Volume 188 — Atlantic Reporter, Third Series

The defendant appealed from a judgment of conviction for second-degree murder in violation of G.L. 1956 § 11-23-1. After a trial, a jury found the defendant guilty of murdering his girlfriend's six-year-old son. On appeal, the defendant alleged three errors: (1) that the trial justice erred in her jury instructions on second-degree felony murder (2) that the trial justice erred in her jury instructions on causation and the doctrine of intervening causation and (3) that the trial justice erred in admitting testimony about prior bruising that had been observed on the victim's body. With respect to the defendant's argument regarding the jury instructions on second-degree felony murder, the Supreme Court held that: (1) although the indictment charging the defendant with murder in violation of § 11-23-1 included neither a charge of second-degree felony murder nor a charge of the predicate felony for second-degree felony murder—in this case, felony child abuse in violation of G.L. 1956 § 11-9-5.3—the defendant was not deprived his due process rights to fair notice of the charges asserted against him and to present a meaningful defense (2) the defendant failed to preserve his argument that the predicate felony, felony child abuse, should have merged with the homicide and that, even had he preserved that argument, Rhode Island has not adopted the California merger doctrine and, based on the arguments in this case, the Court declined to do so here and (3) the trial justice did not err by referring to the injury required to establish felony child abuse pursuant to § 11-9-5.3 as one that was "however slight."