Court Opinion

ID: 9740622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:38:46.680309+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:19.219456
License: Public Domain

Thomas Gallagher, Justice
(dissenting in part).
I am of the opinion that statements made by defendant in his confession and at his arraignment indicate that there would have been much evidence from which a jury might have found that his killing of the station attendant was not premeditated and that his guilt would be for that of murder in the third degree under Minn. St. 1961, § 619.10.
Thus, he stated in his confession that the attendant “was going to hit me with something, and the gun went off, and I didn’t mean to do it. I just didn’t know what I was doing.” Asked how long he had planned this holdup, defendant replied, “I didn’t even plan it”; and asked how it happened, he replied, “I don’t know. I was just sitting there and then all at once, I just did it”; that after he had asked the man for money, he had had a little trouble with him; that he did not think he pulled the gun out when he asked the attendant for the money, although he was not sure, but thought the gun was still in his coat; that he did not tell the man it was a holdup; and that after he asked the man for money, he (the attendant) was going to hit him (the defendant) and that he pulled out the gun and it went off and then “I just stood there and shot.”
While there is no doubt in my mind that the evidence as a whole would support a verdict of murder in the first degree, I feel that because of these statements, and because of defendant’s deficient mentality, the case should be remanded for conviction and imposition of sentence for the crime of murder in the third degree rather than murder in the first degree. This would give defendant the benefit of the doubt on the inferences which might be drawn from his statements with respect to his intentions at the time the crime was committed.