Taylor v. State
| Decision Date | 13 July 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 20S03-9307-CR-741,20S03-9307-CR-741 |
| Citation | 616 N.E.2d 748 |
| Parties | Lonzo TAYLOR, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below). |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Susan K. Carpenter, Public Defender, David P. Freund, Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defender, Indianapolis, for appellant.
Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Geoff Davis, Deputy Atty. Gen., Office of Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
In this trial for attempted murder, the court failed to instruct the jury that it must find the defendant intended to kill the victim. The Court of Appeals affirmed, notwithstanding our decision in Spradlin v. State (1991), Ind., 569 N.E.2d 948. We grant transfer and reverse.
When applying Indiana's general attempt statute, Ind.Code Ann. Sec. 35-41-5-1 (West 1986), we have emphasized that mere intent to take a certain action is not by itself sufficient to sustain a criminal conviction. The State must also prove that the defendant intended to commit the crime. See Zickefoose v. State (1979), 270 Ind. 618, 622, 388 N.E.2d 507, 510.
Nowhere is this two-step intent analysis more essential than when the defendant is charged with attempted murder. The jury must find that when the accused committed the act, he intended to murder the victim. Smith v. State (1984), Ind., 459 N.E.2d 355, 358.
Justice Prentice succinctly stated this proposition in his dissent to the majority opinion in Santana v. State (1986), Ind., 486 N.E.2d 1010, 1012, describing the essential element of attempted murder thusly:
In an attempted murder case, it is reversible error not to instruct the jury that the defendant must have intended to murder the victim at the time the defendant committed the act alleged to have been a substantial step toward the commission of the crime of murder. This is the teaching of Spradlin, in which we said Henceforth, we hold that an instruction which purports to set forth the elements which must be proven in order to convict of the crime of attempted murder must inform the jury that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, with intent to kill the victim, engaged in conduct which was a substantial step toward such killing.
Spradlin, 569 N.E.2d at 950; see also Hill v. State (1993), Ind., 615 N.E.2d 97 (Ind.1993) (applying Spradlin ). Spradlin effectively overruled King v. State (1988), Ind., 517 N.E.2d 383; Worley v. State (1986), Ind., 501 N.E.2d 406; Santana, 486 N.E.2d 1010; and other prior cases contrary to Spradlin.
Comes now Lonzo Taylor, who appeals his conviction for attempted murder, arguing that the jury was improperly instructed as to his intent at the time he fired a shotgun at Michael and Clint Brownlee.
The jury should have been informed that the State had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lonzo Taylor intended to kill Michael and Clint Brownlee when he shot them, lest the jury mistakenly presume that acts such as the intentional discharge of a lethal weapon in the direction of another necessarily constitute attempted murder. Failure to so inform the jury constitutes fundamental error, necessitating our reversal of Taylor's conviction regardless of whether the issue was properly preserved by means of an objection at trial.
In the instant case, the trial judge gave the jury the following instruction:
The crime of attempted murder is defined by statute as follows:
A person who knowingly or intentionally kills another human being commits murder, a felony. A person attempts to commit a crime, when, acting with the culpability required for the commission of the crime, he engages in conduct that constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of the crime. An attempt to commit murder is a Class A felony.
To convict the defendant, the State must have proved beyond a reasonable doubt each of the following elements:
The defendant;
(3) knowingly killing another human being, to wit: Michael Brownlee.
If the State failed to prove each of these elements beyond a reasonable doubt, you should find the defendant not guilty of attempted murder.
If the State did prove each of these elements beyond a...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Canaan v. Davis, Cause No. IP 97-1847-C H/K (S.D. Ind. 1/10/2003)
...Here the jury was not instructed that such proof was required. For that reason, we reverse. 569 N.E.2d at 951. And in Taylor v. State, 616 N.E.2d 748 (Ind. 1993), the Indiana Supreme Court again reversed an attempted murder conviction because of the same problem in the instructions: "When a......
-
Lowery v. State
...court ruled on the merits alone that the instruction was not erroneous. Our case law does not sanction this instruction. Taylor v. State (1993), Ind., 616 N.E.2d 748. The trial court committed fundamental error in its attempted murder instruction. The post-conviction court should have grant......
-
Simmons v. State
...in Taylor when we said that Spradlin effectively overruled King, Worley, Santana, and other prior cases contrary to Spradlin. Taylor, 616 N.E.2d at 748. Because none of those cases contrary to Spradlin overruled Smith, but merely found grounds to distinguish their facts from those in Smith,......
-
Ramsey v. State
...conviction on grounds of Spradlin error despite defendant's failure to object to the instruction at trial). See also Taylor v. State, 616 N.E.2d 748, 749 (Ind.1993), for a strong statement of this B Here the first sentence of the trial court's instruction is erroneous. It says: "A person at......