State v. Crowe
| Decision Date | 09 November 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 25419.,25419. |
| Citation | 13 P.3d 1256,135 Idaho 43 |
| Parties | STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Lance Ray CROWE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Idaho Court of Appeals |
Bonner County Public Defender; Brent C. Featherston, Deputy Public Defender, Sandpoint, for appellant. Brent C. Featherston argued.
Hon. Alan G. Lance, Attorney General; Karen A. Hudelson, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent.
This is an appeal from a judgment of conviction for aggravated assault. We conclude that the defendant is entitled to a new trial because the jury was incorrectly instructed regarding the mens rea element of the offense.
Lance Ray Crowe was charged with aggravated assault under Idaho Code §§ 18-901(b) and -905(a), (b) for allegedly threatening to shoot his wife, Lorraine Crowe, with a rifle. The charge against Crowe was based upon an incident alleged to have occurred on the morning of April 26, 1998. According to the trial evidence, Crowe and Lorraine had an argument at their home on the evening of April 25, 1998 in which Crowe became increasingly belligerent and fired shots into the air with a rifle. Crowe then left the residence and spent the night at his son's house. The next morning, Crowe returned home. The trial testimony diverges as to what happened at this point. According to Lorraine, Crowe struck her in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle, pointed the rifle at her, threatened to "blow her away," and chased her around her home as she attempted to reach a telephone to call the police. This testimony was contradicted by Crowe's son who testified that he accompanied his father into the home on the morning of April 26 and was present during the entire period in which Crowe was in the residence that morning. According to Crowe's son, the alleged attack and threats never happened, and he observed no assaultive behavior by his father that morning. Lorraine, on the other hand, testified that their son arrived after the assault had occurred. The jury returned a guilty verdict, and Crowe was sentenced to a term of incarceration.
On appeal from the judgment of conviction, Crowe contends that an error in the jury instructions and an error in the exclusion of impeachment evidence require that the judgment of conviction be vacated and that Crowe be granted a new trial.
Because we find the jury instruction issue to be dispositive of the appeal, we address it first.
Over Crowe's objection, the district court gave the following instruction (Instruction No. 20) to the jury:
Crowe contends that the instruction was improper because criminal intent is an element of aggravated assault and that element cannot be established by proof of mere criminal negligence.
The question whether the jury was properly instructed is one of law over which this Court exercises free review. State v. Buckley, 131 Idaho 179, 182, 953 P.2d 619, 622 (Ct.App.1997), aff'd, 131 Idaho 164, 953 P.2d 604 (1998). On appeal, jury instructions are viewed as a whole, not individually, to determine whether the jury was properly and adequately instructed on the applicable law. State v. Rozajewski, 130 Idaho 644, 646, 945 P.2d 1390, 1392 (Ct.App.1997). To be reversible error, an instruction must mislead the jury or prejudice the defendant. State v. Hanson, 130 Idaho 842, 844, 949 P.2d 590, 592 (Ct.App.1997).
With respect to the mental element of criminal offenses, I.C. § 18-114 provides that "in every crime or public offense there must be a union, or joint operation, of act and intent, or criminal negligence." This does not mean, of course, that either intent or criminal negligence is sufficient for the commission of any crime. Rather, the mental state that is required for the commission of a particular offense is determined by the language of the statute defining that offense. See, e.g., State v. Nastoff, 124 Idaho 667, 862 P.2d 1089 (Ct.App.1993)
; State v. Stiffler, 114 Idaho 935, 937, 763 P.2d 308, 310 (Ct.App. 1988). For the offense with which Crowe was charged, aggravated assault, the operative definition is found in I.C. § 18-901, which describes assault as:
Crowe was charged under subsection (b) of this statute. This subsection does not proscribe conduct that is merely negligent. Rather, the offense, by statutory definition, requires an "intentional" threat by word or act.1 With respect to the "threat" type of assault proscribed by I.C. § 18-901(b), this Court has held that the offense requires "an actual intention to cause apprehension, unless there exists the morally worse intention to cause bodily harm." State v. McDougall, 113 Idaho 900, 903, 749 P.2d 1025, 1028 (Ct.App.1988). Hence, it was the State's burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Crowe intended to make a threat and intended to cause apprehension in the victim or to cause bodily harm to the victim.
The State has not referred us to any authority for the legal proposition stated in Instruction 20 that intent may be imputed from facts establishing criminal negligence. We surmise, however, that the instruction was derived from a 1939 decision of the Idaho Supreme Court, State v. Patterson, 60 Idaho 67, 88 P.2d 493 (1939). In that case, Patterson was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon after having shot at an occupied house at nighttime when the defendant could not see the structure. As a result of Patterson's act, a woman standing in the doorway of the house was hit in the eye. The statute under which Patterson was convicted defined assault as "an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another." The charging information alleged that Patterson had committed aggravated assault by "carelessly, negligently and wantonly and recklessly, firing said 12 gauge pump shot gun, at and toward the house ...." Id. at 71, 88 P.2d at 494. On appeal, Patterson argued that assault could not be committed accidentally or negligently and that an indispensable element of the crime is intent to commit a violent injury on the victim. The Idaho Supreme Court rejected that argument and adopted the view that:
Where ... the injury is the result of reckless, wanton and willful conduct, showing an utter disregard for the safety of others, the law imputes to the wrongdoer a willful and malicious intention even though he may not in fact have entertained such intention.
Id. at 73, 88 P.2d at 495 (quoting Brimhall v. State, 31 Ariz. 522, 255 P. 165, 166 (1927)).
Although at first glance Patterson seems to support the instruction given in Crowe's trial, on closer examination it is distinguishable. In Patterson, the charged assault was the "attempt" form of assault that is currently defined in I.C. § 18-901(a) rather than the "threat" type that is described in I.C. § 18-901(b) and with which Crowe was charged. In McDougall, this Court recognized that these two forms of assault differ in their mens rea element, with the "threat" form requiring "an actual intention to cause apprehension, unless there exists the morally worse intention to cause bodily harm" Id. at 903, 749 P.2d at 1028. Hence, we conclude that the ruling in Patterson is inapplicable to the form of assault described in I.C. § 18-901(b).
Moreover, this Court doubts the continuing viability of the Patterson rule in light of more recent Idaho Supreme Court decisions indicating that guilt of "attempt" crimes requires intent to commit the "attempted" offense. See Buckley, 131 Idaho 164,
953 P.2d 604 (1998) (); State v. Pratt, 125 Idaho 546, 558, 873 P.2d 800, 812 (1993) (). Clarification by our Supreme Court of the status of the Patterson decision would be beneficial. However, regardless of whether the Patterson rule remains effective with respect to assaults charged under I.C. § 18-901(a),2 it is our view that it is inapplicable to assaults charged under subsection (b).
In Crowe's case, the statement in Instruction 20 that upon a showing of criminal negligence, "the law will impute or attribute to the defendant a willful intention even though he may not in fact have entertained such intention" diminished the State's burden on the mental element of assault under I.C. § 18-901(b) and in effect modified the mens rea element from intent to negligence. Although a jury may infer intent from the defendant's conduct, State v. Warden, 100 Idaho 21, 24, 592 P.2d 836, 839 (1979); State v. Herrera-Brito, 131 Idaho 383, 386, 957 P.2d 1099, 1102 (Ct.App.1998), or from circumstantial evidence, State v. Oldham, 92 Idaho 124, 132, 438 P.2d 275, 283 (1968); State v. Williams, 103 Idaho 635, 639, 651 P.2d 569, 573 (Ct.App.1982), overruled on other grounds by State v. Mitchell, 104 Idaho 493, 660 P.2d 1336 (1983),
Instruction 20 went beyond an explanation of permissive inferences. In substance, it created a...
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