State v. McGuy

• Decision Date: 25 November 2003
• Docket Number: No. 2000-264-C.A.,2000-264-C.A.
• Parties: STATE v. Damien McGUY.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

841 A.2d 1109

STATE v. Damien McGUY.

No. 2000-264-C.A.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

November 25, 2003.

Virginia McGinn, Providence, for plaintiff.

Kelly Monteiro, Providence, for Defendant.

Present: WILLIAMS, C.J., FLANDERS, GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, and SUTTELL, JJ.

OPINION

FLANDERS, Justice.

Convicted of second-degree murder, the defendant, Damien McGuy (defendant), assails the trial justice on appeal for failing to instruct the jury on the lesser-included offense of voluntary manslaughter. He also maintains that the trial justice should have dismissed at least one of the charges against him because the state violated his constitutional right not to be placed in double jeopardy for the same offense. The state charged him both with murder and with committing a crime of violence while he was armed. According to the defendant, because the state had to introduce the same evidence to convict him of both crimes, the trial justice should have dismissed the latter charge to avoid violating the constitutional bar against placing defendants in double jeopardy.

For the reasons expressed in this opinion, we reject these arguments. Given the evidence in this case, a rational jury could not conclude that defendant shot the victim in the heat of a sudden passion, without malice aforethought, and in response to adequate provocation. Thus, we hold, the trial justice properly declined defendant's invitation to instruct the jury on the crime of voluntary manslaughter. We also reject defendant's double jeopardy argument, concluding, as we do, that each charge of murder and of committing a crime of violence while armed required proof of a fact that the other crime did not, thereby avoiding any double-jeopardy problem.

Travel and Facts

In the early morning hours of December 11, 1998, defendant shot and killed the victim — one, Sherwin "Nesto" Grant (Grant) — while Grant was leaning into the open front window of the car in which defendant was seated on the front passenger side. The defendant and Grant had been verbally sparring with each other for more than five minutes before the shooting occurred. According to defendant's trial testimony, Grant repeatedly touched defendant's face with one hand while he was leaning through the car's passenger-side window and holding a gun with the other. No other witness, however, saw Grant holding a gun, and the police found no gun at the crime scene. According to defendant's testimony, however, Grant was holding a gun in one of his hands during the entire five-plus-minute period that Grant was verbally jousting with and harassing him — albeit Grant never pointed the gun at defendant or threatened to shoot him with it. Nevertheless, fearing that he might be shot when Grant appeared to be taking the gun out of his coat pocket, defendant decided to shoot and kill Grant preemptively, which he then proceeded to do by suddenly drawing out his own gun and discharging a hail of bullets at Grant. One of the fatal bullets entered his neck and a later-fired shot struck him in the back.

After hearing this evidence at trial, the jury spurned defendant's self-defense argument and returned guilty verdicts on the charges of second-degree murder, carrying a firearm without a license, carrying a dangerous weapon when committing a crime of violence, and discharging a firearm from a moving vehicle. The court then entered the appropriate judgments of conviction, denied defendant's motion for a new trial, and sentenced him to serve a fifty-year sentence for the murder conviction and a concurrent ten-year sentence for the unlicensed-firearm and crime-of-violence-while-armed convictions. The justice also sentenced defendant to a consecutive twenty-year sentence, suspended with probation, for the charge of discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle.

I The Trial Justice's Failure to Give a Voluntary-Manslaughter Instruction

The defendant first argues that the trial justice committed reversible error by denying his request to instruct the jury on the lesser-included offense of voluntary manslaughter. He suggests that some evidence existed from which a rational jury could conclude that he shot the victim in the heat of a sudden passion and that he did so without any malice aforethought while responding to adequate provocation: to wit, a victim who was brandishing a gun in his presence with one hand while verbally harassing him and physically touching him on his face with the other hand.

To ensure a fair trial, a trial justice should instruct the jury in the law that must be applied to the issues that the parties have raised through the evidence admitted during the trial. G.L.1956 § 8-2-38. A trial justice commits prejudicial error when he or she refuses to give a jury instruction that the evidence entitles the defendant to receive. See State v. Butler, 107 R.I. 489, 491, 496-97, 268 A.2d 433, 434, 437 (1970). A defendant facing criminal charges is entitled to an instruction on a lesser-included offense when the evidence presented at trial warrants such a charge. State v. Rodriguez, 822 A.2d 894, 909 (R.I.2003). In other words, the court should give such a charge when a party has introduced minimal evidence that would "sustain a conviction on a lesser included offense * * *." See State v. Figueras, 644 A.2d 291, 295 (R.I.1994). See also Rodriguez, 822 A.2d at 911. The trial justice, however, should not instruct the jury on a lesser-included offense when the evidence wholly fails to support such a charge. Figueras, 644 A.2d at 294.¹ In determining whether the evidence calls for a lesser-included-offense instruction, the trial justice should not weigh the credibility of the testimony; rather, he or she should consider whether, at the very least, some minimal evidence exists that, if credited by the jury, could support a conviction for the lesser-included offense. See Rodriguez, 822 A.2d at 910.

Voluntary manslaughter is a lesser-included offense to a charge of murder. State v. Dordain, 566 A.2d 942, 946 (R.I.1989) (citing State v. Casasanta, 29 R.I. 587, 598, 73 A. 312, 317 (1909)). Rhode Island adheres to the common-law elements of voluntary manslaughter, State v. Vargas, 420 A.2d 809, 815 (R.I.1980), defining it as an (1) intentional homicide, (2) committed without malice aforethought, (3) in the heat of a sudden passion, (4) as a result of adequate provocation. State v. Lillibridge, 454 A.2d 237, 240 (R.I.1982). A defendant charged with murder is entitled to a voluntary-manslaughter instruction when the defendant produces some evidence from which a rational jury could conclude that he or she killed the victim without malice aforethought, in the heat of a sudden passion, and in response to a legally adequate provocation. See State v. Conway, 463 A.2d 1319, 1322 (R.I.1983). Thus, this Court has stated that voluntary manslaughter exists when "(1) the provocation * * * [is] so gross as to cause the ordinary reasonable man to lose his [or her] self control and to use violence with fatal results, and (2) the defendant * * * [is] deprived of his self control under the stress of such provocation and * * * committed the crime while so deprived." State v. Winston, 105 R.I. 447, 453, 252 A.2d 354, 357 (1969) (quoting State v. King, 37 N.J. 285, 181 A.2d 158, 166 (1962)).

Here, we agree with the trial justice that defendant introduced insufficient evidence to show that Grant's conduct on the date in question, however provocative, was "so gross" as to cause an ordinary reasonable person to lose his self-control and to use deadly force with fatal results. Nor did the evidence show that defendant became so distressed and terrified that, in the heat of a sudden passion, he lost his self-control and engaged in murderous conduct with predictably fatal results.

Courts should apply an objective standard to determine whether an alleged provocation is legally sufficient. See, e.g., State v. Clark, 261 Kan. 460, 931 P.2d 664, 672 (1997). Mere words or gestures, unaccompanied by an act threatening imminent death or serious bodily harm, do not constitute a provocation sufficient to reduce a homicide from murder to manslaughter. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Niemic, 427 Mass. 718, 696 N.E.2d 117, 121 n. 3 (1998); see State v. Johnson, 324 S.C. 38, 476 S.E.2d 681, 682 (1996). Rather, adequate provocation requires the defendant to reasonably fear imminent death or serious bodily harm. See State v. Ventre, 811 A.2d 1178, 1184 (R.I.2002) ("The defendant's testimony provided an adequate basis for a claim that defendant was faced with a brutal attack, which placed him in fear of death or serious bodily harm."). (Emphasis added.)

In this case — even though defendant said that he feared what might happen to him as a result of his unfriendly and verbally abusive encounter with Grant — the evidence failed to show that defendant reasonably feared imminent death or grave bodily injury based on Grant's conduct. Although courts have held that adequate provocation exists when the victim attacks the defendant while wielding a weapon capable of inflicting death or serious bodily harm, see, e.g., State v. Fetzik, 577 A.2d 990, 995 (R.I.1990), here, the victim — although he allegedly was holding a gun — did not attack the defendant, point the gun at him, or threaten to use it against him. In Fetzik, 577 A.2d at 995, this Court held that the trial court erred in failing to charge the jury on the lesser-included offense of voluntary manslaughter. The Fetzik defendant presented evidence that the victim entered the defendant's apartment uninvited and ignored repeated warnings to leave, before drawing a knife and attempting to lunge at defendant. Id. at 995. This Court reasoned that "[the] defendant's decision to fire his weapon was the result of fear generated by the victim's actions. Therefore, an instruction on voluntary manslaughter [was] entirely appropriate." Id. at 995. Importantly, the defendants in Fetzik and Ventre reasonably perceived that...