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Bruce v. State

Court of Appeals of Maryland
566 A.2d 103, 317 Md. 642 (1989)
ELI5:

Rule of Law:

The crime of 'attempted felony murder' does not exist because a criminal attempt requires a specific intent to commit the target offense, whereas the crime of felony murder is defined by the absence of a specific intent to kill.


Facts:

  • Leon Bruce and two confederates entered Barry Tensor's shoe store to commit a robbery.
  • Bruce, who was masked and armed with a handgun, ordered Tensor to open the cash register.
  • After a confederate emptied the register, Bruce ordered Tensor to open a second, empty register.
  • Bruce then aimed the gun at Tensor's head, said "I'm going to kill you," and demanded to know where the money was.
  • Tensor ducked and moved forward, at which point Bruce shot him in the stomach.
  • Tensor survived but was hospitalized for five weeks as a result of the gunshot wound.

Procedural Posture:

  • Leon Bruce was charged in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City with multiple offenses, including attempted first degree murder.
  • A jury found Bruce guilty of attempted first degree felony murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and handgun violations.
  • The trial judge granted Bruce's motion for a new trial, ruling that 'attempted felony murder' was not a crime in Maryland.
  • Bruce was retried before a jury and was again found guilty of attempted felony murder and the related charges.
  • The trial court merged the robbery conviction into the attempted felony murder conviction and sentenced Bruce.
  • Bruce appealed to the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, the state's intermediate appellate court.
  • The Court of Appeals of Maryland, the state's highest court, granted certiorari to hear the case before the intermediate appellate court issued a decision.

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Issue:

Is 'attempted felony murder' a recognized crime in the State of Maryland?


Opinions:

Majority - Murphy, Chief Judge

No, 'attempted felony murder' is not a crime in Maryland. A criminal attempt is a specific intent crime, meaning the defendant must have a specific intent to commit the target offense. For attempted murder, the required intent is the specific intent to kill. The felony murder doctrine, however, applies where a death occurs during a felony, and it specifically removes the need for the State to prove an intent to kill. Therefore, it is a logical contradiction to charge a defendant with having a specific intent to commit a crime (felony murder) whose defining characteristic is the lack of a specific intent to kill. As the court quotes from another jurisdiction, 'There is no such criminal offense as an attempt to achieve an unintended result.'


Dissenting - McAuliffe, Judge

Yes, 'attempted felony murder' should be a recognized crime when a specific intent to kill is proven. The jury in this case was correctly instructed that it must find a specific intent to kill, and its verdict shows it did. The felony murder statute serves to elevate a murder to the first degree when it occurs during an enumerated felony. Logically, when a defendant possesses the specific intent to kill and attempts the murder during a felony, the crime should be graded as attempted murder in the first degree. The fact that the attempted killing occurred under the aggravating circumstances identified by the legislature (commission of a felony) justifies treating it as a first-degree attempt.



Analysis:

This decision establishes a bright-line rule that 'attempted felony murder' is a legal non-entity in Maryland, aligning the state with the majority of jurisdictions. The ruling reinforces the fundamental principle that attempt crimes require a specific mens rea to bring about the prohibited result, which is logically incompatible with the constructive malice of the felony murder rule. This holding prevents prosecutors from using the felony murder doctrine to circumvent the requirement of proving a specific intent to kill in attempted murder cases. Consequently, in cases where a victim survives a violent act during a felony, the State must prove the defendant acted with a willful, deliberate, and premeditated intent to kill to secure a conviction for attempted first-degree murder.

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