Title: State v. Jackson

State: north-carolina

Issuer: North Carolina Supreme Court

Document:

200 S.E.2d 596 (1973)
284 N.C. 383
STATE of North Carolina
v.
Bennie Lee JACKSON.
No. 54.

Supreme Court of North Carolina.
December 12, 1973.
*598 Robert Morgan, Atty. Gen., and Roy A. Giles, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Raleigh, for the State of North Carolina.
Vaiden P. Kendrick, Asst. Public Defender, Eighteenth Judicial District, Greensboro, for defendant appellant.
HUSKINS, Justice:
The judge submitted, as permissible verdicts in this case: Murder in the first degree, *599 murder in the second degree, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, or not guilty. The court correctly defined each of these crimes. After the jury had been told what the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt in order to support a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, the following instruction was given:
Defendant assigns as error that portion of the foregoing charge in parentheses, contending that it required him to introduce independent evidence to mitigate or excuse the homicide whereas under the law he was entitled to rely not only on evidence offered by defendant but also on the evidence offered against him. We now explore the validity of this contention.
With respect to defendant's burden to show facts in mitigation or to excuse the killing altogether on grounds of self-defense, the court further instructed the jury as follows:
Of course, the law in this jurisdiction permits an accused to establish facts in mitigation or excuse from the evidence offered against him as well as the evidence he may offer himself. State v. Warren, 242 N.C. 581, 89 S.E.2d 109 (1955); State v. Todd, 224 N.C. 358, 30 S.E.2d 157 (1944).
When the State satisfies the jury from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant intentionally shot the deceased and thereby proximately caused his death, the law raises against him the presumptions (1) that the killing was unlawful and (2) that it was done with malice; and, nothing else appearing, the accused is guilty of murder in the second degree. State v. Cooper, 273 N.C. 51, 159 S.E.2d 305 (1968); State v. Gordon, 241 N.C. 356, 85 S.E.2d 322 (1955). "The law then casts upon the defendant the burden of showing to the satisfaction of the jury, if he can do so  not by the greater weight of the evidence nor beyond a reasonable doubt, but simply to the satisfaction of the jury  *600 from all the evidence, facts and circumstances, the legal provocation that will rob the crime of malice and thus reduce it to manslaughter, or that will excuse it all together upon the ground of self-defense.. . . The legal provocation that will rob the crime of malice and thus reduce it to manslaughter, and self-defense, are affirmative pleas, with the burden of satisfaction cast upon the defendant." State v. Todd, 264 N.C. 524, 142 S.E.2d 154 (1965).
A fair reading of the charge as a whole impels the conclusion that the jury was not limited to a consideration of mitigating circumstances arising only from evidence offered by defendant. The court instructed the jury that it should consider "all the circumstances as you find them to have existed from the evidence." The rule is well established that the charge of the court must be read as a whole and in the same connected way that the judge is supposed to have intended it and the jury to have considered it. State v. Wilson, 176 N.C. 751, 97 S.E. 496 (1918). The charge must be construed contextually, and isolated portions will not be held prejudicial when the charge as a whole is correct. State v. Cook, 263 N.C. 730, 140 S.E.2d 305 (1965). If the charge presents the law fairly and clearly to the jury, the fact that some expressions, standing alone might be considered erroneous will afford no ground for a reversal. State v. Hall, 267 N.C. 90, 147 S.E.2d 548 (1966).
When the charge here is measured by these standards, no prejudicial error appears with respect to the subject matter of this assignment.
Defendant assigns as error the following portion of the court's instruction relating to self-defense:
Defendant contends that use of the word "existed" in the phrase above emphasized restricts the right of self-defense to real necessity and excludes the right of self-defense under circumstances of apparent necessity.
We note that elsewhere in the charge the court had already instructed the jury as follows:
After brief deliberation, the jury returned to the courtroom and requested the court "to review for us again the different verdicts we can find." The court did so, and the additional instructions included the following charge with respect to defendant's plea of self-defense:
The right of self-defense, as defendant correctly contends, rests upon necessity real or apparent; and, in the exercise of his lawful right of self-defense, an accused may use such force as is necessary or apparently necessary to protect himself from death or great bodily harm. State v. Jennings, 276 N.C. 157, 171 S.E.2d 447 (1970), and cases cited. "In this connection, the full significance of the phrase `apparently necessary' is that a person may kill even though to kill is not actually necessary to avoid death or great bodily harm, if he believes it to be necessary and has a reasonable ground for that belief. The reasonableness of his belief is to be determined by the jury from the facts and circumstances as they appeared to him at the time of the killing. State v. Kirby, 273 N.C. 306, 160 S.E.2d 24 (1968), and cases cited." State v. Gladden, 279 N.C. 566, 184 S.E.2d 249 (1971).
According to the record, the charge as originally given did not require defendant to show that he was not the aggressor and did not use excessive force in order to be acquitted upon his plea of self-defense. This was error favorable to the defendant of which he cannot complain. State v. Ingland, 278 N.C. 42, 178 S.E.2d 577 (1971); State v. Murry, 277 N.C. 197, 176 S.E.2d 738 (1970). The charge on self-defense given in the court's additional instructions is in accord with the law and afforded defendant the full benefit of the doctrine of apparent necessity. In fact, the charge as initially given was correct on that point. As expressed by Chief Justice Bobbitt in State v. Gladden, supra, this assignment of error "relates more to semantics than to substance." Lacking merit, it is overruled.
The State's evidence strongly portrays defendant as the aggressor in the perpetration of a senseless killing; and the record discloses no evidence, save defendant's own equivocal testimony, that he acted in self-defense. He has had a fair trial free from prejudicial error. Hence, the verdict and judgment will not be disturbed.
No error.