State v. Schulz

• Citation: 307 N.W.2d 151,102 Wis.2d 423
• Decision Date: 30 June 1981
• Docket Number: No. 79-942-CR,79-942-CR
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Wisconsin
• Parties: STATE of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Gerald A. SCHULZ, Defendant-Appellant-Petitioner.

Page 151

307 N.W.2d 151

102 Wis.2d 423

STATE of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Gerald A. SCHULZ, Defendant-Appellant-Petitioner.

No. 79-942-CR.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Argued May 1, 1981.

Decided June 30, 1981.

Steven D. Phillips, Asst. State Public Defender, for petitioner.

Thomas J. Balistreri, Asst. Atty. Gen., argued, for plaintiff-respondent; Bronson C. La Follette, Atty. Gen., on the brief.

BEILFUSS, Chief Justice.

This is a review of a decision of the court of appeals, 98 Wis.2d 745, 297 N.W.2d 513, which affirmed the judgment of conviction of the circuit court for Dane county: MICHAEL B. TORPHY, JR., Circuit Judge.

Gerald A. Schulz (defendant) was convicted of the crime of first-degree murder in violation of sec. 940.01, Stats. The issue in this review is the constitutional validity of the jury instructions given by the trial judge on the defense of voluntary intoxication.

On June 19, 1978, the defendant was charged with the June 3d murder of Randall S. Quandt. A trial to a jury was conducted in December of that year.

At the trial the evidence demonstrated that the defendant was romantically involved with Susanne M. Liddle in early 1978. In May of 1978 she broke off the relationship, telling the defendant that she wanted to see other men. The defendant was very upset. The victim, Randall Quandt, was a person whom Sue Liddle associated with after ending her relationship with the defendant.

The record reflects that during the day of June 2, 1978 (particularly the night of June 2d) and the early morning hours of June 3, 1978, the defendant visited several bars and drank intoxicants extensively. After the local taverns had closed on the morning of June 3d, the defendant set out to locate Sue Liddle. He claims that he remembers nothing after this point in time. There was also considerable evidence by state witnesses that he did not seem to be intoxicated.

The testimony of witnesses at trial established that at about 3 a. m., the defendant found Ms. Liddle. She was in the company of Randall Quandt. After a brief conversation in the parking lot of an apartment complex where Quandt and Liddle were attending a party, the defendant produced a gun and shot and killed the victim.

The major issue at the trial of this case was whether the defendant intended to kill Randall Quandt. The defense relied on Schulz's excessively intoxicated state as evidence of the non-existence of a specific intent to kill.

At the close of the trial the judge instructed the jury on both first and second-degree murder. The jury was also instructed on the matter of intoxication and the role it should play in its deliberative process. This instruction was given as follows:

"The defense of intoxication is an issue in this case. The Criminal Code of Wisconsin provides that an intoxicated condition is a defense if such condition negatives the existence of a state of mind essential to the crime.

"Ordinarily intoxication will not relieve a person from responsibility for his criminal act. However, where a certain state of mind or intent is an essential element of the crime, an accused is not guilty if at the time of the commission of the criminal act he was so intoxicated that he was unable to form the essential intent or have the essential mental state.

"In this case the defendant is charged with the crime of first degree murder which one of the essential elements is intent to kill the Defendant and claims that, at the time of the outlined offense, his condition from the use of intoxicating beverages was such that he did not form such intent.

"To be relieved of responsibility for his actions it's not enough for the Defendant to establish that he was under the influence of intoxicating beverages. He must establish that the degree of intoxication he must establish that I'll start that over, again. He must establish that degree of intoxication that means he was utterly incapable of forming the intent requisite on the commission of the crime charged.

"If you have any reasonable doubt as to whether or not he was so intoxicated, you must give the Defendant the benefit of that doubt and not find him guilty of first degree murder.

"Evidence has been received that a sample of the Defendant's blood was taken and evidence of analysis of such blood sample has been received. The law provides that the presence of one tenth of one percent or more by weight of alcohol in a person's blood, when coupled with corroborating physical evidence, is a sufficient evidence for finding that a person was under the influence of an intoxicant.

"You may consider this evidence along with all other evidence in this case in making your determination as to whether or not the defense of intoxication, as that defense has been instructed to you, has been met."

The jury found the defendant guilty of first-degree murder. Motions for a new trial were denied, and a judgment of conviction was entered.

The defendant appealed, claiming, inter alia, that the above-quoted jury instruction impermissibly shifted the burden of persuasion to him. In an unpublished opinion the court of appeals affirmed the conviction. The defendant's petition for review was subsequently granted.

The sole question presented by this review is whether the jury instructions given at the trial denied the defendant of his right to the due process of law.

It is argued before this court that the jury charge could have been interpreted by a reasonable juror as placing on the defendant the burden of persuading the jury that he lacked the specific intent to kill due to intoxication. Citing a line of cases beginning with In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970), and ending with the recent decision in Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979), the defendant claims that this instruction violated his right to due process. We agree.

The instruction of the jury is a crucial component of the fact-finding process. The jury as trier of fact is given the responsibility of making a determination of guilt or guiltlessness in light of the jury charge, and the validity of that determination is dependent upon the correctness of the instructions which are given. When a jury charge is given in a manner such that a reasonable juror could have misinterpreted the instructions to the detriment of a defendant's due process rights, then the determination of the jury is tainted. This principle was set forth in Sandstrom v. Montana, supra, 442 U.S. at 514, 99 S.Ct. at 2454, and was recognized by this court in our decision in Muller v. State, 94 Wis.2d 450, 477-78, 289 N.W.2d 570 (1980). It is this rule which guides our discussion in this case.

As we have previously noted, it is axiomatic in the law that the state bears the burden of proving all elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 473, 289 N.W.2d 570; In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). This burden of persuasion remains with the state throughout the trial, and as to any element the burden cannot be shifted to the defendant.

The leading United States Supreme Court cases which address the matter of shifting the burden of persuasion are Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975) and Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 53 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977).

In Mullaney, the defendant was charged with the murder of Claude Hebert. In a statement given to police, the defendant Wilbur said that his fatal attack on Hebert was the result of a state of frenzy provoked by the victim's homosexual advance. At trial the defendant offered no evidence, but counsel argued that, inter alia, Wilbur's act of homicide was manslaughter and not murder because Wilbur acted in the heat of passion. In light of the applicable state criminal law, Wilbur's jury was instructed that murder and manslaughter were two recognized kinds of felony homicide. Both murder and manslaughter required as elements of proof that the killing be intentional and without justification or excuse. As compared with manslaughter, murder also required proof of "malice aforethought." The jury was instructed, however, that malice aforethought was to be conclusively implied if the prosecutor established the basic elements of felony homicide, i. e., that the killing was intentional and without justification or excuse, unless the defendant proved by a preponderance of the evidence that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation. The court found this placement of the burden of persuasion to be violative of the principles enunciated in the Winship decision. As explained in a later case, Patterson v. New York, supra, 432 U.S. at 215-16, 97 S.Ct. at 2329-30, the absence of provocation was identical with "malice aforethought" and was tantamount to an element of the crime of murder. Therefore the state could not place the burden of proof on the defendant as regards that "element."

The court was confronted with a similar situation in its decision in Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 53 L.Ed.2d 281 (1977). In that case the defendant was also charged with murder. Under New York statutory law, the crime of murder involved proof of (1) an intent to cause the death of another, and (2) actual causation of the death. Manslaughter was defined under state law as the intentional killing of a person " 'under circumstances which do not constitute murder because (the defendant) acts under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance.' " The jury was instructed that the defendant had the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that he acted under extreme emotional disturbance when he killed his victim. The United States Supreme Court held that the defendant was not denied his due process rights by virtue of having to assume the burden of persuasion as to the element of emotional disturbance. The court looked to the statutorily defined elements of murder and...