Court Opinion

ID: 9517707
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:29:33.418692+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:07:10.848594
License: Public Domain

McAULIFFE, Judge,
dissenting.
The jury in this case found that Leon Bruce, in the course of committing a robbery, shot Barry Tensor in the chest with the specific intent to kill him. Had Tensor died, Bruce would have been guilty of murder in the first degree. Ross v. State, 308 Md. 337, 341-42, 519 A.2d 735 (1987). The fact that Tensor did not die does not absolve Bruce of liability for his dangerous and deadly action. Rather, it changes the nature of the offense from murder in the first degree to attempted murder in the first degree.
There are complications inherent in applying the law of attempt to the concept of felony murder. By mechanical application of established principles, one might, in a facially logical manner, reach the result that every assault committed in the course of an enumerated felony is punishable as an attempted first degree murder. The rationale for that result is that if the victim had died, the result would be first degree murder, and because the defendant had taken every step necessary to commit such a crime, the failure of the victim to die should operate only to change the crime to an attempt. The majority properly rejects that possibility. Our cases have consistently held that proof of an attempt requires proof of a specific intent to commit the underlying crime. See, e.g., Cox v. State, 311 Md. 326, 330, 534 A.2d 1333 (1988); Young v. State, 303 Md. 298, 302-03, 493 A.2d 352 (1985). That portion of the felony murder concept which obviates the need for a specific intent to kill cannot logically be transplanted into the law of attempt.
No such abstruse application of the law is suggested by this case. Here, the trial judge correctly instructed the jury *650that in order to find the defendant guilty of attempted murder, they were required to find that Bruce harbored a specific intent to kill Tensor at the time he shot him.1 The relevant instructions given were: *651That instruction is in accordance with our statement in Young v. State, 308 Md. 298, 311, 493 A.2d 352 (1985) that:
*650In order for one to be guilty of attempted murder in the first degree, three things must be shown: it must be shown that the person intended to kill the victim without excuse or justification or circumstances of mitigation. It has to be a specific intent to kill the victim without excuse, without justification, and without circumstances of mitigation. That’s the first thing.
Then it must be shown that that—that a substantial step was taken toward the commission of that crime. A substantial step toward intentionally killing that human being.
And third, in order for it to be attempted murder in the first degree, that intent and that substantial step or act toward the commission must occur during the course of the commission of the crime of robbery or robbery with a dangerous or deadly weapon.
Those are the three elements that must be proved in order for there to be guilt of attempted murder in the first degree. A specific intent to kill the victim without excuse or justification, a substantial step toward the commission, toward carrying out that intent, and both the intent and the substantial step or act must occur during the course of the commission of the crime of robbery or robbery with a dangerous or deadly weapon.
*651A person is guilty of an attempt to commit a crime when, with intent to commit a crime, he engages in conduct which constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of that crime whether or not his intention be accomplished.
Accepting, as I have, and as the trial judge did below, the premise that a specific intent to kill is a necessary element in any attempted murder, the sole remaining question is whether the fact that the murder was attempted during the perpetration, or attempted perpetration, of an enumerated felony operates to make it an attempted murder in the first degree. History and logic compel the conclusion that it does.
At common law, all murder was punishable by death. In 1809, in recognition of the fact that the several forms of murder varied greatly in degree of atrociousness, and with an express desire to match the penalty to the seriousness of the offense, our legislature divided murder into degrees. Ross v. State, supra, 308 Md. at 340-41, 519 A.2d 735; Hardy v. State, 301 Md. 124, 137, 482 A.2d 474 (1984). The legislature considered the following circumstances sufficiently egregious to warrant inclusion of the offense within the highest degree: murder perpetrated by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or any kind of wilful, deliberate and premeditated killing, or committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, certain enumerated felonies. Ross, supra, 308 Md. at 341, 519 A.2d 735. All other murder was murder in the second degree. No significant change in the treatment of this aspect of the law of murder has been made in the intervening 180 years. See Maryland Code (1957, 1987 Repl.Vol.) Art. 27, §§ 407-411.
It is entirely logical to conclude that an attempted murder committed under the aggravating circumstances singled out by the legislature should be treated as an attempted murder in the first degree. Certainly this is true of attempted premeditated murder. Hardy, supra, 301 Md. at 137, 482 *652A.2d 474. It should be no less true of an attempted murder committed during the perpetration of an enumerated felony, provided that there exists a specific intent to kill. This portion of the concept of felony murder, embracing as it does the clear intent of the legislature, translates very nicely into the law of attempts. As Judge Cole wrote for the Court in Hardy, supra, 301 Md. at 139-40, 482 A.2d 474:
If the evidence satisfies the fact finder by proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the conduct of the defendant falls within the proscribed conduct in the statute labeled as first degree murder that did not result in death of the victim, then the crime of attempted murder in the first degree has been established. If the evidence of criminal culpability is something less, the crime proved may be attempted murder in the second degree or attempted voluntary manslaughter. We emphasize that the basic characteristic of an attempt is that it adjusts according to the proof established at trial.
I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.

. Although the trial judge told the jury that his instructions concerning the crime of attempted murder in the first degree were advisory, both attorneys agreed, and argued to the jury, that if the offense existed in this State a specific intent to kill was an essential element of the offense. Bruce’s attorney took advantage of the advisory nature of the instruction to argue that the crime of "attempted felony murder” does not exist. The argument relating to this offense actually bore on the question of whether the shooting was accidental or intentional. The jury’s verdict necessarily evidences a finding that the requisite specific intent to kill was proved beyond a reasonable doubt.