Court Opinion

ID: 9789177
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:29:54.626638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:20.322378
License: Public Domain

Rosen, J.,
dissenting: I generally agree with the majority’s conclusions, but I respectfully dissent from the majority’s finding that the record demonstrates an obligation to instruct the jury regarding second-degree murder.
The difference between first-degree murder and second-degree murder is premeditation. As the majority points out, a jury may reasonably infer premeditation from the circumstances of a case. State v. Morton, 283 Kan. 464, 475, 153 P.3d 532 (2007). And I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the circumstances of this case could lead the jury to reasonably infer that the crime was premeditated.
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion, however, that an instruction on second-degree murder was mandated based on the facts.
The majority cites as a governing principle:
“In a prosecution for premeditated first-degree murder, where there is no direct evidence as to the circumstances of the killing and the evidence introduced against the defendant is wholly circumstantial and open to an inference by the jury that the offense committed may have been second-degree murder, it is the duty of the court to instruct the jury respecting that lesser degree of homicide. State v. Sanders, 258 Kan. 409, 416, 904 P.2d 951 (1995),” (Emphasis added.) State v. Scaife, 286 Kan. at 619.
The majority then defines direct evidence as evidence that, if believed, “proves the existence of a fact without inference or presumption, as for example the testimony of an eyewitness as to what he or she actually saw, heard, or touched. See State v. Corbett, 281 Kan. 294, 309, 130 P.3d 1179 (2006).” Scaife, 286 Kan. at 620.
*628Although Ross was an eyewitness who testified in detail about what he actually saw, heard, and experienced before, during, and after the shootings, the majority concludes that his testimony was not direct evidence because it did not prove “what Scaife must have been thinking.” 286 Kan. at 620.
Ross testified that Scaife, Thompson, and he had spent much of the day together. The two victims were watching television when, without any preliminary statement of his intentions, Scaife shot Thompson to death and then shot Ross as he attempted to run away. Scaife was seated when he shot Thompson. Ross observed Scaife searching through both Thompson’s and Ross’ pockets and removing valuables. Ross heard a window break, and other evidence suggested that Scaife left the house through that window.
What is missing, according to the majority, is testimony from Ross proving that Scaife planned the shooting in advance. State v. Sanders, 258 Kan. 409, 416, 904 P.2d 951 (1995), does not, however, require direct evidence of the defendant’s state of mind; it does require direct evidence of the circumstances of the killing. Those circumstances may, as in the present case, constitute the evidence demonstrating the defendant’s state of mind. The direct evidence described no provocation. It described no outburst from the defendant. It described a scene in which an individual brought a firearm with him, waited until he was alone with two men who were seated with their backs to him, shot those men repeatedly, robbed those men, and then made an immediate escape from the scene. Premeditation does not require long-range planning but does involve thinking of killing the victim before doing so. State v. Bedford, 269 Kan. 315, 328-29, 7 P.3d 224 (2000). The evidence before the juiy constituted, in my opinion, ample direct evidence of the circumstances to demonstrate premeditation and to satisfy the Sanders requirement.
Our law does not require the prosecution to show what the defendant was thinking; it requires only that the prosecution prove premeditation. There is no reason to distinguish between direct evidence and circumstantial evidence of the defendant’s state of mind. This court has previously noted that the probative values of direct and circumstantial evidence are intrinsically similar and *629there is no logically sound reason for drawing a distinction as to the weight to be assigned to the two kinds of evidence. State v. Beard, 273 Kan. 789, 804-05, 46 P.3d 1185 (2002) (quoting State v. Sanders, 272 Kan. 445, Syl. ¶ 4, 33 P.3d 596 [2001]). Indeed, “[i]ntent, a state of mind existing at the time the offense is committed, does not need to be and rarely can be directly proven. It may be established by acts and circumstances and inferences reasonably deducible from evidence of acts and circumstances. See State v. Wilkins, 269 Kan. 256, 264-68, 7 P.3d 252 (2000).” State v. Dixon, 279 Kan. 563, 604, 112 P.3d 883 (2005).
This court has not in the past required a declaration from the defendant that he is planning on killing someone in order to avoid a lesser homicide charge. Sanders, 258 Kan. 409, does not state such a requirement. Furthermore, the requirements for proving premeditation are by statute less rigorous now than they were at the time that Sanders was issued; the State need no longer prove that the crime was committed “maliciously, willfully, [and] deliberately.” See Bedford, 269 Kan. at 327; K.S.A. 21-3401(a). I see no reason for this court to heighten the Sanders requirement relating to direct evidence at this time when the legislature has reduced the elements that must be proven for premeditated first-degree murder.
While it is true that a defendant has a right to jury instructions on all lesser included offenses established by the evidence, however weak, unsatisfactory, or inconclusive the evidence may appear to the court, that evidence must be substantial. State v. Lee, 263 Kan. 97, 99-100, 948 P.2d 641 (1997). Mere “tenuous evidence” supporting an instruction for a lesser crime does not require the trial court to give the jury such an instruction. State v. Pierce, 260 Kan. 859, 867, 927 P.2d 929 (1996).
The majority in the present case takes the position that the defendant’s silence before the shooting constitutes evidence that he may have been seized by a sudden impulse to shoot his companions multiple times. The defendant’s silence is not, however, merely weak, unsatisfactory, or inconclusive evidence of impulsive behavior; it lacks any substance whatsoever. The silence did not support a defense theory of impulse. The defendant never claimed that he *630shot the victims on impulse; he claimed he did not shoot the victims.
In State v. Boorigie, 273 Kan. 18, 41 P.3d 764 (2002), the defendant requested instructions on second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter as lesser included offenses of premeditated first-degree murder. To support the lesser included offenses, the defendant pointed to the prosecution’s evidence that he had a “quick and violent temper.” 273 Kan. at 41. He apparently reasoned that, in the absence of “direct” evidence of premeditation, a jury could conclude that he acted in a sudden fit of temper. The prosecution pointed to the circumstances of the crime, including the length of time required to strangle the victim and the defendant’s prior attempts to kill the victim. Rejecting a mandatory second-degree murder instruction, our court concluded that “there was no evidence that the murder . . . was not a premeditated act, perpetrated for the purpose of financial gain.” 273 Kan. at 41.
The California Supreme Court addressed a similar situation in People v. Prince, 40 Cal. 4th 1179, 57 Cal. Rptr. 3d 543, 156 P.3d 1015 (2007). The defendant argued that evidence of his bad temper and mental disturbance gave rise to the possibility that he had committed murder in an “explosion of violence” or as “afterthoughts,” thereby necessitating an instruction on second-degree murder. 40 Cal. 4th at 1266. The California court rejected this contention, noting that the evidence about his volatile state of mind lacked “substantial weight” and the argument against premeditation was based on “speculative scenarios without any evidentiary basis.” 40 Cal. 4th at 1266; see also State v. Lambert, 341 N.C. 36, 46, 460 S.E.2d 123 (1995) (unless defendant presents some evidence to negate evidence of premeditation, trial court has no duty to instruct on lesser included offense; absence of prior threats and evidence that defendant was intoxicated lacked sufficient weight to require second-degree murder instruction); cf. State v. Dahlin, 695 N.W.2d 588, 600-01 (Minn. 2005) (lesser included offense instruction was required where witnesses testified that defendant intended only to intimidate and not to kill victim).
The majority finds compelling in the present case the same kind of speculative scenario that the Prince court rejected. In short, the *631majority position would require a jury to give weight to ephemeral evidence — or nonevidence — and to apply it to a speculative scenario in order to reach the strained conclusion that this crime was not premeditated. That is not the law in this state, and it should not become the law of this state. I would affirm the premeditated first-degree murder conviction.
McFarland, C.J., and Davis, J., join in the foregoing dissent.