Court Opinion

ID: 9714814
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 05:46:12.395339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:28.814380
License: Public Domain

SHIELDS, Presiding Judge,
concurring.
I separately concur in the included offense aspect of Issue I of the majority opinion in order to record my disagreement *1374with incidental comments that appear in the opinion.
Humes v. State (1981), Ind., 426 N.E.2d 379 is controlling. Therefore, unquestionably the trial court did not err in refusing to consider criminal recklessness as an included offense of the charged attempted murder. Furthermore, the rationale of Humes is apparent. The supreme court concluded the culpability of "recklessly" is not inherently included in the culpability of "intentionally" or "knowingly." In other words, it is possible to have an "intentionally" or "knowingly" culpability and yet not have a "recklessly" culpability. The culpabilities of "intentionally" and "knowingly" are completely distinct from the "recklessly" culpability because they address different concerns. "Intentionally" and "knowingly" concern the actor's consciousness or awareness of his conduct, while "recklessly" concerns the actor's disregard for the harm which might result from his conduct. Therefore, an offense that requires a culpability of "intentionally" or "knowingly" will never include an offense that has a "reck lessly" culpability unless it is charged as such.
Further, in my opinion, our supreme court implicitly rejected the related offense doctrine when it held the State may exclude even a necessarily included offense from the fact finder's consideration by the manner in which the information charges the principal offense. Dorsey v. State (1986), Ind., 490 N.E.2d 260. It is inconsistent to hold the State may exclude a necessarily included offense and yet permit the defendant to interject the same excluded offense by tendering an instruction which would allow the jury to consider the offense as an alternative to the charged offense.
I am concerned the majority's statement the State must prove purposeful conduct by a defendant charged with an attempt crime will be misunderstood. Therefore, I want to emphasize that, by that statement, the majority is saying the substantial step conduct, which must be done intentionally or knowingly in the crime of attempt, must be done with the purpose of committing the principal crime. The majority is not saying there is yet another culpability, the culpa bility of "purposeful" or "purposely", ete.
Also, the Model Penal Code is instructive and a valuable reference. However, we must bear in mind our legislature chose not to enact the model code and acknowledge and respect that decision in so far as there are differences between the model code and our criminal code.
I find no merit to Wells's Issue I because there is no cireumstance under which criminal recklessness can be an included offense of attempted murder unless, of course, criminal recklessness is charged in the body of the attempted murder charge. It was not. I do not agree with the majority's resolution of the included offense issue on the grounds there is no error because "Wells was actually convicted of aggravated battery and the evidence supports the conviction for that crime."
I otherwise concur in the majority opinion.