State v. Hart
| Decision Date | 03 June 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 20238,20238 |
| Citation | 1998 SD 93,584 N.W.2d 863 |
| Parties | STATE of South Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. William HART, Defendant and Appellant. . Considered on Briefs |
| Court | South Dakota Supreme Court |
¶1 William Hart appeals his conviction for second-degree murder. We affirm.
¶2 On March 1, 1997, Craig Chips was found dead in an apartment in Rapid City, South Dakota, with a stab wound to his chest. An autopsy revealed that Chips died from that wound. Hart was later convicted of the second-degree murder of Chips.
¶3 About six months earlier, Hart's wife, Olivia, had a sexual relationship with Chips. Hart, who was aware of this affair, became upset and angry.
¶4 A couple of days before the murder, on February 27, 1997, Olivia found Hart with another woman in a Rapid City motel. She became angry, struck him, and told him she wanted a divorce. She then apparently went to be with Chips.
¶5 Two days later, Hart had a friend drive him to where Chips was staying. Hart had taken two knives along with him. 1 Chips was inside the apartment apparently intoxicated and had been sleeping on a couch. Hart was asking him questions about Olivia and had at least one of the knives in his hands. There was trial testimony that Hart then stabbed Chips, although Hart maintains that Chips "moved into" the knife as he got up from the couch.
¶6 Hart returned to his friend's vehicle and stated that he "did something stupid" and may have stabbed someone in the chest. There was also testimony that he later made statements that he "shanked" 2 someone, and that he had told Olivia that he "took care of" Chips and he "won't be coming back, Baby."
¶7 Hart was charged with alternative counts of first-degree and second-degree murder. A jury found him guilty of second-degree murder and he was given a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. Hart appeals, raising the following issues:
1. Whether the trial court's jury instructions on second-degree murder were in error.
2. Whether the trial court erred in allowing certain photographs into evidence.
3. Whether the trial court erred in not allowing Hart to impeach
the testimony of two of the State's witnesses.
4. Whether the trial court improperly allowed testimony regarding Hart's character.
¶8 1. The trial court's jury instructions on second-degree murder were not in error.
¶9 Hart alleges the trial court erred in giving a jury instruction defining an element of second-degree murder. He claims his proposed instruction, and not the one used by the trial court, accurately defines the term "depraved mind" under South Dakota law.
¶10 SDCL 22-16-7 defines second-degree murder as: "Homicide is murder in the second degree when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual." Over Hart's objection, the trial court opted to use South Dakota Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction 3-24-13, to define the terms found in the second-degree murder statute. The trial court instructed:
The word "imminent" or any derivative thereof as used in these instructions means near at hand; mediate rather than immediate; close rather than touching; impending; on the point of happening; threatening; menacing; perilous.
The phrase "dangerous to others" as used in these instructions means an act which is inherently dangerous which puts the lives of others in jeopardy.
The phrase "evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life" as used in these instructions means conduct demonstrating an indifference to the life of others that is not only disregard for the safety of another but a lack of regard for the life of another.
(Emphasis added.) Hart has only objected to the italicized portion pertaining to the definition of "depraved mind."
¶11 Hart had proposed his own definition of "evincing a depraved mind," which read: Hart claims the trial court refusal of this definition was error.
¶12 Hart first argues the definition used by the trial court was erroneous because it conflicts with South Dakota's homicide statutory scheme. Specifically, he argues that the trial court's definition is repugnant to the first-degree manslaughter statute found at SDCL 22-16-15(2). That statute provides:
Homicide is manslaughter in the first degree when perpetrated:
(1) Without a design to effect death by a person while engaged in the commission of a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude;
(2) Without a design to effect death, and in a heat of passion, but in a cruel and unusual manner;
(3) Without a design to effect death, but by means of a dangerous weapon;
(4) Unnecessarily, either while resisting an attempt by the person killed to commit a crime or after such attempt shall have failed;
(5) Unnecessarily, either while resisting an attempt by a pregnant woman to either commit a crime or after such attempt shall have failed....
Hart focuses on subsection 2 and the phrase "cruel and unusual manner."
¶13 South Dakota Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction 3-24-27 defines "cruel and unusual manner" as follows:
"In a cruel and unusual manner" means the killing was done with some excess of cruelty or refinement or unusual cruelty under the circumstances sufficiently marked to approach barbarity and to make it especially shocking, and the unusual character of the manner displayed in the killing must stand out as sufficiently unusual and unique or peculiar as to astonish and shock persons of normal sensibilities.
¶14 Hart contends that the definitions for "evincing a depraved mind" and "in a cruel and unusual manner" are inconsistent. He maintains that, under the definition used by the trial court for "evincing a depraved mind," it appears second-degree murder is a less egregious or less culpable crime than first-degree manslaughter. He argues that a killing "demonstrating an indifference to life" is simply not as bad as a killing done in a manner that is "especially shocking" or "approach[ing] barbarity." Hart cites to State v. Primeaux, 328 N.W.2d 256, 258 (S.D.1982), wherein we held that "[t]he crucial distinction between second-degree murder and manslaughter in the first degree is that the former requires a 'depraved mind' as an element of the crime, while the latter does not." He argues that, since the phrase "depraved mind" is the crucial distinction, it should be defined in a way that "sounds worse" than "in a cruel and unusual manner."
¶15 We find no merit in Hart's argument. It is true that "evincing a depraved mind" is the critical distinction between second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter; however, Hart's argument only focuses on one phrase in one subsection of the first-degree manslaughter statute. Subsection 2, that Hart emphasizes, would pertain to a situation where an individual would not be guilty of murder, even though the killing was done in a "barbaric" manner, because that person was acting in the "heat of passion." "Heat of passion" is defined as an "intent 'formed suddenly, under the influence of some violent emotion, which for the instant overwhelmed the reason of the slayer.' " Graham v. State, 346 N.W.2d 433, 434 (S.D.1984) (citing State v. Edmunds, 20 S.D. 135, 140, 104 N.W. 1115, 1116 (1905)); see also South Dakota Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction 3-24-26 defining the phrase as:
" 'Heat of passion' is such mental disturbance or condition as would so overcome and dominate or suspend the exercise of the judgment of [a person] as to render [that person's] mind for the time being deaf to the voice of reason, make [him or her] incapable of forming and executing the distinct intent to take human life, and to cause [him or her], uncontrollably, to act from impending force of the disturbing cause rather than from any real wickedness of heart or cruelty or recklessness of disposition." (Emphasis added.)
¶16 Therefore, while at first blush it may sound worse to kill someone in a "barbaric manner," the distinction is that for first-degree manslaughter, the killing must be "in the heat of passion," and the perpetrator must be unable to control his or her actions. The heat of passion acts as a mitigating factor, rather than an excuse, for the homicide. It is apparent that, when looking at the second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter statutes as a whole, the definition employed by the trial court is not inconsistent with our homicide statutory scheme. If a person is able to act with "a lack of regard for the life of another," then that person can be convicted of second-degree murder.
¶17 Hart's second argument focuses on the fact that the term "depravity of mind" is an aggravating circumstance listed in SDCL 23A-27A-1 which can lead to the imposition of the death penalty in a first-degree murder case. That term has been defined differently in that context. In State v. Rhines, 1996 SD 55, p 148, 548 N.W.2d 415, 449, we held that the trial court's definition of "depravity of mind" as an aggravating circumstance to justify imposition of the death penalty was unconstitutional as violative of the South Dakota Constitution and the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. 3 In Rhines, we noted:
"A State's definitions of its aggravating circumstances--those circumstances that make a criminal defendant 'eligible' for the death penalty--therefore play a significant role in channeling the sentencer's discretion." Lewis v. Jeffers, 497 U.S. 764, 774, 110 S.Ct. 3092, 3099, 111 L.Ed.2d 606, 619 (1990). To satisfy constitutional mandates, an aggravating circumstance must meet two basic requirements. First, it "must genuinely narrow...
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