State v. Johnson

• Decision Date: 31 January 1978
• Docket Number: No. 2139-III,2139-III
• Citation: 574 P.2d 741,19 Wn.App. 200
• Parties: STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. Curtis Lee JOHNSON, Appellant.
• Court: Washington Court of Appeals

Page 200

19 Wn.App. 200

574 P.2d 741

STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. Curtis Lee JOHNSON, Appellant.

No. 2139-III.

Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 3.

Jan. 31, 1978.

John A. Strait, Tacoma, for appellant.

Arthur Eggers, Pros. Atty., and Jerry A. Votendahl, Walla Walla, for respondent.

McINTURFF, Judge.

Curtis Lee Johnson appeals from a first-degree murder conviction arising out of a stabbing in a breezeway at the State penitentiary. His defense was an alibi that he was in the prison cafeteria at the time of the incident.

Mr. Johnson presents nine assignments of error, but his principal contentions concern the advisability of giving an alibi instruction. The court instructed the jury:

A defense interposed by the defendant in this case is an alibi; that is, the defendant was at another place at the identical time the crime was committed.

When the State makes out such a case as would sustain a verdict of guilty and the defendant offers evidence as to an alibi, the burden of proof is upon said defendant insofar as that alibi is concerned. However, it is not incumbent upon the defendant to prove the alibi beyond a reasonable doubt.

After both the State and the defendant have submitted all of their proof the primary question is whether such defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If, in considering all the evidence, including that touching the alibi, you have a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused, you should acquit and, if not, you should convict.

Mr. Johnson attacks the instruction on three fronts: (1) Preexisting case law forbids giving an alibi instruction; (2) the instruction does not define the applicable standard of proof required by the defendant to sustain his defense; and (3) it unconstitutionally shifts to him the burden of proving the identity of the killer an element of the crime.

Slightly different alibi instructions have withstood some of the same attacks in State v. Kubicek, 81 Wash.2d 497, 502 P.2d 1190 (1972), and State v. Adams, 81 Wash.2d 468, 503 P.2d 111 (1972). In those cases the court concluded that an alibi instruction, whether requested by the State or the defendant, ¹ should not in the future be included in the charge to the jury unless mandated by the legislature. Despite its conclusions, the court found the giving of the instructions in both Kubicek ² and Adams ³ was not reversible error.

In Adams the court said the alibi instruction did not violate the defendant's constitutional rights. That court said at 475, 503 P.2d at 115:

We find in this instruction no denial or contravention of such rights. It is a firm and long-established principle in this jurisdiction that an instruction on alibi may be given if supported by the evidence. . . . The instruction now before us appears to have been taken virtually verbatim from State v. Rosi, 120 Wash. 514, 515, 208 P. 15 (1922), where it was explicitly approved despite even a wider challenge than it is subjected to now. In that case, this same instruction was sustained on the basis that, by its very language, it did not remove from the state nor reduce in any degree its burden of establishing each element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt nor subvert the presumption of innocence.

The court then adhered to its decision in Kubicek.

Nonetheless, Mr. Johnson has seized upon recent decisions of both the United States and state supreme courts as requiring a result inconsistent with Adams and Kubicek. Citing Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S 684 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975); State v. Roberts, 88 Wash.2d 337, 562 P.2d 1259 (1977), and State v. Kroll, 87 Wash.2d 829, 558 P.2d 173 (1976), Mr. Johnson essentially asks that we re-examine Adams and Kubicek insofar as they hold that an alibi instruction does not unconstitutionally shift to the defendant the burden of proving an element of the offense with which he is charged.

Primary reliance is placed upon Mullaney where the court held that a Maine law, requiring the defendant to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that he acted in heat of passion on some provocation in order to reduce a charge of murder to manslaughter, was violative of due process; that, instead, due process "requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the absence of the heat of passion on sudden provocation . . . " Mullaney v. Wilbur, supra, 421 U.S. at 704, 95 S.Ct. at 1892, 44 L.Ed.2d at 522. There the jury was instructed that if the prosecution established that the homicide was both intentional and unlawful, malice aforethought was to be conclusively implied, resulting in a conviction of murder unless defendant proved by a preponderance that he acted in the heat of passion. Likewise, in Kroll, our supreme court found unconstitutional an instruction which provided that when a homicide is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, there is a presumption of second-degree murder and that it is incumbent upon the defendant to show the homicide to be manslaughter. Under this instruction the Kroll court said at 840 of 87 Wash.2d, at 182 of 558 P.2d:

'(T)he State is not required to prove every element of second-degree murder; it need only prove beyond a reasonable doubt the killing of one human being by another. No reference is made in the instruction to the fact that second-degree murder statutorily involves the element of intent. If the defendant is to reduce the crime to manslaughter, however, he has the burden of creating a reasonable doubt as to the absence of intent. Such a shifting of the burdens of proof clearly violates the concept of due process . . .

(Italics ours.)

Finally, in Roberts the court, in addition to striking an instruction requiring the defendant to prove justification in order to reduce the degree of homicide, held unconstitutional the giving of a self-defense instruction which placed the burden of proving self-defense on the defendant. The self-defense instruction read:

When a defendant claims that he killed another in self-defense of his own person or property, the burden is upon that defendant to prove that the homicide was done in self-defense. It is not necessary for the defendant to prove this to you beyond a reasonable doubt, nor by a preponderance of the evidence. The defendant sustains this burden of proof if, from a consideration of all the evidence in the case you have reasonable doubt as to whether or not the killing was done in self-defense.

After discussing Mullaney and Kroll, Roberts said of this instruction:

The self-defense instruction presently before us places precisely the same burden upon the defendant as to the element of absence of justification. In view of the decisions in Mullaney and Kroll, it is now only permissible to place upon the defendant the obligation to produce evidence, from whatever source, tending to establish self-defense. The obligation to prove the absence of self-defense must remain at all times with the prosecution.

State v. Roberts, supra, 88 Wash.2d at 345, 562 P.2d at 1263. (Italics ours).

We do not find the Mullaney-Kroll-Roberts trilogy applicable to the alibi defense or the instruction questioned by Mr. Johnson. While the identity of the defendant and his presence at the scene of the crime must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, they are different than the elements discussed in Mullaney (justification), Kroll (intent), and Roberts (justification) which were presumed to follow from certain proven facts. In those instances the defendants were forced to negate the presumed facts in order to lessen the degree of the crime or to be acquitted. The identity and presence of the defendant are never presumed nor are they definitional elements of statutorily proscribed...