Court Opinion

ID: 9575659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:15:42.925701+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:49:40.783639
License: Public Domain

MILLER, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
I depart from the majority opinion on the double jeopardy issue. Taken in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence presented at trial demonstrated that the defendant below fired the shots that seriously wounded Mr. Rice from a place of concealment and then tried to hide the evidence of his crime. There is no reason to dispute the jury’s finding that this act was committed with the premeditation, malice, and intent to kill necessary to support a conviction for attempted first-degree murder. The same evidence, however, supports the conviction for malicious wounding.
In similar circumstances, other courts have found double jeopardy to bar multiple trials and punishments. In Carawan v. State, 515 So.2d 161 (Fla.1987), for example, the court found that a defendant who had fired a shotgun as many as four times at the victim, wounding him once, could not be punished for both attempted manslaughter and aggravated battery. See also Davis v. State, 559 So.2d 707 (Fla.App.1990). In Rivera v. State, 547 So.2d 140 (Fla.App.1989), review denied, 558 So.2d 19 (Fla.1990), the court held that the defendant’s convictions for aggravated child abuse, aggravated battery, and attempted first-degree murder violated double jeopardy where all three charges arose out of the defendant’s single act of choking an eleven-year-old child. And in Hughett v. State, 557 N.E.2d 1015 (Ind.1990), the court held that where, in the course of a brawl, the defendant stabbed the victim several times, inflicting potentially life threatening wounds, the crimes of battery resulting in serious bodily injury and battery with a deadly weapon were included offenses of the crime of attempted murder. See also Guardado v. State, 562 So.2d 696 (Fla. App.), review denied, 576 So.2d 287 (Fla. 1990); People v. Parks, 8 Cal.App.3d 698, 87 Cal.Rptr. 419 (1970), vacated on other *548grounds, 4 Cal.3d 955, 95 Cal.Rptr. 193, 485 P.2d 257 (1971); Brown v. Commonwealth, 222 Va. 111, 279 S.E.2d 142 (1981).
The cases cited by the majority are not necessarily in conflict. In State v. Sharpe, 195 Conn. 651, 491 A.2d 345 (1985), the defendant was charged with first-degree assault and attempted murder based on the fact that he had fired once from the front of the victim’s vehicle, then walked to the driver’s side of the vehicle and fired five or six more shots at the victim. In State v. Worl, 58 Wash.App. 443, 794 P.2d 31, review granted, 115 Wash.2d 1022, 804 P.2d 9 (1990), the defendant was convicted of malicious harassment1 and attempted second-degree murder for making derogatory racial comments to the victim, threatening him, and striking him before finally stabbing him several times. In each case, there is an initial instance of violence for a purpose other than murder and a subsequent instance of violence from which it can be said that the perpetrator’s purpose has become to kill the victim. There is a distinct end to the lesser crime and a distinct beginning to the second offense.2
Here, there is no such distinction between the acts of violence. The acts giving rise to the malicious wounding charge are the same acts that prove attempted murder. Quite simply, the defendant could not have intended to kill Mr. Rice and have attempted to do so in the manner described at trial without, at the same time, having committed the crime of malicious wounding. See People v. Brown, 81 A.D.2d 674, 438 N.Y.S.2d 577 (1981). See also Hughett v. State, 557 N.E.2d at 1017 (“Battery is not an inherently included offense of attempted murder, but where, as here, the charging instrument alleges attempted murder by means of infliction of a wound, battery is an included offense.”).
It is unfortunate that the majority, instead of following what appears to be the majority view, elects to accept a cramped minority view on this double jeopardy issue.

. Wash.Rev.Code Ann. § 9A.36.080 (1984) defines "malicious harassment” as causing or attempting to place another in fear of personal injury or property damage "maliciously and with the intent to intimidate or harass another person because of that person’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, or mental, physical, or sensory handicap.”

. State v. Davis, 580 A.2d 163 (Me.1990), cited by the majority, states only minimal facts, which makes it difficult to analyze.