Court Opinion

ID: 9564670
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:05:20.528399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:36.566843
License: Public Domain

LANE, Judge,
dissenting.
I take exception with the opinion of the majority in a number of ways, one of them fatal to the result of this case. The first disagreement comes with the majority’s treatment of the victim impact offering as indicated in footnote 31. I agree that in Cargle1 we suggested that the trial court consider the possibility of presenting victim impact material in a question and answer format. However, I now feel that we made a mistake in this regard. As Cargle indicated, the admission of this type of information is very limited by the statute as to what is permissible. The nature of the information is emotional and volatile. In a question and answer format the court does not have as much control over limiting the information as it has if the information is imparted by the use of a prepared statement.
The legislature has not helped in telling us what form they intended when they authorized this type of information to be presented in a trial. In a 1992 amendment to § 701.10(C) of title 21 they provided: “In addition, the state may introduce evidence about the victim and about the impact of the murder on the family of the victim.” (Emphasis supplied) By using the term “evidence” the legislature implied that someone' would testify in a question and answer format and be subject to the normal rules as to confrontation. However, the same legislature in the same year enacted § 984 and § 984.1 of title 22 wherein they shunned the use of the term “evidence” and referred to the information authorized as “victim impact statements”. To me the term “statement” indicates a prepared narrative, not a question and answer form of testimony. This interpretation of the term “statement” is bolstered by other provisions of § 984.1 when it allows the statements to be presented by either the victim or member of the family, either in writing or orally at the hearing, or by a person designated by the victim or family members; and by sub-section C which requires the judge to furnish copies of the statement to the parties.
I would find the question and answer method to be error, but harmless in this case. There was nothing in the testimony that was so grievous that it would have affected the outcome of the sentencing stage of the trial.
*774I also disagree with a part of the majority’s treatment of the evidence concerning the aggravator of future dangerousness. I do agree that the determination of the presence of the aggravating circumstance is at the time of sentencing. However, I do not agree that the evidence of the appellant having consensual sex with a 14 year old girl is an indication of his propensity for dangerous actions. The act is illegal, immoral, and reprehensible, but it is not a violent act and therefore is not material to proving that Appellant would be a danger to society in the future. Once again, I would find that the error is not outcome determinative and would not reverse on this issue.
The disagreement that I have with the majority that in my opinion dictates reversal arises from the treatment of Appellant’s second proposition—the failure to instruct on first degree manslaughter. The majority justifies the failure to give the manslaughter instruction on the rationalization that one of ' the elements of manslaughter is the lack of a design to effect death and the evidence indicates that such a design was present. This ignores the very heart of the voluntary intoxication defense which is based on the fact that a person can become so intoxicated that he or she cannot form the necessary intent to commit a crime when intent is one of the elements. However, the defense is not a complete defense and a person asserting it would be guilty of a lesser included offense that does not require intent.
This was recognized in Oxendine v. State, 335 P.2d 940 (Okl.Cr.1958). Citing Beshirs v. State, 14 Okl.Cr. 578, 174 P. 577 (1918); Choate v. State, 19 Okl.Cr. 169, 197 P. 1060 (1921); and, Mott v. State, 94 Okl.Cr. 145, 232 P.2d 166 (1951); the Oxendine court mandated the following instruction found in Mott be given when the jury is instructed on voluntary intoxication:
You are instructed that homicide committed with a design to effect death is not the less murder because the perpetrator was in a state of voluntary intoxication at the time. However, one of the elements of the crime of murder is an intent to effect the death of the person killed and if you find that the defendant at the time of the killing was so completely drunk as to be totally unable to form an intent to kill, or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you should not find the defendant guilty of murder. The homicide, under such circumstances, unless otherwise excusable, would amount to manslaughter in the first degree.
Oxendine, 335 P.2d at 944. Oxendine has been followed in Williams v. State, 513 P.2d 335, 339 (Okl.Cr.1973); Gibson v. State2, 501 P.2d 891, 899-900 (Okl.Cr.1972); and, Biggerstaff v. State, 491 P.2d 345, 351 (Okl.Cr.1971).
Contrary to the opinion of the majority, I do not think we can excuse the failure to give the instruction by finding that there was insufficient evidence to require the voluntary intoxication instruction in the first place. That is not the issue. The issue is the Court did give that instruction and, therefor, was required by law to give the follow-up instruction on manslaughter.
The Oxendine court summed up my feelings with language that would be appropriate in this case:
This case has given this court much concern realizing full well the fiendish conception and brutal execution of the crime, the basic facts all being admitted by the defendants. However, the error causing reversal is of such flagrant nature that a precedent approving the same would be extremely detrimental to the rules of evidence by which all people charged with a crime are tried. Regardless of the seriousness of a crime, irrespective of the guilt of a defendant, our system of jurisprudence affords to her or to him a fair and impartial trial in accordance with certain fundamental rules and in conformity with the law. These rules were not adhered to in the case at bar; consequently it must be *775retried in compliance with the decisions recited herein.
335 P.2d at 944.

. Cargle v. State, 909 P.2d 806 (Okl.Cr.1996).

. In Gibson, the Court, without explanation, found that the failure to give the proper instruction was not sufficient to cause a reversal of the conviction but did cause the punishment to be reduced from death to life imprisonment. 501 P.2d at 900.