Court Opinion

ID: 9764749
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:38:40.109515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:01.340179
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because I belive that “second degree murder” remains as an included offense under a charge predicated on the new “first degree murder” statute, § 559.007, RSMo Supp.1975 (now revised in § 565.003, RSMo Supp.1977).
The forerunner of said statute was § 559.010, RSMo 1969, wherein first degree murder was defined; and, as all agree, it defined in the one statutory provision both “conventional” first degree murder and “felony” first degree murder. In 1977, as discussed in the majority opinion, the two “crimes” were separated, in the statutory scheme with the former being in § 565.001 (identified as capital murder) and the latter in § 565.003 (identified as first degree murder). Based thereon, the majority opinion declares that: “. . . a distinct new crime of ‘first degree murder’ was created . .” I disagree. It was, and remains, a crime of “felony” first degree murder bottomed on the long accepted premise that proof of participation in one of the listed “underlying” felonies provides proof of the required felonious mental state.
Nothing would be gained by quoting from State v. Williams, 529 S.W.2d 883 (Mo. banc 1975), a representative case, wherein the question was discussed extensively and resolved consistent with this dissent. I concurred therein and now find nothing in any *472of the statutory amendments, be they merely re-numbering or otherwise, which necessitate changing the law of this state as delineated therein.