested the trial court for an instruction on voluntary manslaughter as a result of the several factors he therein asserted to establish extreme emotional disturbance. State v. Skjonsby, supra, at 779. Rather, it is likely that the trial counsel, faced with a client who insisted the action was in self-defense or an accident, nevertheless recognized that a voluntary manslaughter defense was more appropriate and requested such an instruction from the trial court. Although the requested instruction was denied, the responsibility is not his trial counsel’s but, as the lower court concluded and the majority recognizes, was that of Skjonsby, who “was a willing and knowing participant in the fabrication and perjurious presentation of the self-defense theory, ...” It may be that the defense should have been that a crime, if one was committed, was only that of voluntary manslaughter as a result of “extreme emotional disturbance.” The failure to defend solely on that rationale is, however, the responsibility of Skjonsby, not his trial counsel.