Court Opinion

ID: 9798821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 05:27:08.392071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:49.631961
License: Public Domain

MASSA, J.,
concurring in result.
I would find no error, harmless or otherwise, in the trial court’s instructing of the jury on felony murder and robbery. When the judge read aloud that “the spirit of our criminal law would not be fostered by a ruling that a defendant could not be convicted of robbing a man he had just killed,” he was not arguing1 for the State, as the majority suggests; he instead was correctly stating the law verbatim as this Court has declared it to be, Robinson v. State, 693 N.E.2d 548, 554 n. 2 (Ind.1998), and attempting to avoid the very confusion that subsequently ensued over the definition of “asportation” that the majority takes up in the next section of the opinion. Instead of leaving the jury with only an opaque, confusing instruction discussing “asportation” (who wouldn’t have to consult Webster’s ?) and continuing crimes, the judge quite correctly told the jury that you can’t avoid a robbery conviction by killing your victim before you take his property. That is simple, to-the-point guidance for lay jurors and should be encouraged, not admonished.
I otherwise fully concur.