State v. MeyerState v. Meyer
¶1 John Meyer appeals from the judgment entered by the Fourth Judicial District Court, Missoulа County, upon a jury verdict finding him guilty of aggravated kidnapping. We reverse and remand for a new trial.
¶2 The following issue is dispositive on appeal:
¶3 Did the District Court err in refusing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of unlawful restraint?
BACKGROUND
¶4 On November 30, 2002, Darla Burnhаm and her boyfriend, John Meyer, with whom she resided, spent the evening at a few bars with a group of friends. As the evening progressed, tension mounted between Burnham and Meyer, leading to an incident in a pаrking lot of a Denny‘s restaurant, to which Burnham had given another man a ride in her car. After arriving separately, Meyer confronted Burnham and the other man while they were still in her car. Meyer cursed at Burnham as she exited the vehicle and went into the restaurant, passing two men on her way. The two men told Meyer that he should not be cursing at Burnham.
¶5 After a few minutes, Meyer came into the restaurant аnd sat next to Burnham. He had a bloody eye and was missing his glasses. Meyer said that the two men Burnham had passed had beat him up. About ten minutes later, Meyer left and went home. Burnham returned home a few hours later and went to bed.
¶6 At about 8:00 the next morning, December 1, 2002, Burnham woke up and started in the direction ofthe bathroom. Meyer told her that “she couldjust pee in bed“and grabbed her by the shoulder, face, and throat. A little while later, Meyer permitted Burnham to go into the bathroom, but he subsequently jerked her pants from her as she tried to put them on. He pulled her off the toilet by her hair and dragged her into the bedroom. Meyer did not permit Burnham to leave the bedroom for somewhere between thirty minutes and two hours.
¶7 Throughout the remainder of the day, Meyer, apparently motivated byjealousy, forced Burnham, at varying times, to remain in the house, though she did manage to venture out on several occasions. At one point in the morning, Burnham ran out of the house wearing only a shirt, but Meyer cаught her on the front steps and pulled her back into the house by her hair. Later, Burnham went to the garage to
¶8 Sometime during the day, Burnham walked out ofthe house and down the road, but Meyer сame after her in his truck and told her to get back in the house, which she did. At trial, Burnham recalled that during this excursion she had seen a man nearby putting a stroller in his car.
¶9 When Burnham again went outside to sweep leaves, Meyer threatened her with a rifle, warning her that he “was a dead-on shot at a hundred feet away.” Meyer eventually tired of being outside as Burnham cleaned leaves from the yаrd and driveway, and he grabbed her by the arm. Burnham spun away, leaving Meyer holding her coat and purse, but she complied with his order to go back into the house.
¶10 On another occasion during the day, Burnhаm walked the hundred yards or so down the street to an officewhere she paid the rent, again under the warning from Meyer that he was a “dead-on shot.“Meyer remained on the front porch with a riflе and a clear line ofsight to Burnham. Burnham passed another woman on the road but made no plea for help. Returning from the rental office,Burnham got into her car that was parked outside. She sat in the car for awhile on the pretense that she was looking for warranty information; she wanted to avoid going back into the house. Eventually, Meyer again tired ofbeing outside and ordered her back into the house, threatening to drag her across the pavement if she did not comply.Meyer counted down from thirty and then yanked Burnham‘s hair. Meyer released Burnham‘s hair, she got out оf the car, and they both went into the house.
¶11 Sometime during the latter part ofthe day, Meyer hit Burnham in the nose with an open palm, causing her to bleed. She went to get a wash cloth, and then sat dоwn to go to the bathroom. As she sat there, Meyer hit her hard across the head.
¶12 Around 4:30 or 5:00 p.m., Burnham said that she needed to get some items for her lunch for the next day and that she needed to put air in her tires. Meyer permitted Burnham to leave. She drove to a friend‘s house and afterward went to the police.
¶13 Later that evening, Meyer was arrested, and he was subsequently charged with aggrаvated kidnapping. During the trial, the District Court rejected Meyer‘s proposed jury instruction that would have permitted the jury to consider unlawful restraint as a lesser included offense ofaggravated kidnapping. Meyer was found guilty, and he now
STANDARDOF REVIEW
¶14 ‘We review jury instructions to determine whether the instructions as a whole fully and fairly instruct the jury on the applicable law. Adistrict court has broad discretion in formulаting jury instructions, and our standard ofreview is whether the court abused that discretion.” State v. Pittman, 2005 MT 70, ¶ 30, 326 Mont. 324, ¶ 30, 109 P.3d 237, ¶ 30.
DISCUSSION
¶15 Did the District Court err in refusing to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of unlawful restraint?
¶16 Section
‘Included offense“means an offense that:
(a) is established by proof ofthe same or less than all the facts required to establish the commission ofthe offense charged;
... or
(c) differs from the offense charged only in the respect that a less serious injury or risk to the same pеrson, property, or public interest or a lesser kind of culpability suffices to establish its commission.
‘Facts” in subsection (a) “refers to the statutory elements of the offenseD, not the individual facts of the case.” State v. Beavers, 1999 MT 260, ¶ 30, 296 Mont. 340, ¶ 30, 987 P.2d 371, ¶ 30.
¶17 Section
¶18 As charged in the Information, Meyer was prosecuted under
¶19 Meyer argues that isolation with the intent to terrorize or injure differs only in degree from substantial interference with liberty. That is, the two elements are of the same character and thus are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, Meyer contends that the evidence could have supported the jury finding that he substantially interfered with Burnham‘s liberty without finding that he kept her in isolation. Therefore, he argues, the proposed instruction on the lesser included offense should have been permitted, and the District Court violated
¶20 Citing State v. Brummer, 1998 MT 11, ¶ 51, 287 Mont. 168, ¶ 51, 953 P.2d 250, ¶ 51, and State v.Brady (1991), 249 Mont. 290, 296, 816 P.2d 413, 416, the State concedes that prior cases before this Court suggest unlawful restraint is a lesser included offense of aggravаted kidnapping. However, the State argues that Burnham was never restrained when she was not also in isolation and that, in fact, there was no evidence of a restraint without the purpose tо inflict bodily injury. Moreover, the State points out that, regardless of the events that followed, there was no evidence that Burnham was not held in isolation during the period from when she woke up until she wаs first permitted to leave her bedroom. Accordingly, the State maintains that the evidence did not support a finding ofsubstantial interference with liberty without an additional finding ofisolation with intent to injure, and thus the proposed instruction was correctly rejected.
¶21 The State‘s argument is unpersuasive. The fact that Meyer injured Burnham does not require a jury to conclude anything regarding isolation. Ajury сould have rationally concluded that Meyer injured Burnham but at the same time determined that, based on the several instances during the day when Burnham was allowed outside the home and encountered other people, she was not held in isolation. Although the State focuses on the events which occurred during the morning of December 1, it is even possible that a jury could have inferred from the excursions to the garage, yard, and neighborhood that Burnham was not isolated during any part of the day, including
¶22 Consequently, we conclude that the jury instructions did not fully and fairly instruct the jury on the applicable law; that the evidence in this case presented a basis for a jury to rationally conclude the defendant was guilty of a lesser included offense; and that the District Court abused its discretion by rejecting the proposed instruction on unlawful restraint as a lesser included offense of aggravated kidnapping.
¶23 Meyer raises additional issues on appeal which we find unnecessary to address given our holding here. The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for a new trial.
CHIEF JUSTICE GRAY, JUSTICES NELSON, WARNER and COTTER concur.