In my state and most states* you are charged with manslaughter. You killed her in the heat of passion after seeing her in open adultery with another man which the law presumes* that in that state you did not have the capacity to premeditate. You had abandoned your prior plan to kill her.
*Some states have changed this textbook law school common law defense so as not to permit adultery to act as a justification for a killing.
Let me amend that as you said you were “estranged.” Your outrage may not rise to the level of heat of passion because of that fact. Homicide is very fact specific.
Isn’t the mens rea established that I was of a mind to kill her before I ever saw her with the other man? I was already pre-disposed to murder even if it did not go to plan?
I’m not saying you couldn’t be charged with it, but under the facts as presented, you explicitly abandoned your plan to murder her before there were any real steps taken and went to her home for reconciliation.
If you killed someone by shooting them, and you were already a felon, you might have committed both murder and felon in possession of a firearm. Those are very different offenses that were committed with the same act. They are prohibited by separate statutes, and they have different elements, so you could be separately punished for those offenses.
The crimes Chauvin was convicted of are, obviously, much closer. I think it would be problematic if the sentences were not concurrent, but I’m not sure that it would be unconstitutional under the current test.
At least two of the convictions required proof of an element the others did not. The second-degree murder charge required proof that the death occurred during the commission of a dangerous felony. The third-degree murder charge required proof of a depraved mind, without regard for human life. The manslaughter charge required proof that “the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another.” That last one might arguably fall within one of the others.
Generally, when an offender is convicted of multiple current offenses, or when there is a prior felony sentence that has not expired or been discharged, concurrent sentencing is presumptive.
Isn’t that the crux of this thread?
Being charged under several statutes for the same crime?
Charging mistakes are made all of the time. But a homicide cannot be both premeditated and heat of passion. Heat of passion, by law, means it wasn’t premeditated. In your scenario, you would be charged with one or the other, but not both.
How did Chauvin manage to fall into three different categories of murder (and found guilty of all three)? How is it one does not exclude the others?
What you can be charged with is both. No one has to believe your diary entry, but maybe you can convince the jury it was sincere. Convictions on both charges might be incompatible. You’d expect a jury to only pick one, if properly instructed. If not, then maybe one gets tossed, or you get a new trial.
Never a justification. Just a partial excuse.
In my jurisdiction at least, you can be charged under multiple theories. See above.
Yes, I can see charging both offences in that case. However that doesn’t mean there will be convictions on both offences, because they have contradictory mental elements.
Ultimately, it depends on the jury’s assessment of credibility.
If the jury doesn’t believe the diary entry, then intentional murder is a reasonable verdict.
If the jury believes the diary entry, then manslaughter is a reasonable verdict.
Where the facts could reasonably support two different offences, depending on the view the jury takes of the evidence, I don’t think it’s a mistake for both charges to be laid, and give the jury the choice of either option, or an outright acquittal, if there’s a reasonable doubt about both.
(And, I would think that the diary entry would not be admissible without the accused actually testifying. By itself, it would be exculpatory hearsay. If that could be admitted without the accused testifying, then anyone planning an offence could write out exculpatory statements in advance, but not face cross/-examination. )
I disagree. He could, as @eschrodinger says, be charged with both, but in WaM’s specific scenario only convicted of one as premeditation would likely be considered to exclude heat of passion, but the prosecution could proceed with two theories, (a) premeditated murder (as evidenced by the “abundant evidence” of planning) or, failing that, (b) voluntary manslaughter (as evidenced by the wife being dead at WaM’s hands, through his intent to make her so, and the fact he doesn’t seem to be asserting an affirmative defense of insanity or self-defense or what have you). Then should the jury find that the evidence of premeditation is insufficient to convict on premeditated murder, it could nevertheless go with the alternative theory that it was voluntary manslaughter (or some other non-premeditated form of unlawful homicide, as alternatively charged), as the wife is in fact dead, WaM did it, and it was not legally justified or excused by the circumstances.
A hypothetical where this might arise:
(a) there is abundant evidence that WaM planned to poison his wife. Notes, materials, a calendar with the date he planned to do it on circled, etc. maybe he even confided in the mailman of his plan and we have testimony to that effect, which is corroborated by the other evidence of planned poisoning.
(b) but then the way it actually went down was WaM walked into the bedroom and shot his wife while she was with someone else. He now insists this was not premeditated, he always carries a gun (and friends and family are trotted out to testify that they consider him a gun nut), and he told the mailman that very day—perhaps even minutes before the killing—that he had changed his mind and no longer planned to kill his wife, etc. etc.
So… the planning that points to poisoning doesn’t reflect how the crime played out. But it does show evidence of a pre-existing “meditation” of killing his wife (one might even call it… premeditation) and it’s not outside the realm of possibility—perhaps even to the exclusion of reasonable doubt—that he still planned to kill his wife, just changed his mind as to how, and in fact only seized upon the opportunity to disclaim planning to the mailman in the final meeting as he realized his wife was at that moment in bed with someone else, and this would be a prime opportunity to do the deed and get off with a lesser charge of manslaughter.
In my state, they would not charge both. They would/could charge first degree murder, of which manslaughter is a lesser included offense. It meets all of the elements except malice as the sudden heat of passion eliminates the malice element.
But as I said, the adultery mitigation (yes, not justification) is falling out of favor, and under the factual scenario given, I don’t believe that the law has ever recognized the mitigation for an estranged spouse as it should not be shocking that she might be dating again when you are apart.
You can argue that someone died while Chauvin was committing a felony (2nd Degree Unintentional Murder), that he acted with a depraved mind (3rd degree murder), and with culpable neglicance (2nd degree manslaughter. I don’t see how these three are mutually exclusive to each other.
Wouldn’t committing a felony and acting with a depraved mind also be culpable negligence?
No. Committing a felony is not negligence. Committing an act with a depraved mind, indifferent to the value of human life is not required to be proved in either of the other counts. I think there might be an argument that the manslaughter charge is subsumed in either of the two murder charges, which both involve taking risks at least negligently.
That’s my point. If I commit an act with a depraved mind, the negligence is subsumed under it as a lesser included. That activity is negligence plus. I did state that unartfully.
Yeah, I’m not so familiar with it that I think I could predict which way that one goes, but I think it might not work to separately punish him on the manslaughter charge. Do you know if that just prevents consecutive sentencing, or can a concurrent sentence not be imposed either?
I am familiar with how it works in my state, but it’s all statutory here.
In my state (West Virginia) the prosecutor has the choice of indicting on simply “murder” or a lesser flavor of homicide. If the prosecutor indicts on murder, every lesser included is subsumed by that: First Degree Murder, Second Degree Murder, Voluntary Manslaughter, Involuntary Manslaughter, Misdemeanor Battery, and Misdemeanor Assault. A person may not be convicted of more than one of these for one individual death.
Several caveats: My state doesn’t recognize “depraved heart” murder. The newer statutory enactments CAN be stacked (for example, DUI causing death, vehicular homicide, and death of a child due to abuse or neglect) and the judge has complete discretion to consecutively sentence for these. So, let’s say a person drives drunk and crashes into a single person causing their death. That person can be charged with DUI causing death, vehicular manslaughter, and regular involuntary manslaughter as they all contain separate elements, and the charges can be ran consecutively.
However, to use the above example, if there is a debate over whether I killed my wife in a premeditated fashion, or killed her because I discovered her in open adultery, the jury must pick one because voluntary manslaughter is necessarily a lesser included of first degree murder. As you noted, however, each state is different.
But to add, as far as WV law is concerned, you are just removing elements as you go down the line. In MN, it seems that it doesn’t flow that neatly, which is the answer to the OP. If there are different elements, then the Blockburger test says that you may convict on each as separate offenses.
That’s how it works in Canada as well. The Minnesota offences seem very complicated.