Williams v. State
| Decision Date | 10 May 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. SC10–1458.,SC10–1458. |
| Citation | 123 So.3d 23 |
| Parties | Amos Augustus WILLIAMS, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Florida and Dea Abramschmitt and John Michael Conway and Margaret Price Natale, Assistant Public Defenders, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, FL, for Petitioner.
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, Florida, and Consiglia Terenzio, Bureau Chief and Diane Fischer Medley and Melanie Dale Surber, Assistant Attorney Generals, West Palm Beach, FL, for Respondent.
This case is before the Court for review of the decision of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Williams v. State, 40 So.3d 72 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010). In its decision, the district court certified the following questions to be of great public importance:
(1) DOES THE STANDARD JURY INSTRUCTION ON ATTEMPTED MANSLAUGHTER CONSTITUTE FUNDAMENTAL ERROR?
See Williams, 40 So.3d at 76.1 The Fourth District also certified express and direct conflict with Lamb v. State, 18 So.3d 734 (Fla. 1st DCA 2009). As explained below, we answer both certified questions in the affirmative. We held in State v. Montgomery, 39 So.3d 252 (Fla.2010), that giving the standard jury instruction for the completed crime of manslaughter by act—which required the jury to find that the defendant intended to kill the victim—is fundamental error when the defendant is convicted of an offense not more than one step removed from manslaughter because the manslaughter statute does not require an intent to kill. Id. at 259. We now hold that giving the standard jury instruction on attempted manslaughter by act—which also requires the jury to find the defendant committed an act intended to cause death—similarly constitutes fundamental error where the defendant is convicted of an offense not more than one step removed from attempted manslaughter. The crime of attempted manslaughter by act does not require the State to prove, or the jury to find, that the defendant intended to kill the victim.
Accordingly, we quash the decision of the Fourth District in Williams and approve the decision in Lamb, in which the First District held that the trial court committed fundamental error by giving the standard jury instruction on attempted manslaughter by act because it added the element that the defendant “committed an act intended to cause the death” of the victim. Lamb, 18 So.3d at 735. We also hold that the offense of attempted manslaughter remains a viable offense. We turn first to the facts of this case.
Amos Augustus Williams was charged with the attempted first-degree murder of his ex-girlfriend Samantha Lindsay in 2006. The facts are set forth in the opinion of the district court as follows:
The defendant's charges arise out of a brutal stabbing of his ex-girlfriend in her home while their ten-month-old daughter was present. The victim sustained multiple stab wounds to her face, stomach, chest, leg, and side. When the victim tried to flee from the defendant, he grabbed her by the neck of her clothes and continued to stab her. The defendant pulled the victim back into the house, locked the door, and stabbed her whenever she tried to move toward the door.
The police apprehended the defendant later that night. The defendant told police that the victim tried to start a fight with him and wanted to cut him, he wrestled with the victim, and the victim fell on the knife. Later, he told the police that he did not know what happened because “the evil spirit just move upon me, evil.”
Williams, 40 So.3d at 73. The defendant requested jury instructions on lesser included offenses, including attempted manslaughter by act. The jury instruction for attempted manslaughter by act, which is at issue in this case, was given consistent with the standard instruction as it existed in 2006 when the crime was committed and as it currently exists, in pertinent part, as follows:
To prove the crime of attempted voluntary manslaughter, the State must prove the following beyond a reasonable doubt: That Mr. Williams committed an act which was intended to cause the death of Ms. Lindsay and would have resulted in the death of Ms. Lindsay except that someone prevented [ ] Mr. Williams from killing Ms. Lindsay or he failed to do so....
Williams, 40 So.3d at 73 (emphasis added). The instruction also advised the jury:
In order to convict [defendant] of attempted voluntary manslaughter, it is not necessary for the State to prove that the Defendant had a premeditated intent to cause death.
Id. (emphasis omitted). No defense objection was made to the instruction and Williams was ultimately convicted of attempted second-degree murder, as well as burglary of a dwelling with an assault or battery while armed and false imprisonment with a weapon. Id.
On appeal to the Fourth District, Williams contended that giving the instruction constituted fundamental error similar to that found by this Court in Montgomery as to the standard instruction for the completed offense of manslaughter by act. Because the legal effect of this Court's decision in Montgomery is critical to determination of the certified questions and resolution of the certified conflict in this case, that decision will be discussed first.
In Montgomery, we recognized that the then-existing standard jury instruction for the offense of manslaughter by act requiredthe jury to find that the defendant “intentionally caused the death” of the victim. Montgomery, 39 So.3d at 257;see Fla. Std. Jury Instr. (Crim.) 7.7 (2006). We also recognized that section 782.07, Florida Statutes, did not require the jury to make such a finding. Section 782.07 provided in pertinent part as follows:
782.07 Manslaughter; aggravated manslaughter of an elderly person or disabled adult; aggravated manslaughter of a child; aggravated manslaughter of an officer, a firefighter, an emergency medical technician, or a paramedic.—
(1) The killing of a human being by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, without lawful justification according to the provisions of chapter 776 and in cases in which such killing shall not be excusable homicide or murder, according to the provisions of this chapter, is manslaughter, a felony of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
§ 782.07(1), Fla. Stat. (2006). The statute remains in this same form today. In discussing the requirements of the manslaughter statute, we stated in Montgomery:
We observe that the statute does not impose a requirement that the defendant intend to kill the victim. Instead, it plainly provides that where one commits an act that results in death, and such an act is not lawfully justified or excusable, it is manslaughter.
Montgomery, 39 So.3d at 256. This Court concluded that giving this erroneous jury instruction constituted fundamental error because Montgomery was convicted of second-degree murder, one step removed from manslaughter, and because he was entitled to a correct instruction on manslaughter. We further explained in Montgomery that “[a]lthough in some cases of manslaughter by act it may be inferred from the facts that the defendant intended to kill the victim, to impose such a requirement on a finding of manslaughter by act would blur the distinction between first-degree murder and manslaughter.” Id. at 256. “Moreover, it would impose a more stringent finding of intent upon manslaughter than upon second-degree murder, which, like manslaughter, does not require proof that the defendant intended to kill the victim.” Id.
We also recognized in Montgomery that the jury in that case was instructed, similar to the instruction in the instant case, that “[i]n order to convict of manslaughter by intentional act, it is not necessary for the State to prove that the defendant had a premeditated intent to cause death.” Montgomery, 39 So.3d at 256 . Even so, we concluded that this additional phrase did not alleviate the fundamental error. We explained:
Although the instruction also provided that “it is not necessary for the State to prove that the defendant had a premeditated intent to cause death,” we conclude that this language was insufficient to erode the import of the second element: that the jury must find that the defendant intended to cause the death of the victim.
Id. at 257. After issuance of our opinion in Montgomery, we issued an interim corrected manslaughter by act instruction 2 and in 2011 we issued the following final amended instruction for manslaughter by act:
To prove the crime of Manslaughter, the State must prove the following two elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
1. (Victim) is dead.
Give 2a, 2b, or 2c depending upon allegations and proof.
2. a. (Defendant) intentionally committed an act or acts that caused the death of (victim).
b. (Defendant) intentionally procured an act that caused the death of (victim).
c. The death of (victim) was caused by the culpable negligence of (defendant).
....
Give only if 2a alleged and proved.
In order to convict of manslaughter by act, it is not necessary for the State to prove that the defendant had an intent to cause death, only an intent to commit an act that was not merely negligent, justified, or excusable and which caused death.
We turn now to the question of whether the standard jury instruction for the offense of attempted manslaughter by act gives rise to fundamental error, just as we concluded the standard instruction for the completed crime of manslaughter did in Montgomery. We hold, consistent with our holding in Montgomery,...
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