Caseflicks

South Dakota Supreme Court • 1988

State v. Lyerla

424 N.W.2d 908 | 1988 S.D. LEXIS 80 | 1988 WL 58170

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that careless destruction of potentially useful evidence warrants relief only when its apparent exculpatory value and irreplaceability meet the constitutional materiality standard—and that South Dakota does not recognize attempted second-degree murder because attempt requires an intent to kill that second-degree murder does not.

Background

While driving on Interstate 90, Gerald Lyerla fired three shots from a .357 magnum pistol at a pickup carrying three teenage girls. One bullet entered the cab and killed seventeen-year-old Tammy Jensen; the other two girls were injured. Lyerla said the girls had harassed him by repeatedly interfering with his efforts to pass and that he fired only to disable the truck because he feared for his safety. The surviving girls gave a materially different account, though the prosecutor acknowledged that Jensen had been playing games by not allowing Lyerla to pass.

After investigators tested and repaired the pickup, the prosecutor authorized its return to Jensen's family without giving Lyerla the notice required by SDCL 23A-37-15. The vehicle had been cleaned, and glass particles and bloodstained seat covers had been discarded. Lyerla argued that further testing could have shown that Jensen was a passenger rather than the driver, thereby impeaching the surviving girls.

A jury convicted Lyerla of second-degree murder for Jensen's death and two counts of attempted second-degree murder for the surviving girls. The trial court denied his motions to dismiss or suppress evidence based on the State's handling of the pickup. On appeal, Lyerla challenged the lost evidence and argued that attempted second-degree murder was not a legally cognizable offense.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the State's release and partial destruction of the pickup without statutory notice deprived Lyerla of due process and required dismissal or suppression.

Holding

No. Although the State violated South Dakota's evidence-preservation statute, the lost material was not constitutionally material under the standard for negligently destroyed evidence, and comparable evidence was available to the defense.

Reasoning

The prosecutor improperly authorized the pickup's return without notifying Lyerla, contrary to SDCL 23A-37-14 and 23A-37-15. But a statutory violation does not automatically invalidate a conviction. Because the evidence was lost through neglect rather than a calculated effort to suppress favorable evidence, the court applied the constitutional preservation standard from California v. Trombetta rather than treating the violation as automatically reversible.

Under Trombetta, lost evidence triggers a due-process violation only if its exculpatory value was apparent before its destruction and the defendant could not obtain comparable evidence by other reasonably available means. The State could not reasonably have known when it released the vehicle that Lyerla would later claim that Jensen was not driving or that testing a rear-window bloodstain for brain matter might support that theory. Nor could it reasonably have anticipated his justification defense in what initially appeared to be a senseless highway shooting.

The proposed evidence was also of limited importance to the central question of guilt. Lyerla testified that he fired at the pickup to stop harassment by its occupants, not because of the identity of its driver. Thus, proof that Jensen had been a passenger rather than the driver would have had value chiefly as impeachment, not as direct support for self-defense or justification.

Lyerla had meaningful comparable evidence. Photographs preserved the location of bloodstains and Jensen's body, defense experts inspected and tested the recovered truck, and the defense used those materials and inconsistencies in the surviving girls' accounts to argue that Jensen was not driving. The trial court also promptly ordered the truck retrieved from the family and made available to defense experts. These measures minimized any prejudice from the State's improper release of the vehicle.

Issue #2

Whether attempted second-degree murder is a cognizable crime under South Dakota law, despite Lyerla's failure to object to the jury instructions.

Holding

No. Attempted second-degree murder is a legal impossibility because attempt requires a specific intent to commit the offense, while second-degree murder is an unintentional killing committed through a depraved and imminently dangerous act.

Reasoning

Lyerla's lack of a contemporaneous objection did not bar review. Crimes exist only by statute, and a defendant cannot create a nonexistent crime by consent, waiver, or failure to object. The court therefore treated the issue as one concerning the trial court's authority to enter convictions for an offense that South Dakota law does not recognize.

South Dakota precedent requires specific intent for an attempt: the defendant must intend to commit the acts constituting the completed offense. Second-degree murder, however, consists of an imminently dangerous act showing a depraved mind and disregard for human life, without a premeditated design to kill any particular person. The offense therefore rests on a reckless mental state rather than an intent to cause death.

The court adopted the reasoning of decisions from other jurisdictions holding that one cannot intentionally attempt an unintended or reckless homicide. Although conduct such as firing at the pickup could constitute second-degree murder if it caused death, it could not constitute attempted second-degree murder when no death occurred unless Lyerla intended to kill the surviving girls. The jury's verdicts themselves established that it did not find such an intent.

The court summarized the governing distinction this way: a person may commit murder without intending to take a life, but a person may be guilty of attempted murder only if he intended to take a life. Accordingly, the two attempted-second-degree-murder convictions were reversed, while the second-degree-murder conviction was affirmed.

Concurrences

Chief Justice Wuest

Reasoning

Chief Justice Wuest joined the majority but wrote separately to emphasize that the identity of the pickup's driver was not relevant to Lyerla's guilt on the second-degree-murder charge. Evidence about who was driving was admissible as part of the overall transaction, but it did not materially resolve whether Lyerla acted with the depraved disregard for life required by SDCL 22-16-7.

In his view, because Lyerla claimed that he fired to disable the pickup after being harassed, and because the prosecutor conceded that the girls had harassed him, the decisive question was whether Lyerla killed Jensen through an imminently dangerous act evincing a depraved mind and whether the killing was justified or excusable. The driver's identity did not answer that question.

Dissents

Justice Sabers

Reasoning

Justice Sabers disagreed with the reversal of the attempted-second-degree-murder convictions. He accepted that an attempt requires an intentional act, but he read South Dakota's attempt statute, SDCL 22-4-1, as requiring only that the defendant voluntarily perform an act toward the crime, not that he specifically intend every mental-state element of the completed offense.

Under that reading, second-degree murder requires an imminently dangerous, depraved act rather than an intent to kill. A person who deliberately pulls a trigger and shoots at or near people in a vehicle has attempted the dangerous act required by the statute. If a victim dies, the act is second-degree murder; if a victim is wounded or death does not result, it is attempted second-degree murder.

Justice Sabers believed that decisions from other jurisdictions were unpersuasive because their attempt statutes expressly required specific intent, unlike South Dakota's statute as he understood it. He regarded the majority's claimed conflict between attempt and recklessness as artificial: a voluntary effort to commit a dangerous act and the reckless character of that act can coexist. He would therefore have affirmed all of Lyerla's convictions.