Case Title: Haynes v. State

Citation: 451 So. 2d 227

Docket Number: 54881

State: mississippi

Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Date: 1984-06-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
451 So. 2d 227 (1984) Bobby Lee HAYNES v. STATE of Mississippi. No. 54881. Supreme Court of Mississippi. June 6, 1984. *228 Herman F. Cox, Gulfport, for appellant. Bill Allain, Atty. Gen. by Carolyn B. Mills, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee. Before PATTERSON, C.J., and HAWKINS and PRATHER, JJ. HAWKINS, Justice, for the Court: Bobby Lee Haynes was convicted in the Circuit Court of Harrison County of the crime of manslaughter. The indictment also charged him with being a habitual offender, and this likewise being proved to the circuit judge, he was sentenced to twenty (20) years without parole. The appeal challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, and assigns other errors. No error is assigned as to his conviction of being a habitual offender. The victim, John Mitchell, died from a severe beating by Haynes in a local saloon. This is a classic jury case, Haynes had unquestionably been previously assaulted by Mitchell, and provoked; yet it was a matter for the jury to determine whether this slaying was in self-defense or anger at Mitchell. We reverse upon the assignments of error we address: (1) the right of an accused to an instruction that in order to invoke the defense of self-defense, it is not necessary for the defendant to flee, and (2) oral response *229 by the circuit judge to an inquiry by the jury during its deliberation. At the conclusion of the trial, the defense requested the following instruction: It has always been the law in this state that a defendant is not deprived of the right to claim self-defense in a slaying even if he could have avoided the threat to his safety by fleeing. In Long v. State, 52 Miss. 23 (1876), p. 34, it is stated: It is thus clear that the latter part of the requested instruction correctly stated the law. Such an instruction is not often applicable to the facts of a case, however. In this case we think the judge should have either granted the instruction, or some instruction that embraced this principle. There was some testimony by Haynes that he began to walk away when the trouble started, and the jury could have wondered why he did not simply leave. Whenever, from the facts of the case, it appears that the defendant could have avoided the fatal difficulty only by precipitous retreat, but did not leave, if the other requisite factors are present as stated in Long, supra, then the defendant is entitled to such an instruction. The following instruction, S-4, was granted the state: The defense made no objection to this instruction. The record reveals that when the jury had been deliberating three hours, the following transpired: Five minutes later the jury reached its verdict. After the jury was dismissed, the record shows the following transpired before the circuit judge: In three recent cases we have either criticized or condemned this kind of instruction. See: Robinson v. State, 434 So. 2d 206 (Miss. 1983); Lenoir v. State, 445 So. 2d 1371 (Miss. 1984); Scott v. State, 446 So. 2d 580 (Miss. 1984).[1] *231 As Justice Dan Lee so aptly pointed out in Robinson v. State, P. 210, "the instruction is fraught with redundancy". In this case the trial judge's oral comment to the jury served to accentuate the very portion of the instruction which we have criticized. We cannot say that this did not influence the jury. This court has always cautioned circuit judges making any comments, or giving instructions to the jury after it retires to reach a verdict. Our two most recent cases are: Girton v. State, 446 So. 2d 570 (Miss. 1984) and Stubbs v. State, 441 So. 2d 1386 (Miss. 1983). In this case the jury had already been amply instructed, indeed, more than amply instructed in S-4. There was no need to further instruct them. While the circuit judge was undoubtedly trying to deal with a vexing type of problem as best he could, we believe the proper response to the jury would have been that they had already been properly instructed on this question and to read their instructions. The answer the court gave may very well have accentuated an instruction even further, which was error. As stated in 23A C.J.S., Criminal Law, No. 1304, although it is not necessarily reversible error, court instructions should avoid repetition of the same or different forms of the same rule of law, once the jury has been fully and fairly instructed thereon. This authority also states, pp. 738-739: In the Florida case of Beckham v. State, 209 So. 2d 687 (Fla. 1968), the court stated, pp. 688-689: In the recent case of Wall v. State, 413 So. 2d 1014 (Miss. 1982), this court stated, p. 1015: For these reasons, the case is reversed and remanded for a new trial. REVERSED AND REMANDED. PATTERSON, C.J., WALKER and ROY NOBLE LEE, P.JJ., and BOWLING, DAN M. LEE, PRATHER and SULLIVAN, JJ., concur. BOWLING, J., PATTERSON, C.J., and DAN M. LEE, J., specially concurring. ROBERTSON, J., not participating. BOWLING, Justice, specially concurring: Since I have been a member of the Court, I have done my best to rid the criminal jurisprudence of this state of a part of the usual self-defense instruction that reads as follows: *232 I expressed my sincere concern about this instruction in a dissenting opinion in Robinson v. State, 434 So. 2d 206 (Miss. 1983) and re-iterate here what I said then. This instruction that continually is being given is confusing, misleading and contradictory. It gives a defendant a right of self-defense and then takes it away by telling the jury that he acted at his peril. As I pointed out in the dissent in Robinson, supra, this Court has been trying to correct this instruction for forty-eight years since the case of Bailey v. State, 174 Miss. 453, 165 So. 2d 122 (1936). Bailey warned prosecutors not to request the instruction set out in that opinion. The warning has gone unheeded. As I stated in Robinson, supra, I have no sympathy for criminals, but I do insist on fairness under the law. I sincerely hope that a very few of the prosecutors of this state, who do not read this Court's opinions, please make it a practice to do so, so that the warning of forty-eight years ago might finally soak in. I hope and pray that whatever funded agencies conduct prosecutors' seminars will someday have his problem on their agenda. PATTERSON, C.J., and DAN M. LEE, J., join this specially concurring opinion. [1] In Robinson v. State, the majority and a special concurring opinion suggested the kind of instruction which this court would approve.