Court Opinion

ID: 9782074
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:57:04.791674+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:47.169905
License: Public Domain

LEWIS, Judge,
Concur in Part, Dissent in Part.
T1 I concur in the Court's decision to affirm count three of the Judgment and Sentence in District Court Case No. CF-2004-191 and in the decision to affirm the order revoking the suspended sentence in District Court Case No. CF-1997-807. However I would hold that counts one and two of District Court Case No. CF-2004-191, assault and battery with a deadly weapon must be reversed and remanded to the District Court for a new trial; therefore I respectfully dissent to the Court's Opinion regarding these counts.
T2 I find reversible error in the trial court's failure to instruct the jury that assault and battery with a deadly weapon requires intent to take a human life as required by 21 0.8.2001, § 652(C). My disagreement is based on three reasons. First, despite the majority's statement that § 652(C) was discussed in Burleson v. Saffle, 2002 OK CR 15, 46 P.3d 150, I find that § 652(C) was not fully analyzed, and the language cannot be relied upon to support the conclusion.
T8 Second, the majority also states that the 1992 revision to § 652 substantially changed the elements of the offense of assault and battery with a deadly weapon; however, I find no substantial change in the specific language of § 652(C) which would have put this Appellant on notice that the State would be relieved of the burden to prove the essential element of an intent to take a human life. And, third, even if today's Opinion is a correct interpretation of the current statute, ex post facto principles forbid this interpretation to be applied to Appellant.
T 4 Throughout the history of Section 652, this Court has interpreted the statute to require the intent to kill or take a human life. As late as 2004, this Court stated that § 652 criminalizes all attempts to kill. Messick v. State, 2004 OK CR 3, ¶ 13, 84 P.3d 757, 761 ("[Section] 652 applies to all attempts to kill."). In order for a person to attempt to kill, that person must have the intent to kill. See State v. Fletcher, 2006 OK CR 11, ¶ 12, 133 P.3d 339, 341 (stating black letter law-in order to prove a person guilty of an attempt to commit an unlawful act, the State must prove the intent to commit the specified act). While Messick may stand for the proposition that § 652 takes the place of attempts to kill brought under the general attempt statute,1 no mention is made that § 652(C) also relieves the State from proving a specific intent to complete the attempted act.
15 In Ellis v. State, 1992 OK CR 35, ¶ 35, 834 P.2d 985, 992, this Court stated that the crime of assault and battery with a deadly weapon requires "proof of an assault and battery upon another person with a deadly weapon with the intent to take a human life." Comparing the statute at the time of Ellis with the current statute, I find that the pertinent language, set forth below, has not changed in any substantive manner.
Any person who commits any assault and battery upon another by means of any deadly weapon, or by such other means or force as is likely to produce death, or in any manner attempts to kill another, or in resisting the execution of any legal process, is punishable by imprisonment in the peni*587tentiary not exceeding twenty (20) years.
*586C. Any person who commits any assault and battery upon another, including an unborn child as defined in Section 1-730 of Title 68 of the Oklahoma Statutes, by means of any deadly weapon, or by such other means or force as is likely to produce death, or in any manner attempts to kill another, including *587an unborn child as defined in Section 1-780 of Title 63 of the Oklahoma Statutes, or in resisting the execution of any legal process, shall upon conviction be guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment in the State Penitentiary not exceeding twenty (20) years.
21 0.8.1991, §652.
21 0.8.8upp.2005, §652.
'I 6 It is telling that even though the legislature has added language broadening the scope of potential victims and divided the statute into different paragraphs, the legislature has done nothing to vitiate this Court's interpretation that the language now contained in § 652(C) criminalizing assault and battery with a deadly weapon requires intent to take a human life. Even before this statute was divided into lettered paragraphs, the statute was amended in 1977 to provide for different punishments depending on the method of the commission of the crime: i.e. Shooting with intent to kill, which contained a maximum punishment of life, and assault and battery with a deadly weapon (at issue here), which contained a maximum punishment of twenty years. Both of these separate crimes were held to contain the intent to take a human life element.2
T7 Many times the legislature has rewritten this statute, but not onee has it indicated that our interpretation of the statute was wrong. However, this Court does so today without direction from the legislature. Therefore, I1 believe this Court should apply our prior case law to Appellant's case.
T8 The third reason Appellant's convie-tions for assault and battery with a deadly weapon must be reversed, despite the majority's new interpretation of § 652(C), is that today's Opinion represents a judicial enlargement of a criminal statute creating a disadvantage to Appellant which was unforeseeable, thus it violates ex post facto principles. See Hughes v. State, 1994 OK CR 83, ¶ 20, 868 P.2d 730, 735, quoting Bowie v. Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, 353-54, 84 S.Ct. 1697, 1702-03, 12 L.Ed.2d 894 (1964) ("If a judicial construction of a statute is unexpected and indefensible by reference to the law which had been expressed prior to the conduct in issue, it must not be given retroactive effect."). By eliminating an essential element that the State was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, the majority has created a new crime which was unforeseeable and creates a disadvantage to Appellant, thus the majority Opinion cannot apply to him, even if correct.
T9 For the above reasons, I respectfully dissent to the majority's analysis of proposition one and the majority's decision to affirm Appellant's convictions for assault and battery with a deadly weapon. I concur with the decision to affirm the remaining counts and the revocation of his suspended sentence.

. 21 0.8.2001, § 42.

. See cases cited in footnote 6 of the majority Opinion.