Title: State v. Jackson

State: washington

Issuer: Washington Supreme Court

Document:

70 Wn.2d 498 (1967) 424 P.2d 313 THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, Respondent, v. CHARLES EDWARD JACKSON, Appellant.[*] No. 38648. The Supreme Court of Washington, Department One. February 20, 1967. F. Gwynn Townes, for appellant (Appointed counsel for appeal). Charles O. Carroll and David W. Soukup, for respondent. HALE, J. Defendant opens his brief with the statement that a storekeeper and a shoplifter are natural enemies, suggesting perhaps an inexorable law of nature governing their relationship rather than the mundane rules which *499 forbid not only shoplifting but flight and assault as well. If, as appellant implies, merchants and shoplifters are indeed natural enemies, one sure way for them to become friends is for the shoplifter to renounce his calling and become a paying customer. Charged by information with assault in the second degree committed September 4, 1965, defendant appeals a judgment and sentence of conviction entered on a jury's verdict of guilty. He levels his main arguments against the sufficiency of the evidence, raising the point in discussing the instructions. For 19 years, Clifton J. Tennant had kept open his Tennant's Sportswear Shop at 605 Broadway East in Seattle. One afternoon, while alone in the store waiting on customers, he noticed the defendant enter and go to a rack which held a number of sport coats for sale. He saw the defendant select a coat, walk into the dressing room and heard the door of the dressing room click shut. Accustomed to seeing his customers try on sport coats outside the dressing room, Tennant thought defendant's actions rather peculiar. Four or five minutes later, wondering why defendant had not yet emerged from the dressing room, Mr. Tennant waited at a counter past which the defendant would have to walk. Shortly thereafter, defendant, with hat on and dark overcoat buttoned, walked out of the dressing room, handed Mr. Tennant a sport coat on a hanger, and said, "I'm sorry, this does not fit," and left the store. Mr. Tennant took the coat to the rack and noticed that a sport coat with a checked pattern which he had shown to customers about 20 minutes earlier was gone. He went to the front door and looked down the street to see the defendant less than one-half block away, walking south on Broadway away from the store. Delayed a minute or two in finding someone to mind the store, Mr. Tennant overtook defendant at the corner of Broadway and Mercer and observed a distinct bulge under his raincoat. Tennant testified that They wrestled, defendant fell to the ground, got up and walked away with knife still in hand, and Tennant followed closely keeping within a few feet of him until defendant walked between some houses from which there was no exit save past Tennant. Tennant testified concerning defendant that, at this juncture, After Tennant had backed defendant into the cul-de-sac between the two houses, he picked up a broomstick and held defendant at bay until the police arrived. The police took the knife away from defendant and, on opening his raincoat, found the sport coat, still on its hanger tucked into defendant's trousers. Defendant gave a different version of the affray. He admitted that he stole the sport coat but denies assaulting Tennant with a knife. He testified that he got a block away from the store with the sport coat concealed under his buttoned raincoat and He testified that he had not drawn the knife against Mr. Tennant, had not struck him or cut him with it, had been drinking heavily and cut himself in the hand when Tennant knocked him to the ground. He said that he did not resist Tennant's attempt to recapture the sport coat, but merely asked him to desist his attack for a few moments so that they could find a secluded spot where he could surrender the coat and "could keep from getting picked up for lewdness or something, indecent exposure." The information charged defendant under RCW 9.11.020(3), (4), with assault in the second degree in two particulars: assaulting Clif J. Tennant with a weapon or thing likely to produce harm, and willfully inflicting grievous bodily harm upon Clif J. Tennant. Defendant offers a theory that the facts, as a matter of law, showed that he acted in self-defense in warding off Tennant's attack; that even if the defendant's actions are regarded in the worst light possible, they show no more than assault in the third degree and preclude as a matter of law the offense of assault in the second degree; and that the court erred in failing to charge assault in the third degree as a lesser included offense. Concerning the weapon, he refers to RCW 9.95.040 to support the idea that a knife less than 3 inches long is not a deadly weapon. [1] On this point, we note that the knife blade held by defendant during his struggle with Tennant was more than 2 but less than 3 inches long. RCW 9.95.040, in pertinent part, reads: RCW 9.95.040 is an enactment addressed specifically to the Board of Prison Terms and Paroles and not to the courts. It sets forth certain factors which must be considered by the board in fixing minimal terms of confinement. Other than any peripheral effect it may have on judicial reasoning, the statute has nothing to do with the definition of crimes. See, also, State v. Coma, 69 Wn.2d 177, 417 P.2d 853 (1966). [2] Elsewhere in another statute, the legislature, acting within its constitutional powers, has defined assault in the second degree, inter alia, as follows: Thus, under RCW 9.11.020, one need not be armed with a deadly weapon to commit second-degree assault; any instrument likely to produce bodily harm will suffice. Accordingly, when defendant used his knife in a threatening *503 and menacing manner in such a way as to show his present intentions to attack another with it, he willfully assaulted another with a weapon, instrument or thing likely to produce bodily harm under RCW 9.11.020(4), supra. And stabbing a person two or three times in the face with such a knife, even though the wounds so inflicted may later, from a medical standpoint, appear not serious, constituted a willful infliction of grievous bodily harm under RCW 9.11.020(3), supra, both of which constitute assault in the second degree. The evidence amply supports the jury verdict under the statutory definition of assault in the second degree. [3] As to the court's duty to include third-degree assault as a lesser offense, the evidence showed that at all times during the affray and pursuit, defendant carried the knife in his hand. There was no evidence, therefore, upon which the court could authorize the jury to find third-degree assault as a lesser included offense. We reiterated this in State v. Emerson, 19 Wn.2d 700, 144 P.2d 262 (1943), as follows: [4] Defendant also assigns error to the court's failure to give certain instructions. At trial, defendant neither objected to any of the instructions proposed, nor proposed any instructions, nor excepted to the court's giving or refusal to give any requested instructions. Thus, we do not have before us for review any claimed errors arising from the instructions or lack of them. We ought not and will not consider on appeal errors claimed in the instructions unless the trial court has had an opportunity to pass upon the asserted errors and had a chance to make corrections. State v. Louie, 68 Wn.2d 304, 413 P.2d 7 (1966); State v. Harris, *504 62 Wn.2d 858, 385 P.2d 18 (1963); and State v. Browder, 61 Wn.2d 300, 378 P.2d 295 (1963). Affirmed. HILL, WEAVER, ROSELLINI, and HUNTER, JJ., concur. [*] Reported in 424 P.2d 313.