Mathews v. State

• Court: Indiana Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Boehm
• Citation: Mathews v. State, 849 N.E.2d 578, 2006 WL 1756038 (Ind. 2006)
• Decision Date: 28 June 2006
• Docket Number: No. 49S02-0509-PC-405.,49S02-0509-PC-405.
• Parties: Dorsey MATHEWS, Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).

849 N.E.2d 578

Dorsey MATHEWS, Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below).

No. 49S02-0509-PC-405.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

June 28, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Victoria Ursulskis, Indianapolis, IN, Attorney for Appellant.

Steve Carter, Attorney General of Indiana, Michael Gene Worden, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.

On Petition To Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02-0406-PC-493

BOEHM, Justice.

Damaging property by fire is the crime of arson under a number of separate circumstances. We hold that damaging one property by fire is only one arson, even if the fire produces multiple consequences, any one of which is sufficient to constitute arson. We also hold that an arson is elevated to an A felony by bodily injury whether or not more than one person is injured, but injuries to multiple persons do not create multiple Class A arsons. All of these holdings are derived from the structure of the statute, not from constitutional limitations.

Facts and Procedural History

On September 16, 1994, Dorsey Mathews and his estranged wife, Peggy Mathews, had a verbal confrontation at the Knot Here Lounge after Dorsey saw Peggy dancing with another man. A few minutes later, Tracey Pickett, a patron, saw Dorsey bend down in the hallway between the lounge's bar and its kitchen, then step back, and exit through the side door. Immediately thereafter a large flame erupted from the direction of the side door. The fire engulfed the entire bar. Between 100 and 150 people escaped through the front door, but Karen McCloud, a bar employee, died from smoke inhalation and several others were injured, including a fireman who responded to the blaze. Investigators concluded that the fire had been intentionally caused by someone who poured and ignited gasoline in the hallway near the side door. The building sustained about $100,000 in damages.

Two witnesses testified to admissions by Dorsey. According to Peggy's daughter, on the evening of the fire Dorsey had told her "that he made a bomb and he was going to go blow up the bar." The day after the fire, Dorsey awoke at the home of his son, Nathan. Nathan's then fiancée and later wife, Amy Jo Mathews, observed that Dorsey's arms were singed. Dorsey told Amy Jo that the night before he had poured gasoline down a short hallway in a bar, lit it, and driven away in his truck with the lights off.

A jury found Dorsey guilty of murder, six counts of Class A felony arson, and two counts of Class B felony arson. The trial court sentenced Dorsey to sixty years for murder, forty-five years on the first count of Class A felony arson, and twenty years each on two Class B felony arson counts, all to be served consecutively. The court also imposed twenty-five years for each of the five other Class A arson counts, all to be served concurrently with the first Class A felony arson count for a total executed sentence of 145 years.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court in part, and reversed and remanded in part. Mathews v. State, 824 N.E.2d 713, 734 (Ind.Ct.App.2005). The Court of Appeals held that convictions on both counts of B felony arson were barred under common law double jeopardy rules because they were based on the same act (the fire) and the same victim (the owner of the bar). Id. at 724. The second B felony was vacated, reducing the total sentence from 145 to 125 years. Id. The Court of Appeals affirmed the six counts of Class A felony arson, holding, that six separate arson convictions were proper because six different individuals suffered bodily injury. Id. at 729. We granted transfer, Mathews v. State, 841 N.E.2d 183 (Ind.2005), and requested the parties to focus their arguments on the single/multiple offense issue, in light of Kelly v. State, 539 N.E.2d 25 (Ind.1989).

I. One Arson or Many

Dorsey contends that he committed only one arson, despite the resulting injuries to several people. The parties discuss this issue in terms of the double jeopardy prohibitions in both the state and federal constitutions and also as a matter of statutory construction. We think only the latter is implicated.

A. Elements of Crimes Versus Penalty Enhancers

This Court has affirmed multiple convictions based on the same act where multiple victims were involved. See, e.g., Metzler v. State, 540 N.E.2d 606, 607 (Ind.1989) (defendant who drove his truck through the front of a pub injuring eighteen people and killing another was convicted of murder and attempted murder). This is an application of the common view, classically stated in State v. Snyder, 50 N.H. 150, 156 (1870) that "If A discharges a gun at B, and it is so heavily loaded that the ball goes through B and enters the body of C, and kills both B and C, A might be indicted and convicted for the murder of each, as a separate offence, as much as though he had shot each one separately, although there was but a single act of A in shooting both." See also George C. Thomas, III, Double Jeopardy: The History, The Law 163-64 (1998). In this example, the same section of the law (the murder prohibition) is violated by the same act of the defendant (shoots the gun) but a separate element is supplied by the consequence (the death of B and the death of C). Cf. Furnace v. State, 153 Ind. 93, 94, 54 N.E. 441, 441 (1899) ("the stealing of several articles of property at one and the same time, as a part of the same transaction, can constitute but one offense against the State, notwithstanding the fact that such articles belonged to several owners"); Annotation, Single or Separate Larceny Predicated Upon Stealing Property From Different Owners at the Same Time, 37 A.L.R.3d § 3 at 1410 (1971); but see 3 Wharton's Criminal Law § 347 (15th ed.1995) (some courts have found multiple larcenies committed when several articles of property are stolen by the defendant from different owners at the same time and at the same place).

Some crimes are defined such that the consequence is not an element of the crime, but can enhance the penalty. The consequence is of course a fact necessary to conviction of the elevated crime, and therefore must be found by a jury under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 476, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). In that sense the enhancing "factor" is an "element" of the elevated crime, but if the consequence serves primarily to enhance the penalty for a crime that is committed without the consequence, multiple consequences do not establish multiple crimes. This principle was established in Kelly v. State, 539 N.E.2d 25, 26 (Ind. 1989), where a single automobile accident resulted in the death of one person and serious injuries to another. The trial court sentenced Kelly to consecutive sentences for his convictions on two counts: operating a vehicle while intoxicated (OWI) resulting in death, and OWI causing serious bodily injury. Section 2 of the statute that defined OWI provided: "A person who operates a vehicle while intoxicated commits a class A misdemeanor." Indiana Code § 9-11-2-2 (Burns 1987). Two subsequent sections provided that a violation of section 2 was "a class D felony if the crime results in serious bodily injury to another person," I.C. § 9-11-2-4 (Burns 1987), and "a class C felony if the crime results in the death of another person." I.C. § 9-11-2-5 (Burns 1987).

We expressly approved the opinion of the Court of Appeals appearing as Kelly v. State, 527 N.E.2d 1148 (Ind.Ct.App.1988), and held that an OWI resulting in injuries to more than one person nevertheless constituted only one crime. Kelly, 539 N.E.2d at 26. Under the OWI statute the multiple bodily injuries "do not increase the number of crimes, only the severity of the penalty." Id. The Court of Appeals opinion in Kelly pointed out that in crimes "such as murder, manslaughter, battery and reckless homicide, the gravamen of the offense is causing the death or injury of another person, i.e., the result is part of the definition of the crime." 527 N.E.2d at 1155. Otherwise stated, in those crimes the resulting death, injury or touching is an element of the crime. The crime is complete if the required actus reus and mental state are present. Thus, as the Court of Appeals explained in Kelly, if a murder or battery results in multiple deaths or injuries to more than one person, multiple crimes have been committed and the injury to each victim constitutes a separate offense. Id. However, OWI requires no specific consequence of the operator's action. Rather, OWI is a completed crime when the intoxicated person operates the vehicle, even if no harm results, and "the legislature chose to use the result of serious bodily injury or death as a factor enhancing the punishment for the crime rather than as an aspect of the crime itself." Id. As a result, Kelly could be convicted of only a single OWI despite the resulting multiple victims. Id.

B. Indiana's Arson Statute

Dorsey argues that the structure of Indiana's arson statute is the same as the OWI statute addressed in Kelly. Specifically, he argues that the actus reus of the crime of arson is damaging of property, and the results of that action (pecuniary loss, death, or bodily injury) are factors to enhance the punishment for the arson, but do not create separate crimes for which a sentence can be imposed and consecutively enforced.

We agree that the arson statute has some of the same structure as the OWI statute, but it is not entirely of the same character. Indiana Code section 35-43-1-1 (2004) provides:¹

(a) A person who, by means of fire, explosive, or destructive device, knowingly or intentionally damages:

(1) a dwelling of another person without the other person's consent;

(2) property of any person under circumstances that endanger human life;

(3) property of another person without the other person's consent if the pecuniary loss is at least five thousand dollars ($5,000); or

(4) a structure used for religious...