Court Opinion

ID: 9535700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:52:00.519893+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:18.597818
License: Public Domain

LANE, Judge,
dissenting.
¶ 1 I dissent. The specific intent to injure is an element of child-abuse murder which must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Grady v. State, 1997 OK CR 67, ¶ 3, 947 P.2d 1069, 1070; Bannister v. State, 1996 OK CR 60, ¶ 3, 930 P.2d 1176, 1178; Hockersmith v. State, 1996 OK CR 51, ¶ 10, 926 P.2d 793, 795; Price v. State, 1989 OK CR 74, ¶ 15, 782 P.2d 143, 147; Drew v. State, 1989 OK CR 1, ¶ 13, 771 P.2d 224, 228. Our recent cases have determined what instructions are necessary and sufficient to guide the jury in deciding whether this element has been proven.
¶2 The Court abandons the mens rea requirement entirely today. Today, a defendant in Oklahoma with no proven intent to harm not only can be convicted of child-abuse murder, he can be put to death. This liberalization of Oklahoma death-penalty jurisprudence is not supported by our case law, and is, in my opinion, wrong. The majority holding eliminates voluntary intoxication as a defense to child-abuse murder by the use of unreasonable force. From a practical standpoint this ruling permits the death sentence to be imposed on a person who may have been too intoxicated to know what he was doing. Under such circumstances the death penalty is not an effective deterrent or punishment.
¶ 3 Furthermore, the unauthorized remand for further preliminary hearing appears to be nothing more than a pretense to open the door for the filing of a Bill of Particulars. The trial court erred by allowing this abuse of procedure. Had this error not occurred, the question of death eligibility would not be before us. I am authorized to *404state that Judge Strubhar joins in this dissent.