Inconsistent verdicts; People v McKewen; People v Davis; AWIM; People v Ericksen; Felonious assault; People v Avant

Holding that the trial court in defendant’s bench trial entered inconsistent verdicts of AWIM and felonious assault, the court vacated his felonious assault conviction, but affirmed in all other respects. He was convicted of AWIM, felonious assault, resisting or obstructing a police officer, and domestic violence arising from his stabbing a former girlfriend. On appeal, defendant argued that the trial court erred by entering inconsistent verdicts of AWIM and felonious assault. “Unlike Davis, this case does not involve findings by the jury; this was a bench trial.” As such, the court felt bound by its “reaffirmation in McKewen that, where one verdict involves a specific intent and another involves the absence of that same intent, the ‘two offenses are mutually exclusive from a legislative standpoint,’ and a judge may not enter verdicts inconsistent with that fact.” In addition, it was “not prepared to muddy the waters by parsing out what constitutes multiple assaults in these cases where, both here and in McKewen, the ‘assault’ involved a singular transaction with the victim irrespective of whether it was one stabbing or multiple. Certainly, that the prosecution did not charge defendant for each individual stabbing in this case weighs against their argument on appeal that, perhaps, the trial court felt one stabbing involved an intent not to murder and supported a felonious assault conviction while another stabbing occurring at the same time involved an intent to murder to support AWIM.” In light of this, the court felt “compelled to vacate defendant’s felonious assault conviction because the trial judge should have known that it was inconsistent with his AWIM conviction.” However, it left “all other convictions undisturbed.”