Case Title: Vaughn v. State

Citation: 304 So. 2d 6

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1974-09-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
304 So. 2d 6 (1974)
In re Lemuel VAUGHN
v.
STATE of Alabama. Ex parte STATE of Alabama.
SC 724.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
September 12, 1974.
Rehearing Denied October 3, 1974.
*7 William J. Baxley, Atty. Gen., and Jonathan P. Gardberg, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State, petitioner.
J. Douglas Evans and Donald E. Holt, Florence, opposed.
BLOODWORTH, Justice.
We granted certiorari to review a decision and judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals which reversed and remanded defendant's murder conviction in the Circuit Court of Lauderdale County. Lemuel Vaughn v. State, 53 Ala.App. ___, 304 So. 2d 12.
The sole question presented to us is whether there was reversible error in the refusal by the trial judge to give Charge 59, requested by the defendant, viz.:
We hold the trial judge's decision was correct and the judgment of conviction should be affirmed. We therefore reverse and remand the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
This charge was properly refused for two reasons.
First, the charge is misleading, if not positively erroneous, because the charge places a burden on the defendant and charges that the defendant "must offer such evidence" in support of his plea as will, when considered with the whole evidence, generate in the minds of the jury a reasonable doubt of his guilt.
Our cases state the rule to be that if all the evidence raises in the minds of the jury a reasonable doubt as to whether he acted in self-defense, the defendant should be acquitted. Lester v. State, 270 Ala. 631, 121 So. 2d 110 (1960); Pounders v. State, 282 Ala. 551, 213 So. 2d 394 (1968).
In Lester v. State, supra, defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree. This Court held that giving of the following oral instruction by the trial court constituted reversible error, viz.:
In Pounders v. State, supra, the defendant pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of self-defense,[1] but was convicted for murder. At the State's request, the court gave the following written charge:
Our Court held:
Both Pounders v. State, supra, and Lester v. State, supra, have been followed in recent cases of the Court of Criminal Appeals. See Stowe v. State, 49 Ala.App. 13, 268 So. 2d 45 (1972) and Messer v. State, 45 Ala.App. 718, 236 So. 2d 728 (1970).
The rule of our cases is that there is no reversible error in refusing to give a "confusing" or "misleading" charge. Clearly, Charge 59 is confusing and misleading.
Second, Charge 59 is positively erroneous, because it places a "burden" on defendant which he does not bear under our law. It positively states "the Defendant must offer such evidence in support of such plea," which is clearly an erroneous instruction.
In Lester v. State, supra, this Court, after exhaustively analyzing our cases, wrote:
In Lester, supra, the trial court had given another oral instruction which the State insisted was a "good" charge on self-defense and made the "bad" charge innocuous. This Court held that it was not persuaded the "good" charge was a correct statement of the law nor that, if it was, the jury could be expected to understand the trial court meant one thing at one time when it mentions "burden of proof" and a different thing at another time when it uses the same phrase.
Even more in point, in the instant case, can a jury be expected to understand that the court means one thing when it uses the words "burden of proof" in its oral charge and a different thing at another time when it reads the word "burden" in Charge 59?
In fact, there would seem to be no distinction between using the word "burden" and "burden of proof." In the very recent Court of Criminal Appeals' case of Key v. State, 47 Ala.App. 692, 260 So. 2d 422 (1972), the trial judge had charged:
"`The Court: Ladies and gentlemen, regardless of where the burden of proof is as to self defense, the burden of proving this defendant guilty begins and ends with the State of Alabama to prove that he's guilty as charged.'" (Our emphasis.)
The Court, in that case, wrote to reverse for the giving of this oral charge. Thus, whether the word "burden" or the words "burden of proof" are used would seem to be of little significance in this case, particularly when the additional words "the Defendant must offer such evidence" appear in Charge 59.
Lee v. State, 24 Ala.App. 168, 132 So. 61 (1931) is cited by the Court of Criminal Appeals. In that case, defendant, who was on trial for murder, offered testimony to sustain his plea of self-defense. His judgment of conviction was reversed because of two portions of the trial court's oral *10 charge on self-defense (to which exceptions were properly taken), viz.:
The Court in Lee quoted from the earlier Supreme Court decision, authored by Mr. Justice Somerville, in Ex parte Williams, 213 Ala. 121, 104 So. 282 (1925). Williams stands in line with the more recent opinions of our Court to the effect that it is reversible error for the trial judge to orally charge the jury that the burden of proof in self-defense rests upon the defendant. The Court in Williams uses language which is quoted with approval in Lee, viz.:
Taking these two holdings together, with our most recent pronouncements in Lester, and Pounders, one can only conclude that the Court, in each instance, was simply stating general propositions of law for guidance of bench and bar and not setting forth approved charges to the jury on the subject of self-defense.
Our Court has held that it is a mistake to suppose that expressions appearing in published judicial opinions, although properly there used, can be made to serve as clear, succinct statements of law in special charges to the jury. Wear v. Wear, 200 Ala. 345, 76 So. Ill (1917); Jasper Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Breed, 40 Ala.App. 449, 115 So. 2d 126 (1959).
It is thus that we conclude that there was no reversible error in the trial court's refusing Charge 59 because: it is "misleading," and it is never reversible error to refuse a misleading charge; it is positively "erroneous" in placing the "burden of proof" as to self-defense on defendant.
*11 The judgment and decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals reversing the defendant's conviction for the murder of his wife is reversed and remanded.
Reversed and remanded.
HEFLIN, C. J., and MERRILL, COLEMAN, HARWOOD, MADDOX, McCALL, FAULKNER and JONES, JJ., concur.
JONES, Justice (concurring specially).
I have troubled considerably over this opinion for two reasons: (1) The trial Judge in his oral charge erroneously instructed the jury to the effect that defendant had the burden of proof as to his plea of self defense,[1] and (2) defendant's requested charge is lifted virtually word for word out of Lee, cited in the foregoing opinion. It is the peculiar setting in which the issue arises that is troublesome.
It was my first impression that while the requested charge uses the expression "burden," it is used in the context approved by Lee, i. e., "only burden ... is that the defendant must offer such evidence in support of [his self-defense] plea..." On further reflection, however, I agree that the requested charge is bad and should not have been given even though the trial Court did not properly orally charge the jury as to defendant's self-defense plea. If we were to approve this requested charge in this case, we would thereby establish a precedent for the giving of such charge at the request of the state or by the court in its oral charge in subsequent self-defense plea cases. In all criminal cases, including this case, in which a plea of self-defense had been entered, the burden of proof is never on the defendant to establish his innocence, or to disprove the facts necessary to establish the crime for which he is charged. If the evidence, any of all of it, after considering it all, raises in the minds of the jury a reasonable doubt as to the defendant's guilt, he should be acquitted.
Because of the potential confusion which might arise in the minds of jurors in any given case by the use of the word "burden" in a jury charge in connection with a self-defense plea (assuming, of course, that the issue of self-defense is properly raised and presented by the evidence), I suggest a charge in substance as follows:
(Here insert appropriate charge on elements of self-defense.)
[1]  "The latter special plea was unnecessary because it was embraced in the plea of not guilty." Mason v. State, 49 Ala.App. 545, 274 So. 2d 100 (1973).
[1]  It should be noted that defendant did not except to that portion of the Court's oral charge.