Murder Conviction Set Aside Instructions To Jury Faulty In Trial Of Post Falls Man

The Idaho Supreme Court has set aside an attempted second-degree murder conviction in Kootenai County.

The high court agreed with the Idaho Court of Appeals that one of the instructions given to the jury was incorrect because it did not require the jurors to find that Daniel Buckley of Post Falls intended to kill Michael Byrnes in order to convict Buckley of the charge.

Buckley shot Michael Byrnes in the neck with a high-powered rifle in late 1994 at the conclusion of a running argument over $100 Byrnes had borrowed from Buckley’s girlfriend to post bail after being arrested.

Buckley was charged with attempted first-degree murder, while the jury convicted him of attempted murder in the second degree. He was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison, with five years fixed.

At the conclusion of the trial, 1st District Judge Gary Haman gave the jury dozens of instructions for evaluating the evidence, advising them that they had to consider them as a whole without singling any one out.

In his instruction on attempted second-degree murder, Haman included a number of elements of that crime while leaving the requirement that there be a specific intent to kill to various other instructions.

But Haman then told jurors that they had to convict Buckley of attempted second-degree murder if the state provided all the elements he outlined, which did not include a specific intent to kill.

The case was sent back to district court for further proceedings.