Court Opinion

ID: 9717177
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:59:44.335615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:51.884033
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
(concurring). I have joined the opinion of Justice Bkickley in this case, but I write separately to respond to arguments made in the minority opinion.
I
It is not error to instruct a jury that first-degree murder is second-degree murder plus premeditation and deliberation. The minority opinion disapproves of the trial court’s instructions and those contained in the proposed Michigan Criminal Jury Instructions which define first-degree premeditated murder as second-degree murder plus the elements of premeditation and deliberation.1 The opinions of *514this Court have defined first-degree murder precisely in this way. In People v Carter, 395 Mich 434, 437-438; 236 NW2d 500 (1975), we stated:
"First-degree murder is second-degree (common-law) murder plus an element, viz., either premeditation or the perpetration or attempt to perpetrate an enumerated felony. People v Allen, 390 Mich 383; 212 NW2d 21 (1973).”
Conversely, second-degree murder is first-degree murder minus premeditation or other aggravating circumstance. There is nothing incorrect in this formulation.
Murder is a homicide committed with malice. The first-degree murder statute has no application until it is shown that a homicide is murder. Thus, the trial court must define common-law murder for the jury. All of the elements of second-degree murder are contained within the statutory crime of first-degree murder. Indeed a trial judge must sua sponte instruct on second-degree murder because it is always a lesser included offense of first-degree murder. People v Jenkins, 395 Mich 440; 236 NW2d 503 (1975). Nevertheless, the minority would reverse a first-degree murder conviction in this case by rejecting as erroneous jury instructions which reflect these principles.
Although they seemingly concede that both first-degree murder and second-degree murder were correctly defined in the trial court’s instruction, the minority would find error because of the order of the instruction. The minority suggests that defining first-degree murder with reference to the elements of second-degree murder "blurs the distinction” between the intent elements of the two. offenses. This conclusion is rooted in the erroneous belief that the intent to kill required for first-*515degree murder is somehow different than that included in the mental element of second-degree murder.
A conviction of first-degree premeditated murder requires a finding that the defendant possessed the specific intent to cause death. People v Garcia, 398 Mich 250; 247 NW2d 547 (1976). An intent to cause great bodily harm or to engage in wanton, reckless conduct, although sufficient to support a second-degree murder conviction, is not sufficient for first-degree premeditated murder. See generally Perkins, Criminal Law (2d ed), p 91. While it is therefore correct to state that a first-degree premeditated murder cannot be based on less morally culpable intent than the intent to kill, it is incorrect to state that the intent to kill in second-degree murder is different than that for first-degree murder.
Perhaps the confusion is traceable to those cases which define malice aforethought as "the intention to kill, actual or implied”. See, e.g., People v Morrin, 31 Mich App 301, 310-311; 187 NW2d 434 (1971). It is more precise to define malice aforethought or the mental element of murder, as including either an intent to kill, or an intent to inflict great bodily injury, or wanton and wilful disregard of an unreasonable human risk absent circumstances sufficient to constitute justification, excuse, or mitigation. Second-degree murder does not require an intent to kill; rather it requires a mental state which can be met by alternative states of mind, only one of which is intent to kill. A definition of the mental element of second-degree murder which speaks in terms of an "implied intent to kill” can serve only to confuse.
Where intent to kill is the foundation for second-degree murder it is not a different intent than *516that required for first-degree murder. Rather, the intent to kill under both degrees of murder is identical.2 Thus, it is not intent to kill which distinguishes first-degree murder from second-degree, because second-degree murder includes intent to kill. It is the wilful premeditation and deliberation element which distinguishes the two degrees of murder.
The failure to recognize that the specific intent of first-degree murder is not an additional element of that crime would seem to imply that first-degree murder always requires the specific intent to take a life. This is clearly not the case. Common-law murder in the course of an enumerated felony is first-degree murder, and the intent required is either an intention to kill, or an intention to do great bodily harm, or "the wanton and wilful disregard of the likelihood that the natural tendency of defendant’s behavior is to cause death or great bodily harm”, People v Aaron, 409 Mich 672, 728; 299 NW2d 304 (1980). Thus, as with second-degree murder, there are several alternative mental states which, when established, support a first-degree murder conviction despite the absence of a specific intent to kill.
In rejecting the principle that first-degree murder is second-degree murder plus premeditation, the minority fails to recognize that the concepts of wilfulness, deliberation, and premeditation in the context of first-degree murder necessarily imply a *517specific intent to kill. It is the intent to kill which must be premeditated. See Perkins, supra, p 93. In Garcia, the Court specifically held that the words "'wilful * * * killing’ in [MCL 750.316; MSA 28.548] mean the intent to accomplish the result of death”. Garcia, supra, p 259. The mental element for first- and second-degree murder is the same: the act which causes death must be accompanied by a life-endangering state of mind. It is the additional element of premeditation and deliberation that requires a specific intent to kill for first-degree murder and excludes convictions based only upon wilful and wanton misconduct or other morally culpable conduct which would support a conviction of murder in the second degree.
II
As Justice Brickley points out, the instructions given by the trial judge in this case did not allow the defendant to be convicted of first-degree premeditated murder without requiring the jury to find that the defendant intended to cause the death of the victim. The necessary link between premeditation and the intent to kill is clearly present in these instructions.3
Further, this case is a particularly inappropriate *518vehicle for the communication of a message to the trial courts of this state requiring them to utilize more precise instructional language in first-degree murder cases. Because of the thrust of the defense in this case, it is simply fanciful to conclude that the jury’s verdict was influenced by any purported confusion concerning the different types of intent required for first- and second-degree murder.
To establish premeditation and deliberation, the prosecutor offered testimony from defendant’s companions on the evening preceding decedent’s death. This testimony established that defendant drove by the home of his wife’s lover three times and twice commented, "I have business to take care of [there]”. A patron who was in a bar with defendant during the evening testified that defendant said, "before I will let another man have her, I will put her six feet under”.
Defendant arrived at the lover’s home at 3 a.m. carrying a deer rifle, broke down the front door, shot his wife in the back of the neck as she crouched nude in the bedroom closet, and then shot her lover in the back as he fled the house. When apprehended the same evening, defendant stated to one of the arresting officers, "She got what she deserved after running around for nine months”.
Defendant countered by disputing the credibility of this evidence. He also presented alcohol and drug intoxication and insanity defenses to negate his capacity to form a deliberated and premeditated intent to kill, claimed that provocation reduced the crime to voluntary manslaughter, and argued the absence of criminal responsibility. No evidence was presented by defendant as to his intent at the time the fatal shot was fired. Rather, defendant testified that he could not remember anything after he saw his wife in the bedroom.
*519Despite the fact that the jury’s verdict reflects that they rejected these defenses and therefore found (1) premeditation and deliberation, and (2) criminal responsibility and inadequate provocation, the minority would find error requiring reversal. They argue that reversal is required because the jury may have been confused by the instructions and may have erroneously believed that they could return a first-degree murder verdict if they merely concluded that defendant intended only great bodily harm or was recklessly indifferent to the consequences of his actions.
The minority would reverse defendant’s first-degree murder conviction on the basis of this perceived confusion despite the fact that defendant made no effort to show that he was not guilty of first-degree murder because he intended only to inflict great bodily harm or that his conduct could only be characterized as wanton recklessness. The defendant attempted to convince the jury that he did not possess the requisite intent to kill because he was either too drunk or deranged to have formed that intent. He also argued that the presence of legal provocation reduced his conduct to voluntary manslaughter and did not seek to show that he possessed less than a specific intent to kill. None of these defense theories is affected by the isolated potential error in the court’s instructions. One shot from a deer rifle was fired into the back of decedent’s neck as she knelt nude in the closet. There was no issue created by the evidence which raised a question of intention to inflict great bodily harm or wanton and wilful recklessness.
The court’s instructions in this case did not misstate the law. In addition, on the basis of these instructions, no reasonable juror could have convicted this defendant of first-degree premeditated murder without finding that he intended to cause the death of his wife.

 The instructions submitted by defense counsel in this case were an admirably clear and accurate statement of the law of murder. However, the issue in this case is not whether those instructions were more accurate than those given by the trial court, but, rather, whether the trial court’s instructions were so erroneous as to require reversal.

 Indeed, if the minority is correct that, wholly apart from the element of premeditation, the element of intent to kill for first-degree murder is different than the element of intent to kill for second-degree murder, then second-degree murder is not a necessarily included offense of first-degree murder, Jenkins is incorrect and should be overruled, and, henceforth, trial judges in this state should be required to instruct on second-degree murder only when the evidence in the case raises an issue concerning the defendant’s intent. In net effect, the minority opinion suggests that second-degree murder is a cognate offense of first-degree murder.

 I do not dispute that the instruction given by the trial court in this case could have been more precise. Any lack of precision is not, however, attributable to the trial court’s definition of first-degree murder or to its definition of second-degree murder. Rather, because of the holding in People v Garcia, supra, that first-degree murder is a specific-intent crime, the trial court’s instruction would have been more complete had the jury been told that if it found that defendant intended only to cause great and serious bodily injury or that the defendant knowingly created a very high risk of death with knowledge of its consequences, but that the defendant did not intend to cause the victim’s death, then they could not find the defendant guilty of first-degree premeditated murder. The trial court could also have given the jury separate instructions for first- and second-degree murder in the manner suggested by defendant’s proposed instructions.