## Facts

- Police found a decomposing body wrapped in bedding and curtains in an attic crawl space of a Providence apartment, accessible through a padlocked closet.
- Clyde Gillespie and his wife, Betty Sue Gillespie, were the last tenants of the apartment.
- When initially questioned, Gillespie said he had not seen Betty Sue since July after an argument; he admitted using her ATM card after her disappearance.
- After being told a body had been discovered, Gillespie identified it as Betty Sue and claimed he found her dead in bed after she had been smoking crack cocaine; he hid the body and padlocked the closet out of fear of being blamed.
- The medical examiner concluded Betty Sue’s cause of death was manual strangulation.
- A grand jury indicted Gillespie for murder and for failing to report a death with intent to conceal a crime under Rhode Island statutes.
- A jury convicted Gillespie of second-degree murder and failing to report a death with intent to conceal a crime.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial justice erred by instructing the jury that premeditation is not an element of second-degree murder under Rhode Island law.
2. Whether the evidence supported instructing the jury on second-degree murder as a lesser-included offense.
3. Whether excluding impeachment evidence of a prosecution witness’s 1989 conviction for loitering for indecent purposes was reversible error.

## Decision

- Affirmed the convictions.
- Held the instruction that premeditation is not an element of second-degree murder correctly stated Rhode Island law.
- Held the record supported giving a second-degree murder instruction because the jury could find malice but remain unconvinced of deliberation and premeditation required for first-degree murder.
- Held the trial justice acted within discretion in excluding impeachment by a remote conviction not bearing directly on truthfulness; any error was not reversible.

## Legal Principles

- First-degree murder requires proof of a willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing; second-degree murder is an unlawful killing with malice aforethought without the additional elements elevating the offense to first degree.
- Premeditation is not a required element of second-degree murder, and a jury may be instructed accordingly.
- A trial justice should instruct on a lesser-included homicide offense when there is evidence in the record that could support conviction on the lesser offense, even if the evidence also supports the greater charge.
- Decisions admitting or excluding impeachment by prior conviction are reviewed for abuse of discretion; remoteness and limited relevance to veracity support exclusion.

## Conclusion

The court sustained Gillespie’s convictions, concluding the jury instructions accurately distinguished first- and second-degree murder, the evidence warranted a lesser-included second-degree murder charge, and the limitation on impeachment of a prosecution witness fell within the trial justice’s discretion and did not warrant reversal.


State v. Gillespie, 960 A.2d 969 (R.I. 2008)