Court Opinion

ID: 9725403
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:45:46.077929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:14.895181
License: Public Domain

GARRARD, Judge,
dissenting.
I must dissent to the majority's decision on issue I and the trial court's refusal to give Lynch's tendered instruction on involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense.
As noted by the majority, we apply a two step analysis in determining the necessity of giving an instruction on a lesser offense.
In the first step the court determines whether the lesser offense in question is properly includible. If it is not, the inquiry ends and the instruction may properly be refused. Lawrence v. State (1978), 268 Ind. 380, 375 N.E.2d 208.
If the lesser offense is includible, the court proceeds to the second step. It then determines whether under the evidence introduced at trial the jury might rationally determine that the lesser offense was committed but that the greater offense was not. Hooper v. State (19883), Ind., 448 N.E.2d 822. Thus, the emphasis in this inquiry is upon the element which distinguishes the greater from the lesser offense. Where the existence of that element could not be rationally disputed, the court may, again, properly refuse the instruction. Jones v. State (1982), Ind., 488 N.E.2d 972.
Returning to a consideration of the first step, lesser offenses are includible if they are either inherently included offenses or possibly included offenses and the factual allegations of the indictment or information charge all the elements of the lesser offense. See, eg., Leon v. State (1988), Ind., 525 N.E.2d 831; Jones, supra.
While Jones v. State as cited by the majority contained the observation that through careful drafting of the information the state could foreclose the defendant from securing instructions on lesser offenses, the statement must be taken as no more than the corollary of the proposition that by including certain factual allegations the state can make some lesser offenses includible within the charge.
*62For instance, the prosecutor cannot through careful drafting foreclose a defendant concerning an inherently included offense. That is so because by definition any information adequately charging the greater offense necessarily charges the lesser.
In the case of Lynch the information clearly charged the lesser offense of involuntary manslaughter since it charged that he shot the victim (a battery) thereby causing his death. See IC 85-42-1-4.
Thus, our inquiry should shift to the second step. Was there evidence from which the jury might rationally have determined that Lynch committed involuntary manslaughter rather than murder?
It appears to me that there was sufficient evidence that Lynch was entitled to have the jury determine the question. Lynch testified to an intention to cause his father to be hospitalized because he felt that they might resolve problems between them. There was evidence of Lynch's mental instability. The evidence also established that the gunshot wound first struck the victim's arm before entering his chest.
Certainly the evidence before us is sufficient to sustain a conviction for murder. That, however, is not the point. There was a basis under the evidence for Lynch's requested instruction on involuntary manslaughter. They should have had the opportunity to consider that offense. As the Court stated in Keeble v. United States (19783), 412 U.S. 205, 98 S.Ct. 1998, 86 LEd.2d 844, providing the jury with the third option of considering a lesser offense helps to insure that it will accord a defendant the full benefit of the reasonable doubt standard.
I would therefore reverse and order a new trial.