Court Opinion

ID: 9664328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:14:40.797424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:04.898464
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. In deciding the case as it does, the majority of the court disregards the plain meaning of the controlling statutes in order to obtain a result that is more pleasing to its own sense of justice than the interpretation of the statute that is plainly evinced by the wording of the legislation and the legislative history.
I. Felony Murder.
The rule of statutory interpretation that is embodied in our rules of appellate procedure insists that in determining the meaning of statutes “the court searches for the legislative intent as shown by what the *564legislature said, rather than what it should or might have said.” Iowa R.App. P. 6.14(6)(to ). What the legislature has said in our felony-murder statute and the other statutes bearing on that subject is not subject to dispute. The basic felony-murder statute reads:
A person commits murder in the first degree when the person commits murder under any of the following circumstances:
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2. The person Mils another person while participating in a forcible felony.
Iowa Code § 707.2(2) (2001). A forcible felony is defined in our criminal code as “any felonious child endangerment, assault, murder, sexual abuse, Mdnapping, robbery, arson in the first degree, or burglary in the first degree.” Id. § 702.11 (emphasis added).2
If we interpret this statute according to its plain meaning, it is obvious that the adjective “felonious” modifies all of the offenses thereafter identified, including, among the others, the word “assault.” A standard legal dictionary defines “felonious assault” as “[a]n assault that is of sufficient severity to be classified and punished as a felony.” Black’s Law Dictionary 110 (7th ed.1999). The class “C” felony version of willful injury was, at the time of Lyon’s Mlling, a felonious assault because it was classified by law as a felony, see Iowa Code § 708.4(1), and the elements of the crime, i.e., an act intended to cause injury, satisfied the definition of assault embodied in Iowa Code section 708.1(1). The jury could certainly have found from the evidence that in Mlling Lyon defendant performed an act with the intent to cause him serious injury. In order to trigger the felony-murder doctrine, it was not necessary for the State to show that intent was realized. Iowa Code § 702.13 (A person is participating in a public offense during the entire period commencing with the first act done directly toward the commission of the offense and is participating whether the person is successful or unsuccessful in committing the offense.).
The willful-injury offense upon which felony murder was predicated in State v. Beeman, 315 N.W.2d 770 (Iowa 1982), was identical with the present class “C” felony version of that crime. Because that crime fell within the statutory definition of forcible felony and because a person commits murder in the first degree when he or she Mils another person while participating in a forcible felony, this court held in Beeman that willful injury could serve as a basis for a felony-murder conviction under Iowa Code section 707.2(2). Beeman, 315 N.W.2d at 777.
In upholding a felony-murder conviction based on willful injury, Beeman did not ignore the merger argument that the majority now opts to adopt. That case discussed the court’s earlier consideration of that doctrine in State v. Hinkle, 229 N.W.2d 744, 750-51 (Iowa 1975). Beeman, 315 N.W.2d at 777. Although in Hinkle this court held that the merger argument had not been preserved for consideration, it discussed the doctrine, as considered by other courts, and stated:
Other jurisdictions confronted with a properly-presented “felony merger” is*565sue have demonstrated a reluctance to allow the State to bootstrap a higher degree of murder solely on the basis of a felonious assault .... Among courts considering the doctrine it has gained widespread acceptance.
Hinkle, 229 N.W.2d at 750 (citation omitted).
After considering the merger doctrine as approved in other jurisdictions, the court stated in Beeman:
We conclude that the inclusion, by the legislature, of “felonious assault” in sections 707.2(2) and 702.11, indicates that it intended that felonious assaults, including willful injury under section 708.4, be felonies that may serve as the basis of a felony-murder and that the merger doctrine discussed in Hinkle not apply to such assaults.
315 N.W.2d at 777. This result was compelled by the unambiguous wording of the controlling statutes and the long-standing judicial recognition that the legislature is aware of the meaning of all related statutory provisions and does not enact inconsistent provisions without expressly recognizing the inconsistency. State v. McSorley, 549 N.W.2d 807, 809 (Iowa 1996). In the present situation, the legislature is presumed to have knowledge of those offenses constituting forcible felonies when it used the unqualified term “forcible felony” in the enactment of the felony-murder provision. The idea that in including willful injury among those offenses giving rise to felony murder the legislature had in mind a compartmentalization of assaultive conduct with the conclusion of an earlier assault prior to the act that does the victim in is absurd. The felony-murder doctrine does not depend on the completion of any forcible felony, but only the initiation of an act done directly toward the commission of the offense. Iowa Code § 702.13.
Not only is the result obtained in Bee-man compelled by the plain language of the controlling statutes, it is also supported by the fact that, in adopting a felony-murder component for all forcible felonies, the legislature rejected a proposal of the Criminal Code Review Study Committee, which it had appointed, providing that homicide and assaults would not be a basis for felony murder. See John J. Yeager, Crimes Against the Person: Homicide, Assault, Sexual Abuse and Kidnapping in the Proposed Iowa Criminal Code, 60 Iowa L.Rev. 503, 510-11 (1975) [hereinafter Yeager], The Criminal Code Review Study Committee employed Professor John J. Yeager of Drake Law School and Professor Ronald Carlson of the University of Iowa College of Law as its drafting consultants. See Mark E. Schantz, Objectives of Criminal Code Revision: Guidelines to Evaluation, 60 Iowa L.Rev. 430, 432 (1975) (discussing background of 1976 criminal code review). The Criminal Code Review Study Committee submitted a proposed comprehensive revision of the criminal code to the 1974 legislative session. Id. This was introduced as S.F. 1150. While this was pending, Professor Yeager, in the article previously cited, discussed the approach of the proposed code revision in regard to felony murder:
The present first degree murder statute [pre-1978 law] refers to only five of the dangerous felonies. If a homicide occurs in the course of the commission of some felony other than the five listed, under present law a first degree murder conviction will depend upon a showing of “premeditation and deliberation.” The Proposed Code classifies as first degree homicide any killing which results when one engaged in a felony of any nature (iother than homicide or assault) intentionally resorts to personal violence.
*566Yeager, 60 Iowa L.Rev. at 510-11 (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted). The section of S.F. 1150 to which the Yeager article refers was chapter 1, section 703, which read as follows:
A person commits homicide in the first degree when he commits criminal homicide under the following circumstances:
1. He intentionally commits a homicide, provided that none of the mitigating circumstances as stated in sections seven hundred four (704) and seven hundred five (705) of this division exist.
2. While participating in a felony other than homicide or assault, or while escaping or attempting to escape from lawful custody, he directs violence toward any person which causes the death of such person or another person.
3. He participates in a forcible felony other than homicide or assault and thereby causes the death of some person.
(Emphasis added.)
Contrary to the recommendation of the Criminal Code Review Study Committee, the felony-murder rule adopted by the legislature included all forcible felonies, including felonious assaults. See 1976 Iowa Acts ch. 1245, §§ 211, 702.2. This was a clear rejection of the view that felonious assaults may not provide a basis for applying the felony-murder doctrine. We have recognized that, when a statute is passed leaving out qualifying words that had been contained in proposed legislation, the statute should not be interpreted in a manner that would invoke the omitted qualification. Builders Land Co. v. Martens, 255 Iowa 231, 236, 122 N.W.2d 189, 191-92 (1963).
Although the reasoning of those courts and commentators that reject the use of felonious assaults as crimes for which felony murder may be established is based on sound policy considerations, those considerations have been rejected by our legislature. As a result, this court is not free to invoke those considerations no matter how valid we find them to be. As the majority has noted, this court has stood strong on this issue in the years following Beeman, and we have reaffirmed that decision on no less than four occasions. This chain of authority presents yet another reason why the result reached in Beeman should not now be altered. We have recognized that stare decisis is particularly applicable “where the construction placed on a statute by previous decisions has been long acquiesced in by the legislature, by its continued use or failure to change the language of the statute so construed, the power to change the law as interpreted being regarded, in such circumstances, as one to be exercised solely by the legislature.” Cover v. Craemer, 258 Iowa 29, 34-35, 137 N.W.2d 595, 599 (1965) (quoting 21 C.J.S. Courts § 214 (1959) (currently contained in 21 C.J.S. Courts § 167 (1990))). That principle of law has been previously invoked by this court in our consideration of the Beeman line of cases. See State v. Rhomberg, 516 N.W.2d 803, 805 (Iowa 1994) (“A proposed change in the law, if desired, is in the province of the legislature.”).
The majority attempts to justify its clear disregard of the legislature’s approach to felony murder by suggesting that applying the interpretation approved in Beeman tests the outer constitutional parameters of the felony-murder doctrine. There is no basis for such a suggestion. The acceptance of willful injury as a basis for felony murder was challenged on both due-process and equal-protection grounds in State v. Ragland, 420 N.W.2d 791 (Iowa 1988). In rejecting the due-process challenge, we observed that our felony-murder statute did not relieve the state of the burden to prove all of the elements of the basic crime *567of murder. It only affected the degree of guilt based on the culpability of those acts that constitute the crime of willful injury. Ragland, 420 N.W.2d at 794. Those acts require, with regard to the class “C” felony, that the defendant intends to cause serious injury to the victim. Serious injury includes bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death. See Iowa Code § 702.18(1)(& )(1).
In rejecting the equal-protection challenge lodged in Ragland, we found that there was a rational basis for concluding that the crime of willful injury posed a greater risk to the victim than other crimes for which felony murder may not be invoked. Ragland, 420 N.W.2d at 794. A similar rejection of these constitutional arguments was made by the United States Court of Appeals in a federal habeas corpus case in which that court concluded
“[defendant’s constitutional] argument that “second degree murder ... cannot be enhanced by ‘participating’ in an act which is also an element of murder,” simply lacks a constitutional basis. [The] argument is, at base, an argument against the merger doctrine, which some states apply to prevent felonies that are an integral part of homicide, such as assault, from being used to support a felony murder charge. The Supreme Court of Iowa has specifically rejected the merger doctrine as it applies to forcible felonies ....
Heaton v. Nix, 924 F.2d 130, 134 (8th Cir.1991) (citations omitted).
The cases from other jurisdictions on which the majority relies are inapposite because in none of those cases did the court reject as a basis for felony murder a crime embedded by definition in the controlling statutory law. The California and Oregon statutes involved in People v. Ireland, 70 Cal.2d 522, 75 Cal.Rptr. 188, 450 P.2d 580 (1969), People v. Washington, 62 Cal.2d 777, 44 Cal.Rptr. 442, 402 P.2d 130 (1965), and State v. Branch, 244 Or. 97, 415 P.2d 766 (1966), were not degree-of-guilt statutes, but rather employed felony murder as an alternative to killing with malice aforethought.3 A separate-degree-of-guilt statute in those states contained a felony-murder theory for establishing first-degree murder, but those statutes did not include felonious assaults among the felonies from which first-degree murder might be determined.4
In Massachusetts, where the Kilbum and Gunter cases discussed by the majority were decided, felony murder is a common-law doctrine not governed by statute. *568See Commw. v. Claudio, 418 Mass. 103, 634 N.E.2d 902, 906 (1994) (“The felony-murder rule in Massachusetts ‘is defined by common law.’ ” (Citations omitted.)). For this reason, the Massachusetts appellate court was free to adopt a felony-murder rule of its own choosing. Because the felony-murder doctrine in Iowa is statutory and the predicate offenses are determined by statutory designation, this court does not enjoy that freedom.
II. Alleged Inadequacy of the Willful-Injury Instruction.
Defendant contends and the majority suggests that the elements of the willful-injury instruction are inadequate because they only refer to intentionally pointing a firearm or displaying a dangerous weapon in a threatening manner, actions that do not constitute the class “C” felony version of willful injury. This is not a valid contention.
The court’s instructions must be considered as a whole in determining whether the correct rules of law were imparted to the jury. Gremmel v. Junnie’s Lounge, 397 N.W.2d 717, 722 (Iowa 1986). The court’s instruction on willful injury not only required the jury to find the pointing of a gun or the displaying of a dangerous weapon in a threatening manner but also to find that in so doing defendant intended to cause a serious injury to Lyon and did in fact cause a serious injury to him. This instruction alone includes all of the basic elements of the class “C” felony version of willful injury, but the instructions as a whole go further. The willful-injury instruction is employed as an expansion on the marshaling instruction for first-degree murder. The matters required to be proved by that instruction must be considered in connection with the willful-injury instruction in determining what the jury was required to find. The first-degree murder marshaling instruction required the jury to find that “the defendant shot Tommy Ray Lyon,” “Tommy Ray Lyon died as a result of being shot,” and “the defendant acted with malice aforethought.” In combination, the instructions state all of the necessary elements for a finding of first-degree murder using willful injury as the predicate felony on a felony-murder theory.
III. The Medical Privilege Issue.
In considering the court’s conclusion requiring in camera examination of privileged medical records, I do not face the same issue as the majority. The majority opinion has determined that the case should be reversed on the felony-murder issues and thus does not need to find prejudice in order to invoke its view on the availability of the privileged medical records for purposes of a retrial. I, on the other hand, find no other basis for reversing defendant’s conviction and will not vote to reverse on the medical-privilege issue unless I am able to conclude that demonstrable prejudice to defendant occurred from the trial court’s ruling upholding the privilege. Approaching the issue in this manner, I am satisfied that sufficient prejudice has not been demonstrated to warrant a reversal of defendant’s conviction. Defendant was able to present substantial evidence to the jury concerning Lyon’s violent temper directed at both defendant and third parties on prior occasions. The issue that the jury was required to decide was Lyon’s conduct immediately prior to the time of his killing. Neither past conduct nor medical history gives rise to more than an educated guess as to that circumstance. Consequently, I do not find that the absence of the medical evidence warrants a reversal. I would affirm defendant’s conviction in all respects.
CADY, J., joins this dissent.

. Certain felonies that would otherwise fall within the foregoing definition are excepted, including the class "D” felony version of willful injury. See Iowa Code § 702.1 l(2)(a). This is not significant in the present case, however, because the felony-murder claim submitted to the jury was predicated on the contention that Heemstra committed murder while participating in the class "C” felony version of willful injury, which was the same offense on which a felony-murder conviction was predicated in State v. Beeman, 315 N.W.2d 770, 776-77 (Iowa 1982).

. The California statutory scheme for felony murder is described as follows by that state’s highest court:
The felony-murder rule operates (1) to posit the existence of malice aforethought in homicides which are the direct causal result of the perpetration or attempted perpetration of all felonies inherently dangerous to human life, and (2) to posit the existence of malice aforethought and to classify the offense as murder of the first degree in homicides which are the direct causal result of those six felonies specifically enumerated ....
People v. Ireland, 70 Cal.2d 522, 75 Cal.Rptr. 188, 450 P.2d 580, 589 (1969). The Oregon felony-murder scheme has been described as follows by that state's highest court:
The purpose of the felony-murder rule is to relieve the state of the burden of proving premeditation or malice whenever the victim’s death is caused by the killer while the killer is committing another felony. Since a malignant purpose is established by proof of the defendant's other felony, malice is redundant with reference to the killing. If the collateral felony is one of those named in [designated statute] the murder is first degree. If the collateral felony is any other felony, the murder is second degree.
State v. Branch, 244 Or. 97, 415 P.2d 766, 767 (1966).

. See footnote 2.