Wright v. State
| Decision Date | 17 November 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. 45S03-9504-CR-418,45S03-9504-CR-418 |
| Citation | 658 N.E.2d 563 |
| Parties | Jessie Lee WRIGHT, Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
In a prosecution for murder, a jury convicted Jessie Lee Wright of Reckless Homicide. 1 The trial court sentenced Wright to eight years in prison. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals reversed Wright's conviction on the ground that the trial court improperly instructed the jury that it could convict Wright of the lesser included offense of Reckless Homicide. Wright v. State (1994), Ind.App., 643 N.E.2d 417, reh'g denied. We write to resolve the unfortunate confusion that has arisen in the cases that address when a trial court should instruct juries on lesser included offenses.
The facts of this case are that Wright and his nephew Richard were together at a family gathering on the evening of July 4, 1993. Wright and his nephew began to argue. At some point during the argument, Wright went upstairs. A little while later Wright came downstairs with his hands in his pockets. The argument resumed and, after some pushing, Wright stabbed Richard. Richard was taken to a hospital, where he died. The cause of death was a stab wound to the chest.
The cases of this court and of the Court of Appeals treating the question of whether a trial court should or should not have instructed a jury on a lesser included offense of that charged are, if not myriad, legion. The issue is potentially live in any criminal prosecution.
In every criminal case, an accused is entitled to clear notice of the charge or charges against which the State summons him to defend. Ind. Const. art 1, § 13; Blackburn v. State (1973), 260 Ind. 5, 11, 291 N.E.2d 686, 690, appeal dismissed, Blackburn v. Indiana, 412 U.S. 925, 93 S.Ct. 2755, 37 L.Ed.2d 152. Clear notice serves the dual purposes of allowing an accused to prepare his defense and of protecting him from being placed twice in jeopardy for the same offense. When, therefore, the issue is under what circumstances a trial court should instruct a jury on a lesser included offense of that charged, it is essential that the appellate courts of this state speak with one voice. What we say will determine both how prosecutors draft indictments and informations and what notice defendants in criminal cases will have of the charges brought against them. Due process will brook no confusion on the subject. See Jones v. State (1982), Ind., 438 N.E.2d 972, 975.
In this case, the information charging Wright with Murder read Bruce L. Outlaw, Sr., upon oath, says that on or about July 4, 1993, in the County of Lake, State of Indiana, Jessie Lee Wright did knowingly or intentionally kill Richard Wright by means of a knife, a deadly weapon, contrary to IC 35-42-1-1 and against the peace and dignity of the State of Indiana.
Indiana Code § 35-42-1-1 (1993), which defines the crime of Murder provides in part: "a person who: (1) knowingly or intentionally kills another human being ... commits murder, a felony." The majority of the Court of Appeals panel reversed Wright's conviction for Reckless Homicide because, it said, the language of the charging information closely tracked the language of the murder statute and so showed an intent on the part of the State to charge only the greater offense of Murder and not the lesser offense of Reckless Homicide. It was, the Court of Appeals said, a violation of due process and fundamental error to convict Wright of a crime with which he had not been charged. Wright, 643 N.E.2d at 419. As authority for its decision that the State had foreclosed the possibility of a conviction on a lesser included offense by the way it drafted the information in this case, the majority relied on Sills v. State (1984), Ind., 463 N.E.2d 228, 235, and Slayton v. State (1984), Ind.App., 471 N.E.2d 1154, 1157, which itself relied on Sills.
Judge Garrard dissented, saying that this court misspoke itself in Sills and that Sills and its progeny should be "strictly limited to their facts." Wright, 643 N.E.2d at 420 (Garrard, J., dissenting). Judge Garrard is not the first member of the Court of Appeals to have said exactly this, see Crawford v. State (1987), Ind.App., 502 N.E.2d 1361, 1365, reh'g denied, trans. denied, or to have sharply criticized the descendants of Sills. See Johnson v. State (1992), Ind.App., 594 N.E.2d 817, 820 n. 3 (). Nor is this the first time Judge Garrard has opposed the application of Sills or one of its offspring. See Aschliman v. State (1991), Ind.App., 578 N.E.2d 759, 767 (Garrard, J., dissenting), trans. granted and opinion vacated (1992), Ind., 589 N.E.2d 1160; Lynch v. State (1990), Ind.App., 552 N.E.2d 56, 62 (Garrard, J., dissenting), reh'g denied, trans. granted and opinion vacated (1991), Ind., 571 N.E.2d 537); Johnson v. State (1990), Ind.App., 553 N.E.2d 187, 190 (Garrard, J., dissenting).
For our own part, in Whipple v. State (1988), Ind., 523 N.E.2d 1363, 1372 n. 3, we noted that there had developed in the cases what we called "certain variances" in the treatment of instructions on lesser included offenses. Because those "variances" were not centrally at issue in Whipple, we chose not to resolve them there. See id. They are, however, squarely at issue in this case, and we now resolve the conflict in the cases.
Lest there be any further confusion, we first set out the correct analysis that a trial court is to perform when it is called upon by a party to instruct a jury on a lesser included offense of the crime charged.
First, a trial court must compare the statute defining the crime charged with the statute defining the alleged lesser included offense. If (a) the alleged lesser included offense may be established "by proof of the same material elements or less than all the material elements" defining the crime charged, Ind.Code § 35-41-1-16(1) (1993), Aschliman v. State (1992), Ind., 589 N.E.2d 1160, 1161, or (b) the only feature distinguishing the alleged lesser included offense from the crime charged is that a lesser culpability is required to establish the commission of the lesser offense, Ind.Code § 35-41-1-16(3) (1993), Holder v. State (1991), Ind., 571 N.E.2d 1250, 1256, then the alleged lesser included offense is inherently included in the crime charged. 2 If an offense is inherently included in the crime charged, then a trial court should proceed to step three below. We emphasize here that the wording of a charging instrument never forecloses or precludes an instruction on an inherently lesser included offense. Aschliman, 589 N.E.2d at 1161.
Second, if a trial court determines that an alleged lesser included offense is not inherently included in the crime charged under step one, then it must compare the statute defining the alleged lesser included offense with the charging instrument in the case. If the charging instrument alleges that the means used to commit the crime charged include all of the elements of the alleged lesser included offense, then the alleged lesser included offense is factually included in the crime charged, and the trial court should proceed to step three below. Lynch v. State (1991), Ind., 571 N.E.2d 537, 538. If the alleged lesser included offense is neither inherently nor factually included in the crime charged, then the trial court should not give a requested instruction on the alleged lesser included offense. See Straub v. State (1991), Ind., 567 N.E.2d 87, 90.
Third, if a trial court has determined that an alleged lesser included offense is either inherently or factually included in the crime charged, it must look at the evidence presented in the case by both parties. If there is a serious evidentiary dispute about the element or elements distinguishing the greater from the lesser offense and if, in view of this dispute, a jury could conclude that the lesser offense was committed but not the greater, then it is reversible error for a trial court not to give an instruction, when requested, on the inherently or factually included lesser offense. Aschliman, 589 N.E.2d at 1162; Lynch, 571 N.E.2d at 539. If the evidence does not so support the giving of a requested instruction on an inherently or factually included lesser offense, then a trial court should not give the requested instruction. 3
At least since our decision in Lawrence v. State (1978), 268 Ind. 330, 337, 375 N.E.2d 208, 212, analysis of this issue has spoken of two steps. We believe that the explicit three-step analysis above should eliminate any confusion that may have been caused by Lawrence 's two-step approach.
We now apply the first step of the analysis described above to the facts of this case. As we have already said, Indiana's murder statute provides in part: "a person who: (1) knowingly or intentionally kills another human being ... commits murder, a felony." Ind.Code § 35-42-1-1. Indiana Code § 35-42-1-5 (1993) defines Reckless Homicide and provides: "A person who recklessly kills another human being commits reckless homicide, a Class C felony." A comparison of the murder and reckless homicide statutes shows that the only feature distinguishing Murder from Reckless Homicide is the lesser culpability required to establish the commission of Reckless Homicide. Holder, 571 N.E.2d at 1256. Reckless Homicide is, therefore, an inherently included offense of Murder. Ind.Code § 35-41-1-16(3), Holder, 571 N.E.2d at 1256. Because Reckless Homicide is an inherently included offense of Murder, an information charging Murder cannot be drafted so as to preclude an instruction on Reckless Homicide. Aschliman, 589 N.E.2d at 1161.
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