Case Name: State of Vermont v. William F. Wheelock III
Court: Vermont Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Vermont
Decision Date: 1992-04-03
Citations: 158 Vt. 302
Docket Number: No. 89-475
Parties: State of Vermont v. William F. Wheelock III
Judges: Present: Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.
Reporter: Vermont Reports
Volume: 158
Pages: 302–317

Head Matter:
State of Vermont v. William F. Wheelock III
[609 A.2d 972]
No. 89-475
Present: Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.
Opinion Filed April 3, 1992
M. Patricia Zimmerman, Windsor County State’s Attorney, White River Junction, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Charles Martin of Martin & Paolini, Barre, for Defendant-Appellant.

Opinion:
Morse, J.
Defendant appeals his conviction of second-degree murder for shooting and killing James Brillon during a drug and alcohol binge. Defendant claimed he shot the victim because the victim was attacking him with a knife. He raises three issues, all concerning the trial court's instructions to the jury. Defendant first contends that the trial court erred in its self-defense charge when it instructed the jury to assess the reasonableness of his belief without taking into account his intoxication. Second, he assigns error to the court's refusal to instruct the jury on the theory of "imperfect self-defense." Third, he claims error based on the trial court's failure to instruct the jury that it could draw inferences, favorable to the defense, from the State's failure to dust for fingerprints on knives in the kitchen at the crime scene and to test defendant for intoxication when he was arrested. We affirm.
Defendant killed Brillon with a single round from a shotgun fired at close range. The shooting occurred in the early morning at the apartment of the victim's girlfriend. Both defendant and the victim had ingested alcohol, cocaine, valium and marijuana prior to the shooting. Confrontations between the two punctuated the night. The killing occurred when the victim entered the living room; defendant, who testified he believed the victim had a knife, shot him in the chest. During the investigation, police found no knife near the body, and did not search for one in the apartment. When defendant was apprehended, he possessed a bottle of partially consumed scotch. Police did not administer a test to determine the level of alcohol or presence of drugs in defendant's blood.
I.
Defendant requested the court to instruct the jury on self-defense, in relevant part:
[O]ne may use deadly force in defense of his life, limb, or in fear of bodily injury if it reasonably appeared to the accused that it was necessary to use the force which he did use.
The trial court's instruction on self-defense was as follows:
[T]he defendant must have a reasonable expectation of immediate harm. That is, the expectation of harm must be based upon reason and not upon fancied or unfounded fear. Also it must be such an expectation as a reasonable person might entertain under the prevailing circumstances. Therefore, you should measure the expectation of harm by a standard of what a hypothetical reasonable ordinary person might expect in the same situation as you find existed and which the defendant was in. You should determine again taking into account all of those circumstances if such a person would have a reasonable expectation of harm.
In doing so you should take into consideration such factors as shown by the evidence as a reasonable person in the defendant's shoes — such as what he knew with the victim, what their relationship was or had been, what their prior interaction had been, including hostile or aggressive conduct, if any, by the victim and any other factors supported by the evidence that you consider relevant. You should not measure the expectation of harm by a standard of what a drug or alcohol-impaired person might expect. You should measure the expectation by what a non-impaired — that is a reasonable person — might expect, not however, by what such a person in the defendant's shoes and position might expect.
During a lengthy charge conference, defendant expressed dissatisfaction with the instruction as proposed, saying in part that
there is no reasonable person standard in Vermont in terms of self-defense. And that's our primary objection I would say. There's a secondary problem here that I think we need to discuss. . I think that the intent of this charge here is that you are saying you can't consider someone's state of intoxication in determining the reasonableness of their expectation. I think what you're saying here, basically, [is] "If I'm drunk, I am still charged with the responsibility of accurately perceiving events in order to invoke self-defense."
According to V.R.Cr.P. 30, as interpreted in our cases, failure to object to an instruction after it is given to the jury is considered a waiver of any error even if the substance of the objection is made known before the jury charge. State v. Roberts, 154 Vt. 59, 71-72, 574 A.2d 1248, 1253-54 (1990); State v. Hoadley, 147 Vt. 49, 53, 512 A.2d 879, 881 (1986). In this case, however, the court, after instructing the jury, told the parties that any objection made before the jury charge would be considered preserved. We shall, therefore, reach the issue, but caution that such advice is contrary to the rule, and the court should require that any objections be placed on the record after the charge is given to the jury. The primary reason for the rule is to give the trial court one last opportunity to avoid an error. In addition, our review is made easier by such a practice because objections during a charge conference often are vaguely worded and are interspersed during lengthy discussion. Here, for example, the charge conference consumed over a hundred pages of the transcript. By requiring post-charge objections, counsel is forced to focus on a succinct recitation of specific itemized objections enabling this Court to understand what defendant intended to preserve for appeal. Review on appeal also may be hampered by the absence in the record of the proposed instructions given to counsel to discuss at a charge conference, as in this ease.
Defendant's apparent concern with the court's proposed instruction was that the jury might find his claim of self-defense unreasonable because he had been intoxicated at the time and his memory of the killing was poor. Defendant did not want the jury to conclude that an intoxicated person may never be capable of acting reasonably in self-defense. In his motion for a new trial, defendant reiterated his concern:
Defendant submits that the court's jury instructions upon the issue of self defense were at variance with Vermont law. The court instructed the jury to measure the self defense claim by a "hypothetical reasonable ordinary person" standard. In so doing, the Court instructed the jury to ignore evidence of drug and alcohol impairment. Vermont does not measure self defense by the hypothetical reasonable ordinary person standard.
The well-established doctrine of self-defense provides that a defendant who "kills or wounds another . . . [i]n the just and necessary defense of his own life . . shall be guiltless." 13 V.S.A. § 2305(1). Our case law requires that self-defense is "just and necessary" when the defendant's belief of imminent peril and of the need to repel that peril with deadly force is reasonable. State v. Darling, 141 Vt. 358, 361, 449 A.2d 928, 929 (1982).
The right of self-defense does not require that one be actually assaulted, so long as the defendant's belief that he is in danger is founded on reasonably perceived circumstances. State v. Wood, 53 Vt. 560, 561, 567 (1881). In State v. Doherty, 72 Vt. 381, 396-97, 48 A. 658, 663 (1900), the reasonableness of defendant's belief was described as follows:
[Although it might not have been necessary to have killed [the victim], if in view of his fear, fright, nervousness, or cowardice, it reasonably seemed to him, he could not be convicted of murder. . It is not whether the necessity actually existed, but whether in fact it reasonably seemed so to the respondent, under all the circumstances of the case, and . the court [properly instructed] "If the circumstances were such as reasonably to lead the respondent to think that he was in danger of being killed or of great bodily harm by an assault from [the victim], he had a right to defend himself . . . ."
(Emphases added.) A jury, then, must assess the reasonableness of a defendant's apprehension, taking into account not only the circumstances with which he is confronted, but his individual attributes as well. Our law does not hold a nervous coward and a fearless bully to an identical reasonable person standard. See, e.g., State v. Rounds, 104 Vt. 442, 451, 160 A. 249, 251 (1932) (justification depends on whether jury finds that necessity reasonably appeared to the defendant); State v. Tubbs, 101 Vt. 5, 23, 139 A. 769, 776 (1928) (defendant may lawfully take a life if it "reasonably appear[s] to him" to be necessary); McQuiggan v. Ladd, 79 Vt. 90, 105-06, 64 A. 503, 507 (1906) (justification requires more than honest belief; proper inquiry for jury is whether necessity "reasonably appeared to [defendant]").
The trial court qualified the words, "measure the expectation of harm by a standard of what a hypothetical reasonable ordinary person might expect in the same situation," by placing defendant "in the same situation as you find existed and which the defendant was in" at the time of the killing. Later in the instruction the court stated, "You should take into consideration such factors as shown by the evidence as a reasonable person in the defendant's shoes [would]." (Emphasis added.) The jury was thereby'instructed to consider the physical and mental traits of the accused, as well as the attendant situation and circumstances. Otherwise, "in the defendant's shoes" has no instructional value.
A defendant must have an honest belief of imminent peril, but that honest belief by itself is insufficient to invoke the defense. The belief must be grounded in reason. The jury must first assess the honesty of the belief, which is a purely subjective inquiry. It must then determine whether the particular defendant had an objective, discernible reason for such belief. As the trial court instructed, the "expectation of harm must be based upon reason and not upon fancied or unfounded fear."
The court instructed the jury to disregard defendant's intoxication. This was proper. Although individual attributes, such as age, size, strength, stamina, courage and assertiveness, are relevant to whether defendant's beliefs are reasonable, voluntarily induced states of mind such as those caused by drug and alcohol ingestion are not. See generally W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 32, at 175-78 (5th ed. 1984) ("The person who is blind or deaf, or lame, or is otherwise physically disabled, is entitled . to have allowance made by others for his disability . . . [but] it is uni formly held that voluntary or negligent intoxication cannot serve as an excuse for acts . which would otherwise be negligent."). Intoxication may be considered in reducing the culpability of a crime from, for example, murder to manslaughter, but under a claim of self-defense, it cannot excuse a defendant from any criminal culpability. 1 W. LaFave and A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law § 4.10(d), at 558 (1986).
Even if it was error to interject the "hypothetical reasonable person" language into the instruction on self-defense, it was harmless. The only trait defendant claimed separated him from a reasonable person was his intoxication. He did not suggest he was overly sensitive to perceptions of danger or had any other character trait that would reasonably support his action in shooting the victim.
II.
Defendant also maintains that the trial court's failure to instruct the jury on the doctrine of "imperfect self-defense" was error and asks this Court to adopt that doctrine as articulated in State v. Faulkner, 301 Md. 482, 483 A.2d 759 (1984). Imperfect self-defense, by that formulation, operates to mitigate murder to manslaughter when the jury finds that the accused harbored an honest but unreasonable belief in the need to defend by deadly force. Id. at 500, 483 A.2d at 769 ("Logically, a defendant who commits a homicide while honestly, though unreasonably, believing that he is threatened with death or serious bodily harm, does not act with malice."). The defendant requested the following instruction:
If you find that the Defendant believed it was necessary to kill the deceased in order to save himself from death or great bodily harm, and the Defendant's belief was reasonable because the circumstances at the time were sufficient to create such a belief in the mind of a person of ordinary firmness, but the accused, although without murderous intent, was the aggressor or used excessive force or had a reasonable opportunity to retreat, the Defendant would have lost the benefit of perfect self defense. However, in these situations the accused may have acted and exercised the imperfect right of self defense and would be guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Similarly, if the jury finds that the Defendant honestly believed that the use of force was necessary but because of his diminished mental capacity his subjected belief was unreasonable under the circumstances, then your verdict would be one of guilty to voluntary manslaughter as well.
Again, no objection was registered by defendant after the jury charge, but, for reasons given previously, we reluctantly reach the issue. Imperfect self-defense was not totally ignored, but was put before the jury in the guise of a well-established defense that mitigates murder to manslaughter, diminished capacity.
Manslaughter is defined in two categories. Voluntary manslaughter is the intentional killing of another human being done with a state of mind of "sudden passion or great provocation," or some other mental state caused by "diminished capacity." Therefore, extenuating circumstances affecting a defendant's state of mind negate malice in voluntary manslaughter. State v. Duff, 150 Vt. 329, 331, 554 A.2d 214, 215 (1988) ("sudden passion" or "great provocation" or "mental disabilities, not necessarily amounting to insanity," operate "to preclude a capability of forming . . . malice") (overruled on other grounds, State v. Powell, 158 Vt. 280, 608 A.2d 45 (1992)).
Involuntary manslaughter is the killing of another human being as a result of criminal negligence. State v. Stanislaw, 153 Vt. 517, 525, 573 A.2d 286, 291 (1990). Malice is absent from involuntary manslaughter because the defendant did not intend to bring about the death of another, but instead failed to perceive risks apparent to a reasonable person amounting to a "gross deviation" from reasonable care, a higher standard than that required for civil liability. Id. (emphasis in original).
Here, defendant intended to kill the victim. He claimed he reasonably believed that he had to shoot him to save himself, or, if his belief was unreasonable, his diminished capacity from intoxication was the eause of his unreasonable belief in apprehending the extent of danger posed by the victim. Couching his defense in terms of imperfect self-defense was essentially indistinguishable, for purposes of this case, from asserting the defense of "aroused anger" or diminished capacity. Had the jury been persuaded that defendant killed the victim in the "sudden heat of passion" or as a result of "great provocation," he would have been found guilty of voluntary manslaughter. The jury was given that opportunity. The court instructed that acting "in sudden passion or from extreme provocation will negate or disprove malice aforethought," making the crime voluntary manslaughter. Similarly, the court instructed the jury that diminished capacity reduces murder to voluntary manslaughter:
In general, diminished capacity refers to a mental disability of the defendant at the time of the alleged commission of the offense which precludes or prevents the defendant from forming a specific intent or having the required state of mind which is an essential element of the offense. . . . [It] results in malice being negated .
. [Diminished capacity recognizes that voluntary consumption of drugs or alcohol or both may impair a person's mental functioning to such an extent as to prevent that person from forming the specific intent or intents that are a necessary element of the offenses.
. [I]n considering diminished capacity, you should look to the evidence as you find it to be with regard to the extent of the Defendant's ingestion of alcohol and or drugs and the evidence as to the observed effects upon him and determine to what degree his mental ability to form the specific intent was impaired.
Defendant does not quarrel with the adequacy of the instructions regarding the degrees of homicide, the requirement of malice as a prerequisite to a murder conviction, or the doctrine of diminished capacity mitigating the crime from murder to manslaughter. His defense theory that he was guilty of a homicide no more severe than manslaughter was adequately placed before the jury.
III.
Defendant's last point is that the trial court wrongly refused to instruct the jury that it could draw inferences, favorable to the defendant, from the State's failure to collect certain evi dence during the investigation. He argues that he was disadvantaged by the failure of police investigators (1) to search at the crime scene for a knife bearing the victim's fingerprints, with which, he claimed, the victim threatened him just prior to the shooting, and (2) to administer a test to determine his blood-alcohol concentration immediately after his arrest. Defendant contends that this evidence would have aided his defense: the knife by corroborating his self-defense claim and the blood test by confirming the degree of intoxication necessary to establish the defense of diminished capacity.
There could arise situations in which negligent conduct of the police is sufficiently prejudicial to the defense to warrant a corrective instruction. The court, however, did not abuse its discretion in declining the requested instruction. Any prejudice to defendant was practically nil. No knife was found near the victim's body after the shooting and, because numerous knives were in the kitchen on the fateful night, it would not have been unusual for the victim's prints to have been on one or more of them. Defendant was free, of course, to seek an analysis of the knives, and he failed to do so. As to the other evidentiary point, defendant appeared intoxicated to the police at the time of arrest, and the record is replete with evidence of defendant's copious ingestion of drugs and alcohol. Although blood-alcohol analysis probably would have confirmed his extreme intoxication, this fact was not contested at trial. See State v. Seifert, 151 Vt. 66, 69-71, 557 A.2d 494, 497-98 (1989).
Affirmed.