Court Opinion

ID: 9853846
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:56:08.354672+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:11.230638
License: Public Domain

Fletcher, Presiding Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent because I cannot accept the majority’s conclusion in Division 3 that the error in failing to instruct on cruelty to children as a lesser included offense of felony murder was harmless because it is not a lesser included offense of malice murder. It is true that the statutory elements of cruelty to children include a requirement that the victim be under 18 and the elements of malice murder contain no such requirement. It defies logic, however, to say that the state could have proved malice murder of a four-month-old baby without necessarily proving cruelty to children. Only by ignoring the facts in this case and focusing on statutory elements alone can the majority conclude that the error in failing to give a lesser included offense charge was harmless.
The rationale behind allowing a defendant to request an instruction on a lesser included offense is the understanding that a jury is likely to resolve any doubts in favor of conviction when the defendant has clearly done something wrong, but the jury’s only other option is acquittal.3 In this case, the evidence showed that Loren either participated in or had knowledge of the abuse of her son that occurred prior to the infliction of the fatal injury. The evidence, however, was conflicting as to who delivered the fatal blows and was not so overwhelming as to demand a conviction for malice murder or felony murder. Yet, the trial court instructed the jury that Loren was either guilty of murder or would have to be acquitted.
Because the evidence showed that Loren did something wrong, but not necessarily murder, and because the jury was given only two options, murder or acquit, I do not find the error in failing to charge on cruelty to children harmless.
I am authorized to state that Justice Sears joins in this dissent.
*798Decided December 3, 1997 —
Reconsideration denied December 19, 1997.
Sam B. Sibley, Jr., for appellant.
Daniel J. Craig, District Attorney, Charles R. Sheppard, Assistant District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Mary Beth Westmoreland, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

 See Keeble v. United States, 412 U. S. 205 (93 SC 1993, 1998, 36 LE2d 844) (1973) (“where one of the elements of the offense charged remains in doubt, but the defendant is plainly guilty of some offense, the jury is likely to resolve its doubts in favor of conviction”).