Court Opinion

ID: 9663943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:55:27.265427+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:59.408347
License: Public Domain

FINE, J.
(concurring). Although I agree with the majority's result, I arrive there by a slightly different route. Specifically, I do not believe that we have to reach the issue of whether the word "intent" as used in section 939.32(3), Stats., has been modified by section 939.23(4), Stats.1
*212A trial court may submit a lesser-included offense to a jury "only when there are reasonable grounds in the evidence both for acquittal on the greater charge and conviction on the lesser offense." State v. Wilson, 149 Wis. 2d 878, 898, 440 N.W.2d 534, 542 (1989) (emphasis in original). I agree that there were no reasonable grounds to acquit Gerald L. Weeks of the greater charge, attempted first-degree intentional homicide as party to a crime in violation of sections 940.01(1), 939.32, and 939.05, Stats.
A person is guilty of first-degree intentional homicide when he or she "causes the death of another human being with intent to kill that person or another." Section 940.01(1), Stats. The word "intent," as used in section 940.01(1), means either that the actor "has a purpose to do the thing or cause the result specified, or is aware that his or her conduct is practically certain to cause that result." Section 939.23(4), Stats, (emphasis added). As the majority recognizes, this second prong has expanded the scope of first-degree intentional homicide prohibited by section 940.01(1) beyond that of first-degree murder prohibited by section 940.01, Stats. (1985-86). Dickey, Schultz, Fullin, The Importance of Clarity in the Law of Homicide: The Wisconsin Revision, 1989 Wis. L. Rev. 1323, 1336-1339 (1989). Thus, a person is guilty of first-degree intentional homicide when he or she causes the death of another human being and is aware that his or her conduct is practically certain to cause that result. I agree with the majority that under *213the circumstances of this case it is not reasonable to conclude that the shooter was not aware that shooting at such close range was "practically certain" to cause Sylvia Schmidt's death even though, arguably, a reasonable jury could have found that he either did not have the purpose to kill her or actually hoped that she would not die.2 That Mrs. Schmidt was saved from death by an "extraneous factor" reduced the crime to an "attempt"; it does not negate the shooter's "intent to kill," sec. 940.01(1), Stats., under the second prong of section 939.23(4). I do not agree, however, that we must decide whether the definition of "intent" in section 939.23(4) is incorporated into the attempt statute, section 939.32(3).
Section 939.32(3), Stats., provides, in pertinent part, that an "attempt to commit a crime requires that the actor have an intent to perform acts and attain a result which, if accomplished, would constitute such crime . . . except for the intervention of . . . some . . . extraneous factor." Here, there is no doubt but that the shooter intended to shoot, irrespective of whether "intent" is given its common meaning of "purpose," Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language 1176 (1976), or the meaning in section 939.23, Stats. By the same token, the shooter had the purpose to "attain a result which, if accomplished, would constitute" first-degree intentional homicide, section 939.32(3); that is, he purposefully shot at Mrs. Schmidt under circumstances that, but for the intervention of an extraneous factor, would have constituted the crime of *214first-degree intentional homicide. See section 939.23(5), Stats. ("Criminal intent does not require proof of knowledge of the existence ... of the section under which he is prosecuted or the scope or meaning of the terms used in that section."). Accordingly, we need not decide in this case whether the alternative definition of intent found in section 939.23 applies to section 939.32.

Section 939.32(3), Stats., provides:
An attempt to commit a crime requires that the actor have an intent to perform acts and attain a result which, if accomplished, would constitute such crime and that he does acts toward the commission of the crime which demonstrate unequivocally, under all the circumstances, that he formed that intent and would commit the crime *212except for the intervention of another person or some other extrane-ons factor.
Section 939.23(4), Stats., provides:
"With intent to" or "with intent that" means that the actor either has a purpose to do the thing or cause the result specified, or is aware that his or her conduct is practically certain to cause that result.

To use an example proffered by Dickey, Schultz, and Fullin in their law review article, an arsonist who sets fire to a building knowing that some people will not be able to escape the blaze is guilty of first-degree intentional homicide even though he "does not have the purpose to cause their deaths" and, in fact, "hopes they will be able to escape." 1989 Wis. L. Rev. at 1337.