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Key v. People1/31/1986
(" hile deliberation requires that a design to kill precede the killing, the length of time required for deliberation need not be long. . . . What is required for the element of deliberation is that the decision to kill be made after the exercise of reflection and judgment concerning the act.").
The language used in Instruction No. 15 -- that deliberation requires only an "interval sufficient for one thought to follow another" -- originated in Van Houton v. People, 22 Colo. 53, 43 P. 137 (1895). In Van Houton, the defendant appealed his first-degree murder conviction on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to establish deliberation and premeditation. We upheld the conviction, stating:
Time . . . is not essential if there was a design and determination to kill formed in the mind of the defendant previous to or at the time the mortal wound was given. It matters not how short the interval, if it was sufficient for one thought to follow another, and the defendant actually formed the design to kill, and deliberated and premeditated upon such design before firing the fatal shot, this was sufficient to raise the crime to the highest grade known to the law.
Van Houton, 22 Colo. at 66, 43 P. at 142 (emphasis added). Trial courts incorporated this language into jury instructions which stated that premeditation and deliberation may occur in a time interval "sufficient for one thought to follow another," and such instructions were approved by this court. See Hammil v. People, 145 Colo. 577, 361 P.2d 117, cert. denied, 368 U.S. 903, 82 S. Ct. 182, 7 L. Ed. 2d 98 (1961).
However, in People v. Sneed, 183 Colo. 96, 514 P.2d 776 (1973), we disapproved of the Van Houton language. Sneed declared that the legislature intended to abandon the Van Houton definition of premeditation when it defined the culpable mental state of first-degree murder as "premeditated intent" and the culpable mental state of second-degree murder as "intentionally, but without premeditation." We said:
In effect, by emphasizing that "premeditated intent" and "intentionally, but without premeditation" were different, and that premeditation required design before the act, it indicated deliberation and reflection were necessary to create the premeditated intent.
This means that between the forming of the intent to do the act and the act itself, an appreciable length of time must have elapsed to allow deliberation, reflection and judgment. . . . A premeditated act . . . is never one which has been committed in a hasty or impulsive manner.
Sneed, 183 Colo. at 100, 514 P.2d at 778 (citations omitted).
Six months after Sneed was announced, the legislature amended the first-degree murder statute and defined "after deliberation" in terms substantially similar to those used by this court in its interpretation of the word "premeditation." Compare Ch. 52, sec. 1, § 40-3-101, 1974 Colo. Sess. Laws 251, with Sneed, 183 Colo. at 100, 514 P.2d at 778. Thus, the General Assembly did not resurrect the Van Houton definition, although it had an opportunity to do so.
Our analysis of Van Houton, Sneed, and the series of statutory enactments defining the elements of first-degree murder lead us to the conclusion that the legislature accepted our holding in Sneed that the Van Houton instruction is incompatible with the legislatively mandated definition of "after deliberation." Cf. Music City,
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