Court Opinion

ID: 9736692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:02:50.736794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:08.124909
License: Public Domain

BAKER, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur with the majority in all respects except one: whether Williams's robbery conviction must be reduced to a class C felony. I agree with the majority that convicting Williams of attempted murder and robbery as a class A felony violates constitutional protections against double jeopardy. However, the jury could have convicted Williams of robbery, as a class B felony, and attempted murder without violating his double jeopardy protections. First, the factual allegations in the charging information were sufficient to put Williams on notice to defend against the charge of robbery as a class B felony. The information charged that Williams knowingly took property from Teresa, by using force on her, "by striking her in the back of the head with a metal projectile or projectiles." Second, the jury was instructed that it could convict Williams of robbery as a class B felony.
In Hampton v. State, our supreme court reduced the defendant's conviction for robbery from a class A felony to a class C felony. 719 N.E.2d 803, 809 (Ind.1999). It found that Hampton's murder and class-A-felony robbery convictions were based on the same bodily injury to the victim. Id. at 808. The supreme court did not reduce the robbery conviction to a class B felony because robbery as a class B felony was not charged by the State and is not an inherently lesser-included offense of class-A-felony robbery. Id. at 809 n. 1 (citing Kingery v. State, 659 N.E.2d 490, 495 (Ind.1995)).
In the instant case, the charging information did not specifically cite robbery as a class B felony. But this does not end the inquiry. According to our supreme court, Indiana law recognizes two types of included offenses. First, an inherently included offense is one that a criminal necessarily commits, by statutory definition, in the course of committing a greater offense. Smith v. State, 445 N.E.2d 998, 999 (Ind.1983). Second, the factual allegations of a charging information-absent the statutory defimtion-may support a conviction *1071for a lesser-included offense. Maynard v. State, 490 N.E.2d 762, 763 (Ind.1986).
In Maynard, the State charged the defendant with inflicting physical injury while in commission of a robbery. Quoting the charging information, our supreme court presented the factual allegations that the defendant:
did ... by violence and putting [the victim] in fear, take from [the victim] . personal property ... and, while engaged in committing the robbery aforesaid, did then and there unlawfully and feloniously inflict a physical injury, ... by striking [the victim] with a Tire Iron[.]
490 N.E.2d at 763 (alterations and omissions in original). After trial, the defendant was convicted of robbery while armed with a deadly weapon. Maynard argued that his conviction for robbery while armed with a deadly weapon was not a lesser-included offense of inflicting physical injury while in
commission of a robbery. Our supreme court reasoned that, although the charging information did not recite the statutory definition "armed with a deadly weapon," the word "tire fron" was sufficient to put defendant on notice of the charge. Id. at 764.
The same result obtains here. As the majority correctly notes, class-B-felony robbery is not by statutory definition a lesser-included offense of class-A-felony robbery. However, the charging information contained facts that put Williams on notice of a potential class-B-felony robbery conviction. The information charged that Williams knowingly took property from Teresa, by using force on her, "by striking her in the back of the head with a metal projectile or projectiles." From these factual allegations, the jury could have convicted Williams of taking property from his victim by use of foree while armed with a deadly weapon.
Likewise, the jury instructions were sufficient to convict Williams of class-B-felony robbery. In Kingery v. State, our supreme court reduced the defendant's robbery conviction from a class A felony to a class C felony. 659 N.E.2d 490 (Ind.1995). Our supreme court noted that Kingery could have been convicted of class B felony robbery had the jury been provided an instruction for class-B-felony robbery. Id. at 496. Double jeopardy did not prohibit Kingery's conviction of robbery as a class B felony-while armed with a deadly weapon-even though he was convicted of robbing and murdering the same victim. Id.
In the instant case, the jury was provided an instruction on convicting Williams of class-B-felony robbery:
If the State further proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime while armed with a deadly weapon or the crime resulted in bodily injury to any person other than the defendant, you should find the defendant guilty of robbery, a Class B felony.
R. at 182. Because Williams was armed with a deadly weapon, double jeopardy protections do not prohibit convicting Williams of class-B-felony robbery and attempted murder. Therefore, I vote to remand the cause to reduce the robbery conviction from a class-A to a class-B-felony conviction and for appropriate re-sentencing.