Court Opinion

ID: 9528163
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:37:51.651946+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:19:56.083445
License: Public Domain

HALL, Justice:
(dissenting).
Jury instructions are to be considered and construed as a whole and reconciled whenever possible;1 conversely, they are not to be considered in isolation in order to predicate a claim of error.2 In the instant case, the court specifically instructed the jury (Instruction No. 22) to consider and construe the instructions as one connected whole. It is presumed that the jury read and followed all of the court’s instructions.3
In determining the sufficiency of instructions, each must be considered in conjunction will all of the others, and when taken as a whole they fairly tender the case to the jury, the fact that one or more instructions, standing alone, are not as full or as accurate as they might have been, it is not reversible error.4
When viewed in the light of the foregoing principles, the instructions given in this case adequately advised the jury as to the applicable law and thereby furnished a sufficient framework from which the defendant could argue his theory of intoxication and its effect upon his requisite criminal intent.5
Defendant focuses his challenge upon three of the court’s instructions, they being Nos. 6, 7 and 8. However, those instructions are to be viewed in light of all of the others, and particularly Nos. 3, 4 and 5 which appropriately define the respective offenses charged and set forth the essential elements of each.
Instruction No. 3 defines the offense of aggravated robbery:
... the unlawful and intentional taking of personal property from the possession of another ... [Emphasis added.]
and lists the essential elements thereof as:
1. That the defendant on or about February 22, 1978 unlawfully and intentionally took personal property from the possession of Von W. Johnston.
2. That said taking from Mr. Johnston was from his person or immediate presence.
3. That the act of taking was accomplished by means of force or fear.
4. That in the course of the taking that the defendant used a firearm.
Instruction No. 4 defines the offense of failure to stop a vehicle at the command of a police officer as:
.. . being any driver who, having received a visual or audible signal from a police officer to bring his vechile [sic] to a stop, operates his vehicle in willful or wanton disregard of such signal so as to interfere with or endanger the operation of the police vehicle or any other vehicle or who increases his speed and attempts to flee or elude the police is guilty of said crime.... [Emphasis added.]
and lists the essential elements thereof as:
1. That the defendant, while driving an automobile, received a visual or audi*82ble signal from a police officer to.bring his vehicle to a stop.
2. That the defendant continued to operate his vehicle in willful or wanton disregard of such signal.
3. That at the time the defendant interfered with or endangered the operation of the police vehicle or any other vehicle or increased his speed and attempted to flee or elude the police. [Emphasis added.]
Instruction No. 5 defines the offense of aggravated assault as:
... an attempt with unlawful force or violence to do bodily injury to another and when the actor, during the course of the attempt, uses a deadly weapon or such means or force likely to produce death or serious bodily injury....
and lists the essential elements thereof as:
1. That the defendant on or about the 22nd of February, 1978, attempted, with unlawful force or violence, to do bodily injury to Norman Vuksinick.
2. That during said attempt he used a deadly weapon or such means or force likely to produce death of serious injury to the said Norman Vuksinick.
Included in each of the foregoing instructions was the further admonition:
... If, however, the State has failed to prove to your satisfaction beyond a reasonable doubt [the elements of the offenses charged] ... or if you entertain a reasonable doubt, then it is your duty to acquit the defendant....
Instruction No. 6 advised the jury:
No person is guilty of an offense unless his conduct is prohibited by law and he acts intentionally or knowingly with respect to each element of the offense as defined for you by these instructions. It does not require a specific intent to violate the law but merely an intent to engage in the acts or conduct that constitute the elements of the offense.
Therefore, if you find that the mental condition of the defendant at the times of the alleged offenses was such that he did not have the intent as that term has been defined for you in these instructions to perform the acts or conduct required for the commission of the offense charged, or if you entertain a reasonable doubt thereof, then you should find the defendant not guilty of the crimes charged. [Emphasis added.]
Instruction No. 7 defines “intentionally” and reads as follows:
You are instructed that a person engages in conduct intentionally with respect to the nature of his conduct or to a result of his conduct when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result. [Emphasis added.]
Although the term “willful” was not defined in the instructions, it is a word commonly understood as being done of one’s free will.6
When read together, and in context, the foregoing Instructions 6 and 7 properly state the law of specific intent crimes as set forth in the Criminal Code7 wherein “intentionally” is defined as:
A person engages in conduct intentionally, or with intent or willfully with respect to the nature of his conduct or to a result of his conduct, when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result.8
Instruction No. 8 reads as follows:
Our law provides that “no act committed by a person while in a state of voluntary intoxication is less criminal by reason of his having been in such condition.” This means that such a condition, if shown by the evidence to have existed in the defendant at the time when allegedly he committed the crime charged, is not of itself a defense. It may throw light on the occurrence and aid you in determining what took place; but when a person *83in a state of intoxication, voluntarily produced in himself, commits a crime, the law does not permit him to use his own vice as a shelter against the normal, legal consequences of his conduct.
However, when the existence of any particular motive, purpose or intent is a necessary element to constitute a particular kind or degree of crime the jury, in determining whether or not such motive, purpose or intent existed in the mind of the accused, must take into consideration the evidence offered to prove that the accused was intoxicated at the time when the crime allegedly was committed.
This fact requires an inquiry into the state of mind under which the defendant committed the act charged, if he did commit it. In pursuing that inquiry, it is proper to consider whether he was intoxicated at the time of the alleged offense. The weight to be given the evidence on that question and the significance to attach to it, in relation to all the other evidence, are exclusively within your province. [Emphasis added.]
The foregoing instruction correctly states the law applicable to general and specific intent crimes, particularly so, when read in the context of Instructions 3,4 and 5, supra, which explicitly explained the crimes charged in direct relation to the facts of this case. Had the jury determined that defendant’s state of intoxication was such that it had rendered him incapable of comprehension, then they were clearly bound by the instructions given to acquit him. This, of course, they did not do, and their conviction is wholly supported by the believable evidence. While being chased by the police at speeds of up to 110 m. p. h., defendant would maneuver away and edge them into the borrow pit. He did not drive erratically, except for the high speed and other efforts to avoid capture, and there was no odor of alcohol about him or other evidence to justify a conclusion that his degree of intoxication (as subsequently determined by the blood-alcohol test performed) deprived him of the requisite motive, purpose or intent necessary to constitute the crime charged.
Defendant’s remaining assertions of error (insufficiency of the evidence to convict and deprivation of constitutional rights in revoking his probation) have been duly considered and I deem them to be without merit.
I would affirm the conviction and judgment of the trial court.
CROCKETT, J., concurred in the dissenting opinion of HALL, J., before his retirement.

. State v. Coffey, Utah, 564 P.2d 777 (1977); State v. Criscola, 21 Utah 2d 272, 444 P.2d 517 (1968); State v. Burch, 17 Utah 2d 418, 413 P.2d 805 (1966).

. Taylor v. Johnson, 18 Utah 2d 16, 414 P.2d 575 (1966); City of Tacoma v. Harris, 73 Wash.2d 123, 436 P.2d 770 (1968); Hoskins v. State, Wyo., 552 P.2d 342 (1976).

. State v. Jamerson, 74 Wash.2d 146, 443 P.2d 654 (1968); Kennedy v. State, Wyo., 559 P.2d 1014 (1977).

. State v. Reiner, Mont., 587 P.2d 950 (1978).

. The record is silent in this regard, but it is assumed that defendant fully argued his theory to the jury.

.Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (1961).

. U.C.A., 1953, 76-1-101, et seq.

. U.C.A., 1953, 76-2-103(1).