Source: https://blog.lawofselfdefense.com/law_case/shuck-v-state-349-a-2d-378-md-ct-spec-app-1975/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 06:59:37+00:00

Document:
Selig Solomon, Assigned Public Defender, with whom were Alan W. Bernstein and Goldstein, Solomon & Bernstein on the brief, for appellant.
Bernard A. Raum, Assistant Attorney General, with whom were Francis B. Burch, Attorney General, Warren B. Duckett, Jr., State’s Attorney for Anne Arundel County, and Gerald Anders, Assistant State’s Attorney for Anne Arundel County, on the brief, for appellee.
Moylan, Powers and Lowe, JJ. Moylan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.
4) That a jury instruction to the effect that malice may be presumed and that the burden was upon the appellant to show such mitigation as would reduce the crime to manslaughter denied him due process under Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S. Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975), and In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S. Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970).
With respect to the appellant’s first contention, the evidence was legally sufficient to sustain the verdict of murder in the second degree. There was ample evidence from which the jury could have concluded that when the appellant struck and killed one Buddy Voelker with a baseball bat, he did so with either an intent to kill or an intent to do grievous bodily harm, he did so without legal justification or excuse and he did so without any circumstance of mitigation. Similarly, with respect to the appellant’s second contention, the evidence was legally sufficient to sustain the verdict of assault with intent to murder George Parker, under circumstances where the appellant also hit Parker with the same baseball bat. The factual versions of what occurred in the confused and angry medley that took place on the morning of June 29, 1974, varied significantly in terms of who was the aggressor at various stages of the fight, who entered into the fight mutually and wilfully and who was simply defending in an effort to extricate himself from a difficult situation. In judging the legal sufficiency of the evidence, we have taken that version of the facts most favorable to the State. In dealing hereinafter with the appellant’s fourth contention, however, we must reverse the slant and take the version of the facts most favorable to the appellant.
Before moving on to that fourth contention, however, we will point out that with respect to the third contention — the allegedly erroneous instruction on the use of a deadly weapon — that no objection was made below and the point is not preserved for appellate review. Maryland Rule 756g. The point is, moreover, rendered moot by out judgment that the convictions must, in any event, be reversed because of the fourth contention, to which we now turn our consideration.
We note initially that Mullaney v. Wilbur applies in this case to the instruction on assault with intent to murder just as surely as it applies to the instruction dealing with the murder charge itself. Since a necessary element of assault with intent to murder is the malicious state of mind such as would constitute murder if the assault victim had died, an instruction on the elements of murder, on the relevant defenses to murder and on the burdens with respect thereto was called for. Under a fair reading of the broad principle enunciated in Mullaney v. Wilbur (see Part IIB of Evans v. State, 28 Md. App. 640, 349 A. 2d 300), a constitutional allocation of the burden of persuasion in an assault with intent to murder case is mandated just as surely as is a constitutional allocation of the burden of persuasion in a felonious homicide case.
There can be no doubt but that the jury instruction in this case, presuming malice and placing the burden upon the appellant to prove by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the killing was accompanied by such mitigating circumstances as would reduce the crime to manslaughter, was unconstitutional under Mullaney v. Wilbur. Evans v. State, Part IIG. In the assault with intent to murder case, moreover, an improper instruction on the burden of proof with respect to mitigation might well mark the difference not simply between one degree of felonious homicide (second-degree murder) and another (manslaughter) but between guilt and total exculpation. As we further analyzed in Part IF and Part IIH of Evans v. State, however, an erroneous allocation of the burden of proof with respect to a particular defense will be deemed immaterial unless the evidence has generated a genuine jury issue with respect to that defense.
We now turn our attention, therefore, to the question of whether any issue of justification, excuse or mitigation was generated by the evidence. The lethal attack upon Voelker and the non-lethal attack upon Parker were so essentially contemporaneous and inseparable in terms of purpose that both convictions will stand or fall together as we proceed with our analysis.
“The law of self-defense (and of defense of others) makes a distinction between ‘deadly’ force and ‘nondeadly’ (or ‘moderate’) force, holding that there are situations wherein it is reasonable to use nondeadly force but not to use deadly force. . . .
It may be said as a matter of law that no issue of justification or excuse was generated by the evidence in this case. Such is not the situation, however, with the issue of mitigation. Again taking that version of the facts most favorable to the appellant, the evidence did fairly generate the issue of mitigation in two separate forms.
From the evidence, the jury could fairly deduce the following picture. The appellant and his companion, John Jackman, were two young men and co-workers who had been visiting a bar and a party and consuming a number of beers from the early evening of June 28 through approximately midnight. At shortly after midnight, Jackman was driving his Corvette sports car. The appellant was a passenger in the car and they were both returning to a bar to pick up the appellant’s girlfriend, who worked there. As they stopped for a light, a GTO sports car pulled up beside them. When the light turned green, the GTO pulled off suddenly, spinning its wheels and throwing up gravel. Interpreting this as an invitation to a race, Jackman and the appellant took off in pursuit. It was at that point that George Parker, a 48-year-old man, was returning home in his pickup truck from his own evening of drinking at his own bar. The pickup truck pulled onto the highway and ended up between the GTO and the pursuing Corvette. The GTO pulled onto a side road. The Corvette, occupied by the appellant and his companion, pulled off after it, cutting off in the process but not hitting the pickup truck driven by Parker. In slamming on his brakes, Parker hit his head on his own windshield and became angry. Rather than let the matter rest, Parker then took off in pursuit.
The GTO soon pulled to a stop in a small court with a single entrance. Its occupant, the ultimate homicide victim, Buddy Voelker, alighted. The appellant and his companion, who were strangers to Voelker, pulled to a stop behind the GTO. Apparently because of their shared common interest in automobiles, Voelker and Jackman began a friendly conversation. At that moment, Parker arrived in his pickup truck, still red with anger. He parked his truck across the entrance to the court so as to block any vehicular exit therefrom. He approached the Corvette, in which the appellant and Jackman were still seated. (Voelker had walked up to the window and was carrying on the conversation from that vantage point.) Parker ordered Jackman out of the car. He shouted several obscenities. According to the appellant, Parker reached into the car and hit Jackman at least once in the face with his fist. After repeatedly being challenged by Parker in angry words, Jackman got out of his own vehicle. At one point, apparently, Jackman and the appellant attempted to get back in Jackman’s car and leave the area. Parker, with Voelker trying to restrain him, shouted several obscenities at them and they stopped the car and got out.
According to the appellant, at one point Parker and Jackman were struggling with each other when Voelker leaped onto both of them, knocking everyone to the ground in the process. The appellant testified that he attempted to pull Voelker from the pile. At that point, Voelker turned to the appellant and ultimately was on his back, gripping him about the shoulders. The appellant stated that Voelker hit him several times. At this point, the appellant ran and got the bat from his companion’s automobile and swung at least twice. One blow hit Parker, injuring him slightly. The other hit Voelker in the head and ultimately resulted in his death.
At Voelker’s autopsy, the blood alcohol level was revealed to be 0.14%. A girlfriend of Jackman’s, Terri Jones, testified that when she saw Jackman shortly after the incident, he was bleeding from the mouth and nose and had strangulation marks on his neck.
Upon this evidence, the issue of mitigation by way of a hot-blooded response to mutual combat was fairly generated in the case. Whitehead v. State, 9 Md. App. 7, 262 A. 2d 316. Perkins, op. cit., at 57-59; LaFave and Scott, op. cit., at pp. 574-575.
“[M]any American statutes still on the books purport to limit the use of force in defense of others to the defense of those who bear some designated relationship to the defender. Yet the modern and better rule is that there need be no such relationship, so that one is entitled in an appropriate case to use force to protect a friend or acquaintance or even a stranger from threatened harm by a third person.
“In order for a killer to have a ‘perfect’ defense of self-defense to homicide, (1) he must be free from fault in bringing on the difficulty with his adversary; and (2) he must reasonably believe (though he need not correctly believe) both (a) that his adversary will, unless forcibly prevented, immediately inflict upon him a fatal or serious bodily injury, and (b) that he must use deadly force upon the adversary to prevent him from inflicting such an injury. If one who is not the aggressor kills his adversary with these two actual and reasonable beliefs in his mind, his homicide is justified, and he is guilty of no crime — not murder, not manslaughter, but no crime.
Under the circumstance, Mullaney v. Wilbur will apply and the convictions must be reversed.
Judgments reversed; case remanded for a new trial.

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