Court Opinion

ID: 9793637
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:50:54.118565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:19.735031
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice
(concurring in result).
The main opinion cites cases and discusses principles of law which were pertinent to our criminal code prior to 1973, at which time the Utah Legislature enacted the present statutes under which defendant was convicted. The term “malice” and “malice aforethought” are not used in the present homicide statutes. The term “malice” was part of the prior law. Likewise, the prior statutes provided that “malice” was “express” or “implied” while the new statutes use entirely different language. We must apply the new law, not engraft the old terms into the new statute when the Legislature has seen fit to change those terms. All statutory references herein are to Utah 'Code Annotated, 1953, as amended.
Some distinctions among the degrees of criminal homicide in the 1973 Criminal Code relate to the state of mind of the actor in committing the offense. Thus the offense is murder if the state of mind is intentional or knowing;1 manslaughter, if the actor is reckless in his conduct;2 and negligent homicide if the actor is criminally negligent.3 These words, “intentionally”, “knowingly”, “recklessly” and “negligently” are defined in Section 76-2-103.
Subsections (a) and (b) of the second degree murder statute, Section 76-5 — 203(1), require intent on the part of the actor, viz., intent to cause death under subsection (a), and intent to cause serious bodily injury under subsection (b). The State concedes that it did not prove such intent on the part of defendant. Subsection (c) of that statute, however, provides:
(1) Criminal homicide constitutes murder in the second degree if the actor:
* * * * ⅜ *
(c) Acting under circumstances evidencing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engaged in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to *64another and thereby causes the death of another .
The term “depraved indifference to human life” is not defined in the Code.
It is to be noted also that a criminal homicide caused by “recklessness” is manslaughter under Sec. 76-5-205.
Defendant argues that in order to constitute second degree murder conduct must be so extremely reckless as to be equivalent to an intentional or knowing killing.
The comments to the Model Penal Code, upon which our 1973 Criminal Code is based, reflect the prompting of defendant’s reasoning:
2. Recklessness Manifesting Extreme Indifference. Paragraph (l)(b). [of the Model Penal Code] reflects the judgment that there is a kind of reckless homicide that cannot fairly be distinguished for this purpose from homicides committed purposely or knowingly. Recklessness presupposes an awareness of the creation of substantial homicidal risk, a risk too great to be deemed justifiable by any valid purpose that the actor’s conduct serves. Since risk, however, is a matter of degree and the motives for risk creation may be infinite in variation, some formula is needed to identify the case where recklessness should be assimilated to purpose or knowledge. The conception that the draft employs is that of extreme indifference to the value of human life. The significance of purpose or knowledge is that, cases of provocation apart, it demonstrates precisely such indifference. Whether recklessness is so extreme that it demonstrates similar indifference is not a question that, in our view, can be further clarified; it must be left directly to the trier of the facts. If recklessness exists but is not so extreme, the homicide is manslaughter. [Model Penal Code, Tentative Draft # 9, American Law Institute; 1959, p. 29.]
Defendant further argues that inasmuch as “depraved indifference to human life” was intended by the Legislature to mean such extreme recklessness as to be equivalent to “intent”, the State has the burden of proving defendant’s state of mind; that the State failed to present any evidence with regard to defendant’s state of mind; that the only evidence presented thereon was the testimony of defendant’s psychiatrist who was of the opinion that defendant was in such extreme depression that she was incapable of helping herself or her children; that the Court as the trier of fact, erred in rejecting this unrefuted evidence; and that, though defendant’s conduct may have been reckless or negligent, the recklessness was not so gross as to amount to “intent”, or “knowledge” as defendant did not have the requisite “awareness” of the risk involved in her conduct.
Section 76-2-103 provides:
A person engages in conduct:
(1) Intentionally, or with intent or willfully with respect to the nature of his conduct or to a result of his conduct, when it is his conscious objective or desire to engage in the conduct or cause the result.
(2) Knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to his conduct or to circumstances surrounding his conduct when he is aware of the nature of his conduct or the existing circumstances. A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to a result of his conduct when he is aware that his conduct is reasonably certain to cause the result.
(3) Recklessly, or maliciously, with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct or the result of his conduct when he is aware of but consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that its disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the actor’s standpoint.
(4) With criminal negligence or is criminally negligent with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct or the result of his conduct when he ought to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the *65result will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise in all the circumstances as viewed from the actor’s standpoint. [Emphasis added.]4
As noted, ante, it was the intention of the drafters of the Model Penal Code (and hence our Legislature which substantially adopted it) to leave to the finder of fact the determination of whether a defendant’s reckless conduct is so extreme as to be equivalent to purpose or knowledge (i. e., intent) from the circumstances surrounding the creation of the risk of death. Since an intentional or knowing homicide is second degree murder under subsection (a) of the statute, I do not believe that the Legislature intended that “depraved indifference to human life” under subsection (c) should be measured by the same “awareness” of the certainty that the risk would result in death as the word “knowing” would entail. Instead, the greatness of the risk, and the lack of justification for the creation of that risk are the tests.
The District Judge found the psychiatric testimony inconsistent with other evidence. The risk of death created by this defendant was great. The home was dangerously contaminated. The children were fed erratically with quick and easy foods of low nourishment. The children were left alone for extended periods of time in those contaminated surroundings. Even after the defendant knew that Troy, the decedent, was ill and had not taken food or water, she continued to leave the children alone during the next four days, for long periods of time during the day and night, to pursue her own interests.
All of the circumstances reveal a great risk of the death of this child, and very little justification, if any, for defendant’s conduct. The Court determined that the defendant’s actions “evidence a depraved indifference to' human life,” and the evidence supports this determination.
I therefore concur in the holding of the majority of the Court.

. Section 76-5-202 (first degree) and 76-5-203 (second degree).

. Section 76-5-205.

. Section 76-5-206.

. As noted in the first paragraph of this concurring opinion, “malice” (as well as other derivations) does not appear in the homicide statutes, viz., Part 2 of Chapter 5, Title 76, though it does appear in Sec. 76-2-103 under definitions.