Court Opinion

ID: 9851613
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:15:59.847286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:08.467105
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
We granted rehearing to consider the State’s argument that the aggravated burglary statute, Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-203 (1978), on its face does not require proof of the acts which make up the target offense of aggravated assault. All that is required by that statute, according to the State, is proof that a defendant intended to commit the target offense. Consequently, continues its argument, aggravated assault requires proof of more than all the facts required for proof of aggravated burglary, and defendant could have committed aggravated burglary without necessarily having committed aggravated assault. We *878have reviewed our decision on the reversal of defendant’s conviction of aggravated assault because it stood in the relationship of a lesser and included offense of aggravated burglary, of which he was also convicted. We have decided, under the narrow factual circumstances of this case, that the reversal should stand, for the following reasons:
As a theoretical proposition, a defendant could commit an aggravated burglary without committing an aggravated assault. Aggravated burglary may require no more than that the burglar be “armed with a deadly weapon.” Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-203(c). Being armed with a deadly weapon in and of itself would not amount to an assault. However, aggravated burglary may also be accomplished when the burglar “uses or threatens the immediate use of a dangerous or deadly weapon against any person who is not a participant in the crime.” Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-203(b). When that element is relied upon by the prosecution to prove aggravated burglary, aggravated assault is simultaneously proven. Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-103(l)(b).
In the instant case, instructions given to the jury on aggravated burglary adopted the latter alternative, namely, that defendant “use[d] or threaten[ed] the immediate use of a dangerous or deadly weapon against any person.” (This alternative was also employed in the charging information against defendant.) Instruction No. 16 directed the jury to find all of the following elements before it could convict defendant of aggravated burglary: (1) that defendant entered or remained in the building of Bill and Gina Rider; (2) that he did so unlawfully; (3) that he did so intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly; (4) that he did so with the intent to commit a felony, a theft, or an assault on Bill Rider or Gina Rider; and (5) that in attempting, committing, or fleeing from said burglary, defendant or another participant in the crime used or threatened the immediate use of a dangerous or deadly weapon against the Riders. When that instruction is compared to instruction No. 13, which defined the elements of aggravated assault, it is apparent that the jury did not have to find any additional elements for conviction of that crime beyond the elements of the crime of aggravated burglary. Instruction No. 13 on aggravated assault required the jury to find each and every one of the following elements: (1) that defendant assaulted Bill and Gina Rider; (2) that defendant then and there used a deadly weapon or such means or force likely to produce death or serious bodily injury; and (3) that defendant did so intentionally or knowingly or recklessly.
In this case, the State’s evidence was that defendant with two companions entered Rider’s home at Rider’s invitation. One of the companions (“Spider”) pulled Rider’s shotgun from a rack on the wall, drew a pistol from his waist, and pointed it at Rider’s head.
Since the jury was not required to find any additional elements to convict defendant of aggravated assault once it had found him guilty of aggravated burglary, we correctly affirmed the conviction of aggravated burglary, a first degree felony, and vacated the conviction of aggravated assault, a third degree felony, as being sur-plusage. As we observed in our earlier opinion in this case, “where the two crimes are such that the greater cannot be committed without necessarily having committed the lesser, then as a matter of law they stand in the relationship of greater and lesser offenses, and the defendant cannot be convicted or punished for both.” State v. Hill, 674 P.2d 96 (Utah 1983); State v. Baker, 671 P.2d 152 (Utah 1983).
This result leaves defendant convicted of one first degree felony. As explained above, an information charging defendant with being armed with a deadly weapon under the count of aggravated burglary would have also subjected him to a conviction of aggravated assault, a third degree felony. Likewise, the State could have charged defendant with simple burglary, a second degree felony, which requires only an intent to commit an assault or felony, and with aggravated assault, a third degree felony, which requires an actual assault with a weapon. Under either of *879those scenarios, defendant would have been properly convicted of both offenses. Under the actual charges in this case, aggravated assault constituted a lesser and included offense of aggravated burglary. Our decision thus stands.