Court Opinion

ID: 9645010
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:10:14.140311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:21.419911
License: Public Domain

WELLIVER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In my view appellant was entitled to an instruction on second degree murder as a lesser included offense of first degree murder.
The trial in this case was held after our decision in State v. Handley, 585 S.W.2d 458 (Mo. banc 1979), and before our decision in State v. Wilkerson, 616 S.W.2d 829 (Mo. banc 1981). The principal opinion in Hand-ley held that it was error to instruct the jury on second degree murder under a charge of first degree murder because second degree murder was not a lesser included offense of first degree murder. 585 S.W.2d at 461-63. That opinion, however, did not command a majority of the Court. Wilkerson overruled Handley to the extent Handley held that second degree murder was not a lesser included offense of first degree murder. 616 S.W.2d at 833.1 In the present case the trial court instructed the jury on the offenses of first degree murder and manslaughter only. Neither the state nor the defense requested an instruction on second degree murder, and nothing in the record indicates that the trial court ever considered giving such an instruction. Appellant now contends that in light of Wilkerson and subsequent cases, the trial court committed plain error in failing to instruct the jury on second degree murder. See Rule 29.12(b).
If first degree murder is the highest homicide submitted, an instruction must be given on second degree murder if it is “justified by the evidence.” MAI-CR2d 15.00 note 3(e). The initial step, therefore, is to determine whether in this case an instruction on second degree murder was “justified by the evidence,” which in this context means “that all essential elements of the offense may be found or inferred from the evidence,” id. note 3(b). Second degree murder has long been defined as “the (1) willful, (2) premeditated, (3) killing (4) of a human being (5) with malice aforethought.” State v. Mannon, 637 S.W.2d 674, 678 (Mo. banc 1982) (citing State v. Franco, 544 S.W.2d 533, 535 (Mo. banc 1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 957, 97 S.Ct. 2682, 53 L.Ed.2d 275 (1977)). “‘Willful’ has often been *882defined as meaning ‘intentionally’ or ‘knowingly’ in connection with a criminal offense.” Id. Premeditation exists whenever the defendant thinks about the act for any length of time, however short, before he acts. State v. Bolder, 635 S.W.2d 673, 680 (Mo. banc 1982), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 770, 74 L.Ed.2d 983 (1983). “Malice” means “that condition of the mind which prompts a person intentionally to take the life of another without just cause, justification or excuse,” State v. Lay, 427 S.W.2d 394, 400 (Mo.1968); see State v. Wieners, 66 Mo. 13, 20 (1877), and “malice aforethought” means “with malice and premeditation,” State v. Curtis, 70 Mo. 594, 598 (1879); see Hardnett v. State, 564 S.W.2d 852, 854 (Mo. banc 1978); State v. Mathis, 427 S.W.2d 450, 454 (Mo.1968).
The principal opinion argues that an instruction on second degree murder would not have been justified by the evidence. On the record in this case, however, the jury reasonably could have found appellant guilty of second degree murder, for the testimony and evidence adduced would support a finding of each of the elements of that offense. First, appellant admits that he killed a human being. Second, appellant himself testified that on the day this crime occurred he intended to kill another person. The jury could have found from appellant’s own testimony that the killing resulted from appellant’s own desire to rid himself of the voices by satisfying their demands. It could have found that when Bruns said, “You are going to kill me,” appellant of his own volition escorted Bruns to the rear of the store and shot him in the head. From all of these facts the jury could have determined that the killing was willful or intentional and that it was premeditated. Finally, there is no contention, nor could there be, that the homicide was either justifiable or excusable, see MAI-CR2d 2.28, 2.41.-1-.46, which would negate malice and, a fortiori, malice aforethought.
Because the evidence would support a conviction for second degree murder, the trial court should have instructed the jury on that offense. If the error had been preserved for appellate review, our decision in State v. Donovan, 631 S.W.2d 39, 41 (Mo.1982), would compel reversal. This is true even though the trial court may have relied on Handley, because any such reliance would have been “misplaced.” Id. Donovan, however, did not consider whether the failure to instruct the jury on second degree murder in this context could ever constitute plain error.
This Court has held that “plain error does not result in connection with instructions unless the court has so misdirected or failed to instruct the jury on the law of the case as to cause manifest injustice.” State v. Murphy, 592 S.W.2d 727, 733 (Mo. banc 1979). See Rule 29.12(b). Under our cases “it is our duty to review the facts and circumstances in each case and to determine that question on a case to case basis.” State v. Sanders, 541 S.W.2d 530, 533 (Mo. banc 1976). On the facts of this case I am compelled to conclude that manifest injustice resulted from the failure to instruct the jury on second degree murder. The evidence in this case would amply support a conviction for that offense. On this state of the record, the great disparity between the punishments authorized for manslaughter and first degree murder demands that the jury be afforded the opportunity to consider second degree murder as one alternative. In State v. Smith, 598 S.W.2d 118 (Mo.1980), the trial court instructed the jury on both first and second degree murder but failed to instruct on manslaughter. The Court there found no plain error, because
[ujnder the specific language of the instructions the jury was given the option to exercise leniency by convicting appellant of murder in the second degree, but it declined to do so. There is no reason to assume that if a manslaughter instruction had been given the jury would have availed itself of the manslaughter option, which would have called for even greater leniency.
Id. at 120-21. The present case presents the opposite situation, in which there is a hiatus between the two possible sentences the jury was authorized by the instructions *883to impose. Ten years is the maximum punishment for manslaughter, § 565.031, and life imprisonment is mandated for first degree murder, § 565.008(2). If the jury thought the sentence for manslaughter too lenient, its only other choice was life imprisonment. The jury might well have believed it appropriate to convict appellant of second degree murder and impose a sentence somewhere between ten years and life, see id., but that option was foreclosed.
The principal opinion relies on State v. Olds, 603 S.W.2d 501 (Mo. banc 1980), but that decision is not helpful here. In that case the Court found that the evidence involved an all-or-nothing proposition: Olds “was to be either acquitted of the charged killing on the basis of his alibi defense or found guilty of first degree kidnap-murder” because “under the evidence ... the jury could find felony-murder as submitted but not a homicide requiring a lesser mental state.” Id. at 509. In Olds, therefore, there was no need to instruct the jury on lesser homicides. This is not such a case. The evidence here does not present “irreconcilable versions” of an incident that “leave no room for a middle ground.” State v. Story, 646 S.W.2d 68, 73 (Mo. banc 1983). The verdict would have been fully supported by the evidence had the jury found appellant guilty under an instruction on second degree murder, and we would have upheld such a verdict against a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. With this in mind, fundamental principles of justice dictate that in this case the jury should have been instructed on second degree murder. Criminal justice must be consistent if the system is to maintain credibility.
In this case the failure to instruct the jury on second degree murder “so ... failed to instruct the jury on the law of the case as to cause manifest injustice.” Murphy, 592 S.W.2d at 733. The judgment should be reversed, and the case should be remanded for a new trial.

. Wilkerson held that second degree murder was a lesser included offense of first degree murder under the test set forth in § 556.220, RSMo 1969 (repealed). 616 S.W.2d at 832. The Court also indicated that the same result would obtain under § 556.046, which was effective January 1,1979, and which governs this case. 616 S.W.2d at 832-33. Although this latter statement was dictum, we have adhered to it and have held, on the basis of Wilkerson, that the failure to instruct on second degree murder in a first degree murder case in which the homicide occurred after January 1, 1979, is error if the evidence justifies the instruction. State v. Donovan, 631 S.W.2d 39, 41 (Mo.1982).