Court Opinion

ID: 9452944
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:57:42.748615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:25.976726
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
This is a first degree murder case in which the defendant received a life sentence and in which, according to the majority opinion, (1) the evidence on premeditation and deliberation was weak. (2) the charge on deliberation and premeditation was “brief” and “skimpy,” (3) the charge on malice, relevant to first and second degree murder, was error, and (4) the trial judge would have been “well-advised” to give the manslaughter instruction if trial counsel had reconstructed the facts as well as counsel on appeal.
I agree that the evidence could have supported an inference of premeditation. The weakness in the evidence, though, must inform any decision about the prejudicial effect of errors during the trial. For example, the trial judge’s charge on premeditation and deliberation was very “skimpy” — indeed so skimpy that the jury asked to be reinstructed on these elements. (The trial judge simply repeated his original charge.) The jury’s request casts doubt upon the majority’s assumption that the charge adequately explained the difference between the degrees of murder. Further, at least one phrase in the charge was misleading.1 As the majority politely puts it, “We do not say that the phrase used by the trial court could survive objection.” 2 In my view, the weakness in the evidence on premeditation makes these defects in the charge highly prejudicial.
I agree also with the majority that “The judge erred in stating that ‘the law infers * * * malice’ from the use of a deadly weapon.” 3 However, the “context” of the erroneous phrase leads the majority to think that “it [is] unlikely that the jury felt obligated by virtue of this simple phrase to find malice if it found defendant had a deadly weapon * * *.”4 The charge is quoted in the majority opinion. First, the trial judge informed the jury that malice could be inferred from the circumstances of a killing. He went on to say that the instrument used is always considered. Then he said that “the law infers from the use of [a deadly weapon] the existence of malice essential to culpable homicide,” and (in order to dispel any possible doubt) “as a matter of law that a gun or pistol is a deadly weapon.” I do not see how any juryman listening to the charge could fail to understand what he was being directed to find on the issue of malice if he found that defendant used a pistol. The majority’s theory seems to be that, although a *158lawyer would have understood the difference between “the law infers” and “the law permits you to infer,” the jury did not. I cannot assume so confidently that laymen misunderstand the English language.
The majority points out that the jury found premeditation and deliberation. If that finding were more soundly based, I might be persuaded that the erroneous charge on malice was nonprejudicial. Here the jury made its findings about premeditation on weak evidence, and after a “skimpy,” “brief,” and misleading charge.
Finally, I do not think that a request for an instruction should depend on how well the trial lawyer reconstructs the facts for the trial judge.
I think it is fair to assume that the majority would have reversed on the basis, of the errors which it finds if the defendant’s lawyer had made the proper objections and arguments below. I do not think that the prejudicial nature of these errors is affected in the least by the trial lawyer’s apparent oversights. There is no reason to believe that the failure to make these objections and arguments was motivated by considerations of “strategy” or that it was deliberate in any way.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. I do not see a great difference between saying that “it [deliberation] does not require the lapse of days or hours or even minutes” as the trial judge said here, and saying that the time required for deliberation “may be in the nature of hours, minutes or seconds” which the court found objectionable in Austin v. United States, decided today, 158 U.S. App.D.C.-, 382 F.2d 133 (1967).

. 127 U.S.App.D.C. --, - n. 5, 382 F. 2d 153 n. 5.

. 127 U.S.App.D.C. at -, 382 F.2d at 154.

. 127 U.S.App.D.C. at -, 382 F.2d at 154.