Murder by Poisoning Is Not First Degree Without Intent to Kill
The mother of a five-day-old baby was charged with first-degree murder after her new baby daughter died from ingesting the heroin-derived morphine and methamphetamine that were in her breast milk. She was convicted and sentenced to a prison term of 25 years to life. The California Supreme Court ruled that the jury instructions given by the trial court were incomplete because the poisoning by the mother was not deliberate despite the language of California Penal Code’s Section 189 which reads
“All murder which is perpetrated by means of poison…is murder of the first degree.”
After her sentence, Heather Rose Brown, the defendant and appellant, appealed the guilty verdict of the Shasta County Superior Court, which was affirmed by California’s Third District Court of Appeal. In a unanimous ruling on March 2, the California Supreme Court found that the trial court erred because the prosecutor failed to show that Brown “deliberately” fed her daughter the poisoned breast milk that was found in her baby’s bodily fluids and stomach during her autopsy. The high court ruled that deliberate action is required for a first-degree murder-by-poison conviction, even though this element was not currently required by the California Penal Code.
In a unanimous 7-0 opinion authored by Justice Joshua P. Groban, the Court found that “a rational jury could have concluded the prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Brown deliberately gave her newborn daughter the poisonous substances in her breast milk with the intent to kill her or inflict injury likely to cause her death.” The Supreme Court thus reversed Brown’s first-degree murder conviction because the “error was prejudicial.”
Justice Groban’s opinion begins with an explanation of how the state legislature differentiates between first and second-degree murder. He wrote that first-degree murders are “cruel and aggravated and thus deserving of greater punishment than other malicious or intentional killings” that are categorized as second-degree. He said that first-degree murder requires “proof of a mental state more culpable than the malice required for second degree.”
He went on to say that the Court has never addressed whether there is a “mental state component” in first-degree murder-by-poison. This opinion clarifies that absence. In murder by poison cases, he said, “the prosecution must show the defendant deliberately gave the victim poison with the intent to kill…or inflict injury likely to cause death.” Since this critical element was not present in Brown’s case, her first-degree murder conviction was reversed and remanded to the Court of Appeal with instructions to return the case to the superior court for “further proceedings consistent with our opinion.”
The opinion then recounted how Brown met her husband, who “dealt and used drugs.” She began using as well, became pregnant, but continued to use heroin and occasionally methamphetamine throughout her pregnancy. She received “almost no prenatal care.” In addition, during her labor, she continued to use heroin to relieve the pain. Nonetheless, she gave birth to a healthy baby named Dae-Lynn.
Sadly, the newborn “began to appear ill” after a few days but was not taken to a doctor. Brown continued to feed Dae-Lynn breast milk because she read on the Internet that when “babies were withdrawing” breast milk is “supposed to help ease ’em.” Throughout her case, she insisted she was trying to help, not harm, her daughter.
Groban also told the jury that the trial judge’s instructions erroneously said that Brown would be guilty of first-degree murder if the prosecution proved Brown murdered her daughter by using poison. The court did not instruct the jury that it needed to find that Brown “had any particular, heightened mental state in giving the poison to the victim to find her guilty of murder in the first degree…”
During her appeal, Brown argued the jury instruction was incomplete because “it did not inform the jury that the defendant must administer the poison willfully, deliberately, and with premeditation.” The Court of Appeal rejected this argument and said that to prove first-degree murder, the prosecutor only needs proof that the baby’s death was caused by poison and the killing was done with malice.
Groban then provided reasons for the reversal. He wrote that there was instructional error when the court failed to instruct the jurors that they needed to find that Brown “had used the poison with any particular, heightened mental state.” The trial judge said the jury only needed to find that poison was a substantial factor in the child’s death.
For clarity, the opinion looked to the historical context of the California Penal Code, beginning in 1850. At that time, the Legislature defined murder as “the unlawful killing of a human being,” and went on to describe its two possible degrees. In 1856, the Code was amended to include “first degree murder perpetrated by poison,” as one of the means that would “carry… the conclusive evidence of premeditation.” Groban then pointed out that while “historical context reveals the Legislature’s intent to require proof of ‘something more’ than malice to elevate a murder by means of…poison to first degree, it reveals little about what that ‘something more might be.”
He then wrote a lengthy discussion of the possible mental states that could be components of murder and clarified that the key element would be the perpetrator’s state of mind. He reiterated that murder by poison did not, thus far, have a clear meaning regarding the mental state of the murderer. Nor did murder by poison precedents help because Brown’s case differed from all previous cases where the poisoning was deliberate. He reiterated that “The distinguishing factor is the defendant’s mental state.”
Groban then summarized what is necessary to prove murder-by-poison in the first degree. He wrote, “The prosecution must show that the defendant deliberately gave the victim poison with the intent to kill the victim or inflict injury likely to cause the victim’s death.” The murder must be “equivalent in turpitude to a willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing…” He added that killing with poison “is not alone dispositive. Instead, it is the defendant’s mental state in giving the victim the poison that determines whether the act is murder and if so, whether the murder is in the first or second degree.”
Since the jury in the trial court did not receive mental state elements in its instruction, the Supreme Court found that Brown did not properly get her right to a jury trial under the Sixth Amendment. He said that a rational, “properly instructed” jury could have concluded that the prosecution had not met its burden to prove that Brown “deliberately gave her newborn daughter poison.” While the Attorney General believes this was harmless error, the Supreme Court could not reach the same conclusion.
Heather Brown’s judgment was reversed and remanded for “further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion.”
