Court Opinion

ID: 9793645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:50:59.6079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:19.854907
License: Public Domain

BURKE, Justice,
dissenting in part.
I dissent from the holding set forth in part III of the majority opinion.
I begin with a premise that is a fundamental rule of law: One may be prosecuted and convicted for only those crimes that have been charged against him. The importance of this rule cannot be denied; at the very least it provides a means of ensuring that in every criminal action the defendant will know precisely what conduct he or she must seek to explain, refute, or justify.1 Thus the rule gives substance to that constitutional ideal of due process which affords every member of society the right to be given notice and an opportunity to be heard before being punished for a crime. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 294, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297, 308 (1973); Cole v. Arkansas, 333 U.S. 196, 201, 68 S.Ct. 514, 92 L.Ed.2d 644, 647 (1948); Alto v. State, 565 P.2d 492, 495 (Alaska 1977). Article I, section 11 of the Constitution of Alaska specifically provides that “[t]he accused is entitled to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.”
This is not to say that when one is charged with an offense he or she must always be either convicted of that specific crime or fully exonerated for his or her acts. On the contrary, where the elements *553of the charged offense necessarily subsume the elements of one or more lesser offenses it is logically implied that those lesser offenses have been charged as well. Thus, while the state may fail to prove that the conduct2 of the defendant satisfied all the elements of the explicitly charged offense, it may be successful in proving that that conduct did amount to what is termed a lesser included offense. As we observed in Jennings v. State:3
[Alaska] Criminal Rule 31(c) provides that “The defendant may be found guilty of an offense necessarily included in the offense charged . . . .” An offense is necessarily included in the offense charged where the former is of less magnitude than the latter but the gravamen of the two offenses is the same, or where one could not have committed the offense charged without having also committed the offense of lesser magnitude. [Footnotes omitted.]
In this case Mill was charged with only one criminal act as a result of his conduct. That offense — shooting with intent to kill, wound or maim — cannot be committed without the offender also committing the offense of assault with a dangerous weapon.4 Therefore it was possible for the jury to find that Mill lacked the specific intent to kill, wound or maim but that his act of shooting the rifle did constitute the lesser assault offense. Consequently, it was entirely permissible for the prosecutor to argue to the jury that the shooting would support a conviction for either offense.
There would now be no question that Mill was convicted of an offense for which he was charged if the assistant district attorney had so confined his argument. Regrettably he did not do so. Instead, he went on to argue, over timely objection by defense counsel that Mill committed two other assaults with a dangerous weapon during the series of events surrounding the actual shooting, stating:
Now, he was guilty of assault with a deadly weapon, or a dangerous weapon at the moment he came up there to that window and pointed that gun at Vincent. At that point he was guilty of an ADW. . When he stood over the man and made him write out a check, there’s another ADW right there. ... Of course, when he shot the fellow, if you find that he didn’t have the intent to kill, wound, or maim, there’s another ADW right there. .
In so doing the state’s attorney, in my opinion, committed an obvious and fundamental error; that is, he urged Mill’s conviction for offenses that were never charged. Although this error might have been cured by instructing the jury to disregard the improper portions of the argument, a request by defense counsel for such an instruction was denied. As a result, it is now impossible to ascertain whether the jury’s verdict was based on a determination that Mill committed a lesser included offense of the act with which he was charged, or a determination that he had committed a separate assault that was never charged. Therefore, I believe that we are required5 to reverse his conviction and remand the case for a new trial.
Otherwise, I concur.

. Alaska Crim.R. 7(c) states in part:
The indictment or the information shall be a plain, concise and definite written statement of essential facts constituting the offense charged.

. Conduct here refers to both the mental and physical components of that behavior specified as criminal in the indictment.

. 404 P.2d 652, 655 (Alaska 1965).

. See footnotes 1 and 2, supra.

. Alaska Crim.R. 31(a) requires the verdict of the jury in criminal cases to be unanimous.