Case Name: STATE OF NEW JERSEY, PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT, v. LEON BOWENS, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT
Court: New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New Jersey
Decision Date: 1985-12-04
Citations: 205 N.J. Super. 548
Docket Number: 
Parties: STATE OF NEW JERSEY, PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT, v. LEON BOWENS, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.
Judges: 
Reporter: New Jersey Superior Court Reports
Volume: 205
Pages: 548–557

Head Matter:
STATE OF NEW JERSEY, PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT, v. LEON BOWENS, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.
Superior Court of New Jersey-Appellate Division
Argued October 21, 1985
Decided December 4, 1985.
Petrella, J.A.D., dissented and filed opinion.
Before Judges FURMAN, PETRELLA and COHEN.
Robert Seelenfreund, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant (Thomas S. Smith, Acting Public Defender, attorney; Peter B. Meadow, Assistant Deputy Public Defender, of counsel and on the brief).
Donna Chin, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent {Irwin I. Kimmelman, Attorney General, attorney; Helena Gorochow, Deputy Attorney General, of counsel and on the brief).

Opinion:
PER CURIAM.
Defendant appeals from his conviction of murder, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3a(1) or (2), following a seven-day jury trial. We reverse and remand because of error in the trial court's refusal to charge reckless manslaughter and in its failure to charge aggravated manslaughter sua sponte.
At issue is whether a killing by excessive force in self-defense may be aggravated or reckless manslaughter, not murder, under the Code of Criminal Justice. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3 defines murder, insofar as pertinent, as purposefully or knowingly causing death or serious bodily injury resulting in death. N.J.S.A. 2C:11-4 defines manslaughter:
a. Criminal homicide constitutes aggravated manslaughter when the actor recklessly causes death under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life.
b. Criminal homicide constitutes manslaughter when:
(1) It is committed recklessly; or
(2) A homicide which would otherwise be murder under section 2C:ll-3 is committed in the heat of passion resulting from a reasonable provocation.
The general definition of "recklessly" is set out in N.J.S.A. 2C:2-2:
A person acts recklessly with respect to a material element of an offense when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that, considering the nature and purpose of the actor's conduct and the circumstances known to him, its disregard involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the actor's situation. "Becklessness," "with recklessness" or equivalent terms have the same meaning.
A version of the evidence which would have supported a jury verdict of aggravated or reckless manslaughter is as follows, drawn chiefly from defendant's own testimony. For over a year defendant had repeated arguments with John Booker over a woman. Booker threatened him about 50 times. Booker was "always drunk." Several times Booker accompanied his threats by pulling out a knife about seven to eight inches long, like a dagger, and showing it to defendant. Booker was bigger than defendant. Defendant knew of Booker's reputation for violence and was fearful of Booker's violence when drunk.
On a late afternoon in July, Booker had been at an outdoor barbecue and had been drinking. Defendant was on an errand across the street. Booker started across towards defendant, saying that he wanted to see him. Booker's hands were in his pockets. He started cursing defendant. He appeared to be drunk. Defendant was apprehensive that Booker had a knife and would make a sneak attack on him. Defendant asked Booker to leave him alone. Defendant showed his own knife to Booker, then put it back in his belt. Defendant walked away. Booker followed him. When Booker was about two feet away from him defendant stabbed Booker slightly in the chest "because I knew he was going to stab me." Defendant's intention was to stop Booker, not to hurt him badly. After the blow Booker had a "funny look on his face like he was smiling." It occurred to defendant that Booker had not felt the knife prick. Booker spun around, one hand still in a pocket. Without stepping forward, defendant stabbed Booker twice in the back, "a little harder" than he had stabbed him in the chest. A wound in Booker's back was fatal.
The trial judge charged the jury that it might return verdicts of guilty of murder, of manslaughter committed in the heat of passion resulting from reasonable provocation, or of not guilty. He charged self-defense, including the duty to retreat. He instructed the jury that if it found that defendant had used excessive force, that is, deadly force when not reasonably necessary, the killing of Booker would not have been justified in self-defense. Although not stated to the jury in so many words, its alternatives were to convict of murder or acquit, unless it found a factual underpinning for a verdict of guilty of manslaughter in the heat of passion upon reasonable provocation.
Defense counsel requested and was denied further jury charges on reckless manslaughter and imperfect self-defense. By imperfect self-defense, see State v. Powell, 84 N.J. 305 (1980), defense counsel meant use of deadly force in an honest but unreasonable belief that defendant was in such danger as to require its use to protect himself. The significance of imperfect self-defense is that, if it applies, it exonerates a defendant from a purposeful or knowing murder conviction but subjects him to a reckless manslaughter conviction and, arguably, to an aggravated manslaughter conviction as that crime is defined in N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3a.
In our view imperfect self-defense may constitute manslaughter under the Code of Criminal Justice. We recognize that imperfect self-defense is not specifically provided for in the Code. We recognize also the deletion by amendment in L. 1981, c. 290, of N.J.S.A. 2C:3-9b, which provided that a reckless belief in the necessity for excessive force would not prevent a verdict of guilty of an offense for which recklessness was sufficient to inculpate. The intent of that deletion by amendment is not manifest.
The substantive criminal law of this state survived the effective date of the Code unless inconsistent with it, N.J.S.A. 2C:1-1e; State v. Dalglish, 86 N.J. 503, 511 (1981).
Chief Justice Wilentz wrote in State v. Powell, supra, on appeal from a conviction of a pre-Code homicide:
Thus we hold that, in addition to the conventional provocation/passion manslaughter instruction, Powell will be entitled upon retrial to a manslaughter instruction based on a homicide committed in imperfect self-defense. While such category of manslaughter may represent some extension of prior case law, we hold that that was the law in effect at the time of the offense. [84 N.J. at 313]
On the evidence on this appeal, the jury may have determined factually that defendant acted initially in self-defense; that he overreacted to an accumulation of threats and to Booker's menacing approach, based upon his awareness that Booker carried a knife and of Booker's propensity for violence; that, after the first slight knife prick, in the face of what he perceived as a continuing menace he stabbed recklessly in disregard of the substantial risk of death or under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the victim's life, but without purposely or knowingly causing death or serious bodily injury resulting in death. Upon such a reconstruction of events, defendant would be guilty of reckless or aggravated manslaughter.
If there is a clear indication in the proofs that a criminal defendant charged with murder may have committed a lesser degree of criminal homicide, it is error not to submit that issue to the jury upon a request to charge it. State v. Choice, 98 N.J. 295 (1985); State v. Powell, 84 N.J. 305 (1980); State v. Sinclair, 49 N.J. 525 (1967); State v. Mathis, 47 N.J. 455 (1966). As stated in Sinclair, 49 N.J. at 543:
To force the jury to choose on the evidence in the case between first degree murder and acquittal raises the possibility that the defendants might have been convicted of first degree murder though their guilt was of a lesser degree.
We attach no significance to defense counsel's failure in so many words to request a jury charge on aggravated manslaughter, cf. State v. Choice at 98 N.J. 299, because the elements of aggravated and reckless manslaughter are identical, except for the difference in the degree of risk of death, see State v. Curtis, 195 N.J.Super. 354 (App.Div.1984).
Because of our reversal and remand on other grounds, we need not and do not pass upon defendant's argument of denial of a fair trial as the result of a "misleading response" by a juror on voir dire, depriving defendant of a peremptory chai lenge. Defendant's other argument of error in the limitation of cross-examination of a State's witness is clearly without merit, Evid.R. 47.
We reverse and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith. We do not retain jurisdiction.