Court Opinion

ID: 9695825
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:29:59.85208+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:16.595092
License: Public Domain

White, J.,
dissenting in part.
I agree that the motor vehicle homicide conviction and sentence should be affirmed.
The majority agrees that a motor vehicle can be a deadly weapon, citing State v. Sianouthai, 225 Neb. 62, 402 N.W.2d 316 (1987). A deadly weapon is an instrument or device “which in the manner it is used or intended to be used is capable of producing death or serious bodily injury.” (Emphasis supplied.) Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-109(7) (Reissue 1985).
That the jury believed the appellant used a motor vehicle in the commission of felony motor vehicle homicide is obvious. The simple conclusion would be, then, that a deadly weapon (the vehicle) was the device used that resulted in the death of another and that unless otherwise prohibited, the appellant could be charged with, convicted of, and punished for use of a weapon to commit a felony.
The majority determines otherwise by concluding that the modest word “to” requires that the actor intend to use the weapon to accomplish the commission of the felony. I submit that the word “to,” in the context of § 28-109, more appropriately means the method or instrument by which the thing prohibited is done, and nothing more. I can read no requirement of a subjective intent in either § 28-109 or Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-1205 (Reissue 1985), save and except as the underlying felony in a § 28-1205 prosecution may require a specific intent.
As the offenses of felony motor vehicle homicide and the use of a weapon to commit a felony are not lesser-included offenses *729of one another, and as the Legislature has provided an enhanced penalty, I would affirm both convictions.
Fahrnbruch, J., joins in this dissent.