People v. Datema

Decision Date12 July 1995
Docket NumberNo. 97758,No. 8,97758,8
Citation448 Mich. 585,533 N.W.2d 272
PartiesPEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gregory Laurence DATEMA, Defendant-Appellant. Calendar
CourtMichigan Supreme Court

Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Thomas L. Casey, Sol. Gen., William A. Forsyth, Pros. Atty., and Timothy K. McMorrow, Chief Appellate Atty., Grand Rapids, for the people.

State Appellate Defender by Amy Neville, Detroit, for defendant.

Opinion

BOYLE, Justice.

We granted leave to consider whether the misdemeanor-manslaughter rule 1 should be abandoned in light of the change in Michigan's homicide law resulting from this Court's opinion in People v. Aaron, 409 Mich. 672, 299 N.W.2d 304 (1980). After careful consideration of the record, we decline the invitation to decriminalize responsibility for a death found to have been caused in fact by a person who struck his wife "a powerful blow" with the specific intent to injure her. As Aaron required proof of malice from the circumstances surrounding a felony to find second-degree murder, the instruction in this case required proof of intent from the circumstances surrounding the misdemeanor.

When an intent to injure is found and the act results in an unintended death, at a minimum, a charge of involuntary manslaughter is appropriate because it criminalizes unintended death with a culpable state of mind that is less than murder. The result is consistent with the rationale of Aaron that a jury should not be required to equate the intent to commit the common-law offense of assault and battery with a person-endangering state of mind. The jury was not instructed that criminal liability could be based on the mens rea of common-law assault and battery, a volitional unpermitted act. The instruction given required a finding of a specific intent to injure, from all the evidence, not simply an intent to commit the crime of assault and battery as it was defined at common law.

The trial court incorporated the specific intent requirement of People v. Johnson 2 and instructed the jury that in order to find defendant guilty of involuntary manslaughter, the jury must find that "at the time of the battery the Defendant either intended to injure Pamela Datema or intended to place her in reasonable fear or apprehension of receiving an immediate battery or contact." 3 The verdict of the jury necessarily credited the testimony that defendant had delivered a powerful blow with a culpable state of mind: a specific intent to injure. Involuntary manslaughter liability (at least) is proper. 4 Applying the concept of gross negligence to an assault with intent to injure is inherently contradictory.

One who commits an act, which is only made wrong by statute, is grossly negligent if he disregards the likelihood of injury or death to another. Such a person has the mens rea akin to the wilful doer of wrong. However, " ' "The only respect in which his attitude is less blameworthy than that of the intentional wrongdoer is that, instead of affirmatively wishing to injure another, he is merely willing to do so. The difference is between him who casts a missile intending that it shall strike another and him who casts it where he has reason to believe it will strike another, being indifferent whether it does so or not." ' " Burnett v. City of Adrian, 414 Mich. 448, 463, 326 N.W.2d 810 (1982), quoting Atchison T. & S.F.R. Co. v. Baker, 79 Kan. 183, 189-190, 98 P. 804 (1908) (citations omitted).

I

In the early morning hours of December 22, 1988, defendant and his wife, Pamela Datema, were sitting in their living room with two friends. All four had been smoking marijuana and both defendant and his wife had been drinking throughout the evening.

As the evening wore on, the conversation turned to the topic of previous romances, and the defendant and his wife began to argue about various paramours with whom they had slept. During the argument, Mrs. Datema started to rise from her chair, claiming to have had sexual intercourse with other men in front of defendant's sons. As she rose, defendant slapped her once across the face with an open hand. Mrs. Datema slumped back into her chair, screamed that she hoped defendant would "go to Florida and stay there," then slipped from the chair onto the floor. Initially, defendant and the two others present in the room thought that Mrs. Datema had passed out from drinking too much but, after five to ten minutes, they became concerned and tried to wake her. When they were unable to do so, they called an ambulance. Mrs. Datema never regained consciousness and died soon after.

The medical examiner testified that Mrs. Datema had a blood-alcohol level between 0.03 and 0.05 percent. He stated that death was caused by a tear in an artery in the head that occurred as a result of defendant's blow. 5 Although the three eyewitnesses called by the prosecution testified that defendant had slapped his wife once with an open hand and that the slap was not a hard one, the medical examiner testified that to cause death, even under the circumstances, the blow had to have been a powerful one and "would have to be with probably all the force that one could muster."

After the defense presented its case, defense counsel requested that the jury be instructed consistent with the jury instruction that defines the mens rea element of involuntary manslaughter 6 exclusively in terms of gross negligence. 7 The trial judge refused defense counsel's request, modified the instruction, and charged the jury that, to prove involuntary manslaughter, the prosecution would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed an assault and battery on Mrs. Datema with intent to injure her, that she died, and that the cause of her death was defendant's assault and battery. 8 The court explained the modification of the charge as encompassing both the mens rea of the underlying misdemeanor and the requirement of specific intent. The court specifically charged the jury with regard to the defendant's lack of specific intent due to drunkenness and on self-defense. 9

The jury convicted defendant of involuntary manslaughter. Defendant was convicted as a second-felony offender 10 and sentenced to 7 to 22 1/2 years in prison. Defendant filed an appeal, contending that, if the unlawful act that results in death is not committed recklessly or with gross negligence, the crime should no longer be recognized as a form of common-law involuntary manslaughter. The Court of Appeals disagreed and affirmed the decision of the trial court in an unpublished opinion. On June 30, 1994, we granted leave to appeal. 11

II

In Michigan, the penalty for manslaughter is codified, but the definition is left to the common law. People v. Stubenvoll, 62 Mich. 329, 331, 28 N.W. 883 (1886). As noted by this Court in People v. McMurchy, 249 Mich. 147, 162, 228 N.W. 723 (1930), "The law of manslaughter as it exists today has been adopted from the old English common law."

Common-law manslaughter has two broad categories: voluntary and involuntary. People v. Townes, 391 Mich. 578, 589, 218 N.W.2d 136 (1974); People v. Carter, 387 Mich. 397, 418, 197 N.W.2d 57 (1972). These two categories entail distinct elements and apply in different circumstances, but are often misapplied. Confusion is present because "Michigan courts, ours included, have been less than precise in the use of language denoting voluntary or involuntary manslaughter." People v. Beach, 429 Mich. 450, 477, n. 13, 418 N.W.2d 861 (1988).

To clarify this distinction, it is helpful to note some basic common-law definitions. Common-law manslaughter is "any homicide which is neither murder nor innocent homicide, and such a killing may be either intentional or unintentional." Perkins & Boyce, Criminal Law (3d ed.), p. 83. Voluntary manslaughter is any killing with a person-endangering state of mind that is neither murder nor innocent homicide, or an unlawful homicide with a person-endangering state of mind that would be murder in the absence of mitigation. Voluntary manslaughter

includes all homicides whether intentional or unintentional which are committed with a person-endangering-state-of-mind and are not justified or excused but are perpetrated under circumstances of recognized mitigation. [Id. at 104.]

Involuntary manslaughter is a catch-all concept including all manslaughter not characterized as voluntary:

Every unintentional killing of a human being is involuntary manslaughter if it is neither murder nor voluntary manslaughter nor within the scope of some recognized justification or excuse. [Id. at 105.]

Thus, at common law,

[w]here loss of life has been neither intended nor the result of any other sort of person-endangering-state-of-mind, the killing will be excused if he who caused it was not engaged in any unlawful activity at the time and was free from negligence. [Id.]

To this clear statement must be added the caveat that led to our grant of leave in this case. At common law, if an unlawful act was malum in se, inherently wrong, the only mens rea required was the mens rea of the underlying act.

We wish to be clear in this case that the crime charged is involuntary manslaughter and the instruction given did not define assault and battery as it was defined at common law. At common law, the mens rea requirement for assault was attempt to commit a battery or an intentional placing of another in immediate apprehension of a battery; battery was included within the definition of criminal assault. Thus, where a death resulted unintentionally from an assault and battery, involuntary manslaughter had been committed although the defendant intended merely to frighten the victim. [Id. at 175.]

A

In 1923, this Court defined involuntary manslaughter as

the killing of another without malice and unintentionally, but in doing some unlawful act not amounting to a felony nor naturally...

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