Court Opinion

ID: 9717761
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:09:58.974301+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:55.157175
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
concurring in result.
So long as the Court continues to adhere to the rule that the proof presented at trial, even though constituting a prima facie case of the charged crime, can nevertheless be such as to warrant the refusal to give a particular lesser included offense instruction, attempts at clarification and simplification will not succeed. It is elementary that the trial judge presiding over a jury trial, in determining whether the prosecution has made a prima facie case of the charged crime, does not weigh the evidence. On the other hand the trial judge presiding over a jury trial, in determining whether to give a particular lesser and included offense instruction, under the rule as explained in the majority opinion, must examine all of the evidence, and determine from it whether it leaves him with “no doubt but that the defendant was guilty of [the charged crime] or no crime whatsoever.” This unique judicial process involves weighing the evidence in the same manner that the trier of facts weighs the evidence in deciding the issue of guilt or innocence, and like it, is essentially unreviewable on appeal. While I must under the constraints of the doctrine of stare decisis continue to recognize the rule, I remain convinced that the better rule, the one which does permit a rational appellate oversight, is the one in which the strength of the prima facie case plays no role in justifying the refusal to give lesser and included offense instrúctions.
As I see the case before us, appellant Jones was not entitled to instruction on malicious trespass, because a breaking and entering into a structure can be accomplished without an “interference” with the use and possession of that structure, as where one, standing in a common hall of an apartment building simply nudges an already ajar door further open with an extended index finger having at the time an intent to steal.