Court Opinion

ID: 9461577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:18:13.935193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:08.585649
License: Public Domain

REAL, District Judge
(dissenting):
This appeal arises from the indictment and conviction of Appellant for first degree murder in that he “did unlawfully kill one William Carl Veseth, a human being, committed in the perpetration of a robbery by shooting him with a rifle, in violation of Title 18 U.S.C., Sections 1153 and 1111.” This charge is what is commonly called felony-murder.
The facts, as presented by the record on appeal are relatively clear. Appellant in the company of co-defendants James Red Dog and Ralph Clancy had been drinking beer (the record is devoid of evidence as to how much Appellant actually had to drink).1 Running low on their supply of beer, Appellant accompanied by co-defendants Red Dog and Clancy went to Bill’s Pizza Palace to “obtain some more beer.”2 Arriving at the Pizza Palace Appellant and Red Dog went to the back door of the Pizza Palace while Clancy stayed with the car.
In response to Appellant’s and Red Dog’s knock Bill Veseth, the owner of Bill’s Pizza Palace opened the back door. In the ensuing moments Veseth was shot and Red Dog entered the Pizza Palace and took several cases of beer. Veseth later died as the result of the gunshot wounds inflicted during the scuffle at the back door of the Pizza Palace.
Appellant has raised several alleged errors committed by the trial judge during the trial. The only one which merits detailed consideration is the assigned error that the trial court refused to and failed to instruct the jury upon specific intent as a necessary element of felony-murder and the concomitant refusal to give any instructions on intoxication as it bears upon the specific intent to properly explain the necessary elements of the offense (violation of 18 U.S.C. § mi).3
The crime with which appellant was charged and subsequently convicted is cognizable by direct enactment of Congress defining both murder4 and robbery5 rather than by the Assimilative Crime Statute, [18 U.S.C. § 13]6 applying state law to Federal enélaves.
Title 18 U.S.C. § 1111 basically unchanged since its enactment in 1897 provides in its pertinent part:
§ 1111. Murder.
(a) Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice afore*1263thought. Every murder committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any robbery ... is murder in the first degree.
Felony-murder included within 18 U.S.C. § 1111 obviates the intent of killing a human being with malice aforethought and the trial judge properly instructed the jury upon the treatment of “malice aforethought” as used in the statute.
Appellant’s claim of the requirement of specific intent as affected by a proffered defense of intoxication is somewhat vague but can only have reference to the elements of robbery.
Robbery at common law is defined in various ways, but most commonly as the felonious taking of money or goods of value from the person of another or in his presence, against his will, by force or by putting him in fear.
With common law robbery already an established crime the Congress enacted into federal statutory law at least as early as 1820 a robbery statute applicable to such an offense committed within the admiralty, maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. The statute provided:
Whoever, by force and violence, or by putting in fear, shall feloniously take from the person or presence of another anything of value, shall be imprisoned not more than fifteen years.
This language survived revisions of the Federal Criminal Code in 1909 and 1940. But in 1948 a massive revision of the criminal code brought changes which are significant to the intent aspect of the definition of “robbery” as found in the federal statutory scheme.7 The 1948 revision brought the robbery offense language to:
Whoever, within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes from the person or presence of another anything of value, shall be imprisoned not more than fifteen years.
18 U.S.C. § 2111.
As evident from the language quoted, the Congress dropped the word “feloniously” found in previous statutory language in its enactment of the present statutory scheme creating a federal robbery offense. Does this create a specific intent offense? This is a question of first impression in the interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 2111.8
A preliminary exclusion is helpful: in deleting “feloniously” from Section 2111 Congress eliminated the animo furandi (felonious) intent to steal present in the common law definition of robbery.
*1264That changes were occurring in 1948 is evident from the Reviser’s Notes9 to Section 2112 where “felonious taking” was eliminated from that section as being covered by Section 641 — a theft statute whose words required — and do now require — definition by application of the common law. Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952). But Morissette is inopposite to an interpretation of a statute which needs no construction of common law words “embezzles, steals, purloins or knowingly converts to his own use . ” The language of § 2111 is clear that “Whoever, ... by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes from the person or presence of another anything of value . . . ” This requires only 1) the taking from the person or presence of another, 2) something of value, 3) by the use of force or intimidation. None of these elements partake of the quality of common law specific intent. The gravamen of the offense is not the intent to permanently deprive, i. e. to steal, but is the taking by force, fear, or intimidation. For these reasons I cannot agree with the majority that this language purports to require a “specific intent permanently to deprive the owner of the property taken of use of that property” i. e. an intent to steal.
Perhaps the difference here is a semantic one which confuses criminal intent with specific intent. The traditional instruction upon specific intent is as follows:
“The crime charged in this case is a serious crime which requires proof of specific intent before the defendant can be convicted. Specific intent, as the term implies, means more than the general intent to commit the act. To establish specific intent the government must prove that the defendant knowingly did an act which the law forbids, (or knowingly failed to do an act which the law requires,) purposely intending to violate the law. Such intent may be determined from all the facts and circumstances surrounding the case.
An act or a failure to act is ‘knowingly’ done, if done, voluntarily and intentionally, and not because of mistake or accident or other innocent reason.” 1 E. Devitt & C. Blackmar, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions § 13.03 at 273-74 (2d Ed. 1970).
The language of § 211110 does not meet this definition of specific intent. The trial court properly instructed the jury on the elements of robbery as defined in § 2111.
Since I have concluded that specific intent is not required no instruction of intoxication was necessary. But there is yet another reason why the intoxication instruction was not necessary in this case. Although there was evidence of “drinking” there was no evidence upon which the jury could as reasonable men conclude that Appellant was intoxicated.
I would affirm the judgment.

. There was testimony that between the three —Lilly, Red Dog and Clancy — they had “roughly maybe two six packs of beer”. Clancy testified he had 3 or 4 but that cannot lead this court to the conjecture about how much beer Appellant consumed.

. Clancy testified that there was discussion of obtaining beer from Bill’s Pizza Palace. Another witness, Margaret Lindsay, testified concerning a conversation “about going to the Pizza Palace and holding it up and obtaining four cases of beer.”

. 18 U.S.C. § 1153, as pertinent here, merely extends Federal jurisdiction to the offenses of murder and robbery as they are committed by Indians within the Indian country, i. e., upon an Indian reservation.

. 18 U.S.C. § 1111.

. 18 U.S.C. § 2111.

. Title 18 U.S.C. § 13 provides in pertinent part:
§ 13. Laws of states adopted for areas within Federal jurisdiction.
Whoever within or upon any of the places now existing or hereafter reserved or acquired [jurisdiction of U. S.] is guilty of any act or omission which, although not made punishable by any enactment of Congress, would be punishable . . within the State ... in which such place is situated, by the laws thereof . . shall be guilty of a like offense and subject to a like punishment.

. Title 18 U.S.C., Ch. 103 — Robbery and Burglary, § 2111 et seq.

. Although this court has not had occasion to interpret 18 U.S.C. § 2111, it has reviewed 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) a bank robbery statute with comparable language. Section 2113(a) provides inter alia:
(a) Whoever, by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes, or attempts to take, from the person or presence of another any property or money or any other thing of value belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of, any bank, or any savings and loan association
Shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
In comparing this language with that of § 2111 it is evident that both require 1) the taking from a person, 2) anything of value, 3) by the use of force or intimidation. The only difference is that § 2111 applies to special maritime and territorial jurisdiction while § 2113 is applicable to banks. Significantly, both sections are devoid of the word “feloniously” which is generally included in the common law definition of robbery. In United States v. Porter, 431 F.2d 7 (9th Cir. 1970), cert. denied 400 U.S. 960, 91 S.Ct. 360, 27 L.Ed.2d 269 (1970), this court concluded that the language of § 2113 quoted above does not include specific intent as an element of the offense. Id. at 10. In holding today that specific intent is an element of an offense under § 2111, the majority thrusts upon the legal world an irreconcilable discrepancy. Two statutes with virtually identical language have been construed so that in one (§ 2111) specific intent is an element and in the other (§ 2113) it is not. Such a disparity should not exist and it is my belief that Porter was decided correctly and that § 2111 in the instant case should be construed in accordance with the dictates of Porter.

. H.R.Rep.No.304, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 2595 (1947). _

. This is the only aspect of the change to which “intent” could apply. The fact that it here substitutes the otherwise necessary specific intent in a murder prosecution does not change the intent quality of § 2111.