Case ID: ky_219/html/0546-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Drury,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Gibson v. Commonwealth.
    (Decided April 29, 1927.)
    Appeal from Eloycl Circuit Court.
    Homicide. — Instruction on self-defense should rest such right, not on danger in which jury believed defendant was, but on that actually or reasonably apparent to defendant.
    CAUDILL & TACKETT for appellant.
    FRANK E. DAUGHERTY, Attorney General, and G. D. LITSEY, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
   Opinion of the Court by

Drury,

Commissioner— Reversing.

Jesse 'GHibson has appealed from a judgment imposing on Mm one year’s confinement in the pemtentiary for maliciously cutting and wounding John Hall. This occurred in a drunken brawl. The instructions were erroneous, and upon the next trial the court will so modify instructions 1 and 2 as to reqrnre the jury to believe from the evidence beyond all reasonable' doubt the facts therein set out in order to find the defendant guilty. Instruction 4 should be so modified as to rest the defendant’s right of self-defense, not on the danger in which the jury believed the defendant was, but upon the danger .actually or reasonably apparent to the defendant. This court prepared such an instruction in Mullins v. Com., 108 S. W. 252, 32 Ky. Law Rep. 1216, and it has often been approved.

The judgment is reversed.