State Of Fla. v. Montgomery
| Decision Date | 28 June 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. SC09-332.,SC09-332. |
| Citation | 39 So.3d 252 |
| Parties | STATE of Florida, Petitioner,v.Steven W. MONTGOMERY, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Bill McCollum, Attorney General, Trisha Meggs Pate, Bureau Chief, and Charlie Richey McCoy, Assistant Attorneys General, Tallahassee, FL, for Petitioner.
Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender, and Richard M. Summa, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, FL, for Respondent.
This case is before the Court for review of the decision of the First District Court of Appeal in Montgomery v. State, 34 Fla. L. Weekly D360, ---So.3d ----, 2009 WL 350624 (Fla. 1st DCA Feb.12, 2009). In its decision, the district court ruled upon the following question, which the court certified to be of great public importance:
IS THE STATE REQUIRED TO PROVE THAT THE DEFENDANT INTENDED TO KILL THE VICTIM IN ORDER TO ESTABLISH THE CRIME OF MANSLAUGHTER BY ACT?
Id. at D362, at ----. We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. Additionally, the First District Court of Appeal certified that its decision is in direct conflict with the decision of the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Barton v. State, 507 So.2d 638 (Fla. 5th DCA 1987) quashed in part on other grounds, 523 So.2d 152 (Fla.1988). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. As we explain below, we answer the certified question in the negative and hold that the crime of manslaughter by act does not require the State to prove that the defendant intended to kill the victim. Moreover, we approve the decision of the First District Court of Appeal to the extent that it held that the use of the standard jury instruction on manslaughter, which required that the State prove the defendant's intent to kill the victim, constituted fundamental error in Montgomery's case. First, we discuss the underlying facts and procedural background of this case.
Steven Montgomery (Montgomery) was charged with first-degree murder following the October 2005 death of Tarnesha Ellis (Ellis). At Montgomery's 2007 trial, the jury was instructed on first-degree premeditated murder and the lesser included offenses of second-degree murder and manslaughter. The jury convicted Montgomery of second-degree murder with a weapon, a first-degree felony punishable by life imprisonment. Montgomery was sentenced to forty-five years in state prison.
Montgomery appealed his conviction and sentence to the First District Court of Appeal where he raised four issues, including a challenge to the standard jury instruction on manslaughter. Asserting that the crime of manslaughter by act does not require an intent to kill, Montgomery argued that the trial court committed fundamental error in instructing the jury on the elements of manslaughter by act because the standard jury instruction required the State to prove that he intended to cause the death of Ellis.1
The district court ruled solely on the issue of the standard jury instruction on manslaughter and held that the instruction erroneously required a finding that Montgomery intended to kill Ellis. Moreover, the district court concluded that in Montgomery's case, the use of the erroneous manslaughter instruction constituted fundamental error. Consequently, the court reversed Montgomery's conviction and sentence for second-degree murder and remanded the case to the trial court. In doing so, the district court certified a question of great public importance and certified conflict with a decision from the Fifth District Court of Appeal.
On review in this Court, the petitioner, State of Florida (the State), and Montgomery agree to the district court's holding that a finding of manslaughter by act does not require proof that the defendant intended to kill the victim. They differ, however, on the question of whether the standard jury instruction used during the trial constituted fundamental error in Montgomery's case.
Our analysis will address three questions. First, we address whether the crime of manslaughter by act requires the State to prove intent to kill the victim. Second, we discuss whether the standard jury instruction in Montgomery's case imposed such a requirement on the State's burden of proof. Third, we discuss whether the use of the standard manslaughter jury instruction constituted fundamental error in Montgomery's case.
We conclude that under Florida law, the crime of manslaughter by act does not require that the State prove that the defendant intended to kill the victim. Relevant to our conclusion is the role of intent in cases of first-degree and second-degree murder, of which manslaughter is a necessarily lesser included offense. In order to establish first-degree premeditated murder, proof of the defendant's intent to kill the victim is required. In fact, not only must a jury find that the defendant intended to kill the victim, it must find that the defendant did so with premeditation-a heightened level of intent. Section 782.04(1)(a), Florida Statutes (2005), defines first-degree premeditated murder as “[t]he unlawful killing of a human being” that is “perpetrated from a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or any human being.” (Emphasis added.)
The element of premeditation distinguishes first-degree from second-degree murder. Second-degree murder is an unlawful killing that is “perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life ... without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual.” § 782.04(2), Fla. Stat. (2005). Conduct that is “imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind” is characterized by “an act or series of acts that: (1) a person of ordinary judgment would know is reasonably certain to kill or do serious bodily injury to another and (2) is done from ill will, hatred, spite or an evil intent, and (3) is of such a nature that the act itself indicates an indifference to human life.” Bellamy v. State, 977 So.2d 682, 683 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008) (quoting Duckett v. State, 686 So.2d 662, 663 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996)).
Manslaughter, a lesser included offense of both first-degree and second-degree murder, is defined as “[t]he killing of a human being by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, without lawful justification ... in cases in which such killing shall not be excusable homicide or murder.” § 782.07(1), Fla. Stat. (2005). Section 782.07(1) states as follows:
(1) The killing of a human being by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, without lawful justification according to the provisions of chapter 776 and in cases in which such killing shall not be excusable homicide or murder, according to the provisions of this chapter, is manslaughter, a felony of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
§ 782.07(1), Fla. Stat. (2005).
While section 782.07(1) establishes three forms of manslaughter (by act, by procurement, or by culpable negligence), our present focus is on the crime of manslaughter by act. We observe that the statute does not impose a requirement that the defendant intend to kill the victim. Instead, it plainly provides that where one commits an act that results in death, and such an act is not lawfully justified or excusable, it is manslaughter.
Although in some cases of manslaughter by act it may be inferred from the facts that the defendant intended to kill the victim, to impose such a requirement on a finding of manslaughter by act would blur the distinction between first-degree murder and manslaughter. Moreover, it would impose a more stringent finding of intent upon manslaughter than upon second-degree murder, which, like manslaughter, does not require proof that the defendant intended to kill the victim. Thus, we conclude that under Florida law, the crime of manslaughter by act does not require proof that the defendant intended to kill the victim.
Next, we address whether the language in the standard jury instruction required proof of Montgomery's intent to kill Ellis. At the time of Montgomery's trial in 2007, the standard jury instruction on manslaughter by act provided in relevant part:
Fla. Std. Jury Instr. (Crim.) 7.7 (2006) (emphasis added).2
Both parties and the district court agree that this jury instruction required the jury to find that the defendant intended to kill the victim in order to convict Montgomery of manslaughter. The focus of our analysis is on the second element of the jury instruction, which provided that the State must prove that the defendant intentionally caused the death of the victim. Although the instruction also provided that “it is not necessary for the State to prove that the defendant had a premeditated intent to cause death,” we conclude that this language was insufficient to erode the import of the second element: that the jury must find that the defendant intended to cause the death of the victim. We agree with the district court's observation in Montgomery that a reasonable jury would believe that in order to convict Montgomery of manslaughter by act, it had to find that he intended to kill Ellis. The district court stated:
The average juror would likely interpret the instruction as requiring an...
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