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Key v. People1/31/1986
rack impressions across his forehead. Empty shell casings, a bloodied rock, and tread marks matching the tires on the victim's truck were found in the immediate vicinity. A number of empty and half-filled beer bottles were also found in the area. The El Paso County coroner testified that Shadday died of a "massive cranial cerebral trauma . . . with extrusion or squeezing out of most of the brain at the time of the death." In the coroner's opinion, the victim's blood alcohol level of 0.127 indicated that he may have consumed about six or seven bottles of beer before his death.
The central issue at trial was whether Key killed Shadday after deliberation. Accordingly, in two separate instructions, the trial court instructed the jury on the meaning of deliberation. Instruction No. 14 provided:
The term "after deliberation" means not only intentionally but also that the decision to commit the act has been made after the exercise of reflection and judgment concerning the act. An act committed after deliberation is never one which has been committed in a hasty or impulsive manner.
Instruction No. 15 stated:
The element of deliberation is established by proof of the formed designed to kill, and length of time is not a determinative factor. The only time requirement for deliberation within the meaning of the first degree murder statute is an interval sufficient for one thought to follow another.
Instruction No. 17 required that the requisite culpable mental state of the defendant had to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
The trial court overruled Key's objection to Instruction No. 15 and submitted the instructions to the jury. In the course of the jury's deliberations, the jury sent a note to the trial judge stating: "Need additional explanation of deliberation." The trial court replied that it could not give any further explanation other than what was already contained in the instructions. The jury found Key guilty of first-degree murder. His motion for a new trial was denied and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Key appealed, alleging that the trial court committed reversible error in giving Instruction No. 15. The court of appeals acknowledged that the second sentence of the challenged instruction included language that was rejected by this court in People v. Sneed, 183 Colo. 96, 514 P.2d 776 (1973), but held that under People v. Blair, 195 Colo. 462, 579 P.2d 1133 (1978), the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because the evidence of deliberation was overwhelming.
II.
Key concedes that Instruction No. 14 is a correct statement of the law but argues that the second sentence of Instruction No. 15 contradicted the statutory definition of "after deliberation" and effectively lowered the prosecution's burden of proving deliberation as an element of first-degree murder.
Section 18-3-102(1)(a), 8 C.R.S. (1978), provides that " person commits the crime of murder in the first degree if . . . fter deliberation and with the intent to cause the death of a person other than himself, he causes the death of that person or of another person." The term "after deliberation" is defined in section 18-3-101(3), 8 C.R.S. (1978), to mean "not only intentionally but also that the decision to commit the act has been made after the exercise of reflection and judgment concerning the act. An act committed after deliberation is never one which has been committed in a hasty or impulsive manner." See People v. Bartowsheski, 661 P.2d 235, 242 (Colo. 1983)
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