Court Opinion

ID: 9572257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:40:10.969825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:09.776192
License: Public Domain

Justice MARTIN
concurring.
I concur and join in the well-reasoned, deliberative opinion of the majority. This concurring opinion is filed to emphasize some of the issues discussed.
First. The decisions relied upon by this Court in Harris do not support the proposition that as a matter of law murder in the second degree must be submitted to the jury in all murder cases in which premeditation and deliberation are elements of the *303capital charge. Each of the cases, Spivey, Newsome, and Perry, were decided on whether there was evidence to support a verdict of murder in the second degree. None establishes a rule of law that requires the lesser charge to be submitted in all cases regardless of the evidence. Thus, Harris is not supported by precedent.
Second. Our decision today requires murder cases to be treated as all other criminal cases in determining whether a lesser included offense should be submitted to the jury. Proof of premeditation and deliberation does not require any special, mystical procedure. It can be proved as any other condition or state of the mind; it may be shown by such just and reasonable deductions from the acts and facts proven as the guarded judgment of a reasonably cautious and prudent person would ordinarily draw therefrom. It may be proved by the facts and circumstances known to the party charged and may be evidenced by the acts and declarations of the party and all other relevant circumstances. State v. Love, 296 N.C. 194, 250 S.E. 2d 220 (1978); State v. Perry, 276 N.C. 339, 172 S.E. 2d 541 (1970); State v. Walters, 275 N.C. 615, 170 S.E. 2d 484 (1969); State v. Ferguson, 261 N.C. 558, 135 S.E. 2d 626 (1964). There is nothing about murder cases involving premeditation and deliberation that justifies a special rule of law governing the submission of lesser included offenses.
Third. Today’s decision does not abandon the trial judges of the state upon an uncharted sea. Trial judges will return to the evidentiary test they applied before Harris in determining whether to submit murder in the second degree and other lesser offenses. Under the Harris rule trial judges had to apply two standards with respect to lesser included offenses —the mandatory rule of law with respect to murder in the second degree and the evidentiary rule with respect to manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter. Now the evidentiary test will govern the submission of all lesser included offenses. Trial judges are skilled in making this determination; it is their daily diet.
Fourth. Certainly the application of the law to the facts in this case in determining whether to submit murder in the second degree is not a holding that every strangulation killing is murder in the first degree. Each case must be analyzed on its facts to *304determine whether murder in the second degree should be submitted. I cannot add to the careful analysis of the majority opinion in determining whether there was evidence to support a verdict of murder in the second degree.
Fifth. The Harris rule is constitutionally suspect. Under it, a jury may return a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree, even though all the evidence shows premeditation and deliberation. The jury is thereby given discretion to return such a verdict, which may be arbitrarily exercised regardless of the evidence. Such a rule is unconstitutional under the eighth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution.
In Hopper v. Evans, — U.S. —, —, 72 L.Ed. 2d 367, 373 (1982), we find:
Our holding in Beck [v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 65 L.Ed. 2d 392 (1980)], like our other Eighth Amendment decisions in the past decade, was concerned with insuring that sentencing discretion in capital cases is channelled so that arbitrary and capricious results are avoided. See, e.g., Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325, 334, 49 L.Ed. 2d 974, 96 S.Ct. 3001 (1976)
In Roberts v. Louisiana, supra, the Court considered a Louisiana statute which was the obverse of the Alabama preclusion clause. In Louisiana, prior to Roberts, every jury in a capital murder case was permitted to return a verdict of guilty of the non-capital crimes of second-degree murder and manslaughter, “even if there [was] not & scintilla of evidence to support the lesser verdicts.” Id., at 334, 49 L.Ed. 2d 974, 96 S.Ct. 3001 (plurality opinion). Such a practice was impermissible, a plurality of the Court concluded, because it invited the jurors to disregard their oaths and convict a defendant of a lesser offense when the evidence warranted a conviction of first-degree murder, inevitably leading to arbitrary results. Id., at 335, 49 L.Ed. 2d 974, 96 S.Ct. 3001 (plurality opinion). The analysis in Roberts thus suggests that an instruction on a lesser offense in this case would have been impermissible absent evidence supporting a conviction of a lesser offense.
Beck held that due process requires that a lesser included offense instruction be given when the evidence warrants *305such an instruction. But due process requires that a lesser included offense instruction be given only when the evidence warrants such an instruction. The jury’s discretion is thus channelled so that it may convict a defendant of any crime fairly supported by the evidence.
It is difficult to distinguish the rule in Harris from the statute in Roberts v. Louisiana.
In conclusion, I agree with the statement of Justice Huskins in State v. Poole, 298 N.C. 254, 258 S.E. 2d 339 (1979):
On further reflection, however, I am convinced that Harris and Keller perpetuate an unnecessary refinement in the law.
Submission of a lesser included offense when there is no evidence to support the milder verdict is not required when the indictment charges felony murder, arson, burglary, robbery, rape, larceny, felonious assault, or any other felony whatsoever. In all such cases if the evidence tends to show that the crime charged in the indictment was committed and there is no evidence tending to show commission of a crime of lesser degree, the court correctly refuses to charge on unsupported lesser degrees. The presence of evidence tending to show commission of a crime of lesser degree is the determinative factor. . . .
For the reasons stated I no longer support the majority view which requires the court to submit second degree murder as a permissible verdict in a prosecution for premeditated first degree murder when there is no evidence to support the lesser degree.
Id. at 259-60, 258 S.E. 2d at 343 (citations omitted).
Although Harris is of recent vintage, the law is never settled until it is settled correctly.
Justice Mitchell joins in this concurring opinion.