Case Name: Willie James HALL v. STATE of Mississippi
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1982-10-27
Citations: 420 So. 2d 1381
Docket Number: No. 53550
Parties: Willie James HALL v. STATE of Mississippi.
Judges: PATTERSON, C.J., WALKER, P.J., and BROOM, ROY NOBLE LEE, and PRATHER, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 420
Pages: 1381–1391

Head Matter:
Willie James HALL v. STATE of Mississippi.
No. 53550.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
Oct. 27, 1982.
Lawyer & Hudson, Theodore J. Lawyer, Don W. Fredericks, Gulfport, for appellant.
Bill Allain, Atty. Gen. by Amy D. Whit-ten, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for ap-pellee.

Opinion:
SUGG, Presiding Justice,
for the Court:
Willie James Hall was indicted for aggravated assault under section 97-3-7(2) Mississippi Code Annotated (Supp.1981) for attempting to cause serious bodily injury to Willie James Bradley on July 24, 1980. Hall was convicted of aggravated assault and sentenced to serve a term of three years by the Circuit Court of the First Judicial District of Harrison County.
The principal question on this appeal is whether reversible error was committed by granting the state, over Hall's objection, the following instruction:
INSTRUCTION S-3
If you believe from the evidence the Defendant armed himself with a deadly weapon and sought the victim with the formed felonious intention of invoking a difficulty with the victim, or brought on, or voluntarily entered into any difficulty with the victim with the designed and felonious intent to cause serious bodily harm to the victim then the Defendant cannot invoke the law of self-defense.
The trial judge also granted the following instruction requested by Hall:
INSTRUCTION NO. D-5
The Court further instructs the Jury that the Defendant is entitled to act upon the reasonable appearances, and if the conduct of the other party was such as to induce in the mind of a reasonable person, situated as he was, under all circumstances then existing and viewed from the standpoint of the Defendant, a fear that death or great bodily harm was about to be inflicted by the other party on him, it does not matter if there was no actual danger provided that the Jury under the circumstances believe that the Defendant acted in self-defense based upon a belief that his life was in apparent danger, and if you so believe, you must find the defendant not guilty. .
In order to determine whether the state's instruction was erroneously granted, it is necessary that we consider the evidence in detail.
Willie James Bradley testified that he was living with his mother and step-father on July 24 in their home. Before that date he had been living in a trailer owned by Hall and his wife located at the rear of the Hall residence which was rented from the Halls. At about 8:00 o'clock p.m. on July 24 the witness and his brother, Charles Bradley, went to Hall's house for the purpose of paying part of the rent due and in arrears. Hall was not present so the witness talked to Hall's wife and stated he had $65 to pay on the rent that day. Hall's wife refused to accept the payment stating that the witness would have to pay the full amount due. The witness estimated the rent due was about $190. He testified that he and Hall's wife talked for about thirty minutes and during the conversation his brother went to the trailer to remove some clothes. He stated that he did not use profane language during the conversation and that Mrs. Hall did not attempt to call the police while he was there.
About 10:30 or 11:00 o'clock the same night the witness was in the living room watching TV when he heard a knock on the door. His brother, Charles Bradley, was talking on the telephone and his mother and step-father were in a back bedroom. He stated he went to the door and when he opened the front screen door he saw Hall and invited him to come in. Hall refused and asked the witness to come outside.
As Hall turned to walk away the witness saw a bulk under Hall's clothes and believed that Hall was armed with a pistol whereupon he told Hall that he was not going to come out. The witness then went to the back bedroom to get his pistol but was prevented by his mother who told him she did not want any violence.
The witness then went outside to talk to Hall and was unarmed at that time. He stated he knew that Hall had come to the house to collect the rent due so he got $100 out of his wallet and went outside to give it to Hall. Hall was about 60 feet away from the front door and Willie asked him to come to the front porch and talk. Hall refused and asked Willie to come to the street and talk to him. This exchange of invitations was repeated several times. The witness said that he did not go to the street because he knew that Hall had a gun. The witness then moved from the front door to the carport and sat on the back of an automobile parked in the carport about six to ten feet from the front door. After the witness and Hall carried on a conversation while they were separated by approximately sixty feet for a short time, Hall obtained a shotgun from his vehicle and shot one time at the witness. The witness said the shot hit the gas tank, he "rolled off" the car, and ran around the back of the house. He stated that he ran to his cousin's house and heard a second shot while running around the back of the house. The next morning he discovered a hole in the front window of the house.
On cross-examination he denied that he carried a pistol with him when he went to Hall's house earlier that night.
Charles Bradley testified that he lived with his mother and step-father but before that had lived in the Hall's trailer with his brother Willie and another person. He and Willie went to the Hall house to pay a portion of the rent that they owed, and while his brother talked to Mrs. Hall, he went to the trailer to get some clothes. He did not hear the conversation between Mrs. Hall and his brother and first saw Hall that night when Hall came to his house. He corroborated his brother Willie to the effect that Willie was watching TV and the witness was talking on the telephone. He stated Willie opened the door, came back into the house and told him that Hall had a pistol. Willie went to the back bedroom to get his pistol but their mother would not let him have it. Willie returned to the door, went outside and Hall was about thirty yards away by his automobile. He overheard Hall and his brother talking, his brother kept asking Hall to come to the carport and talk, but Hall kept asking his brother to come out to the car to talk. The conversation ended when Hall got his shotgun out of his car and shot at his brother. Upon seeing this, the witness said he ran back into his house, and told his mother to go into the back room. The witness heard two shots, one of which went through a window in the front room of the house, the other into the gas tank of the automobile parked in the carport. His mother called the police and they arrived shortly after the shooting.
One of the officers called to the scene arrested Hall between two and three o'clock on the morning of July 25. He testified that he went to Hall's house, knocked on the door and informed Hall's wife that he had an arrest warrant for Hall. She advised him that Hall was not at home, but on searching the premises the officer found Hall in a bed in the front bedroom.
Hall testified that he had been convicted of an aggravated assault charge which was reduced to a misdemeanor when he was seventeen or eighteen and had been convicted for possession of marihuana. On July 24 he was working the second shift but left early after his wife came to his place of employment and told him that the Bradleys had been by the house and entered the trailer. He said he had told them not to go into the trailer because they were three months behind in their rent. He reported that his wife told him that the Bradleys had cursed her and that she was very upset.
He stated that his wife told him she called the police three times but they refused to respond to the call. He further testified that his wife told him that one of the Bradleys told her that they were going "to mess me up" if he went to their home. He then put his shotgun in the back of his car and went to the Bradleys' house. Upon arriving at the Bradleys' house he left the gun in the back of the car and knocked on the door. He said that Willie Bradley came to the door, he invited Bradley outside, but Bradley refused and invited him to come inside. He said he could then see Charles Bradley coming from the hallway with a gun at his side, whereupon he turned and went to his car. He said that he went to his car, opened the back door, obtained the shotgun, and fired it. He stated that his wife told him that the Bradleys had threatened her and had threatened him so he had taken his gun with him to protect his life. He denied having a pistol on his side. He stated Charles Bradley pushed the screen door open with his foot and he could see "the flashing silver gun in his hand." He testified that he then pulled his gun out and fired it into the ground twice in an effort to scare them and give himself a chance to leave.
After the shooting occurred, Hall parked his car at his sister-in-law's house which was separated from his house by three other houses. He said the reason he parked his car there was that he presumed they would call the police. He crawled in a window of his house and went to bed because he said he knew his wife was going to be upset because of what he had done. He also stated that his wife came to the Bradleys' house after he had been there a couple of minutes or so and that she left after he fired the shots.
Mrs. Hall testified that Willie came into the house and told her he had come to pay the rent but did not have all of the rent. She told him to wait until he could pay all of the rent and Willie started cursing and using profanity. She testified that they argued for a few minutes, and she told him that Charles was not supposed to take anything out of the trailer. She testified that she reported this incident to her husband and he went to the Bradleys' house and she followed her husband there. She stated that she called the police while Willie was there.
When she arrived at the Bradley residence, she saw her husband rushing back to his car and Charles standing in the door holding a pistol out to his leftside "like in a pointing manner." She drove off before she heard any shots. She said the police came to her house at 3:20 a.m. and she invited them in and told them to look for Willie but that he was not home.
On rebuttal Charles Bradley testified that he did not have a gun in his hand when Hall came to the house. Willie Bradley testified on rebuttal that he did not threaten Mrs. Hall in any way during the conversation at her home earlier in the evening. He also testified she did not call the police while he was there.
The custodian of the records for the Gulf-port Police Department testified that there was no record of a call from Mrs. Hall on the night in question. She stated that if Mrs. Hall had made a call a complaint card would have been recorded.
The record is uncontradicted that Hall left his employment, armed himself with a shotgun, went to the Bradleys home after having been warned by his wife that they had threatened to "mess him up" if he came to the house, and after his wife reported to him that Willie Bradley had cursed her and threatened her earlier during the evening. In Parker v. State, 401 So.2d 1282 (Miss.1981) we stated:
If a person provokes a difficulty, arming himself in advance, and intending, if necessary, to use his weapon and overcome his adversary, he becomes the aggressor, and deprives himself of the right of self-defense. Woods v. State, 183 Miss. 135, 183 So. 508 (1938).
Admittedly, with few exceptions, the right of self-defense should not be excluded where the evidence indicates a violent situation and harm to the parties. In Coleman v. State, 179 Miss. 661, 176 So. 714 (1937), the Court said:
"The law is that she must have armed herself for the purpose of provoking the difficulty and overcoming opposition if necessary. If the purpose to overcome opposition arose after the arming, the right of self defense is not cut off. [Citations omitted]. 179 Miss, at 664-655, 176 So. at 714.
In Pulpus v. State, 82 Miss. 548, 34 So. 2 (1903), the Court stated the rule with reference to an aggressor who withdrew from the fray as follows:
"One may provide himself with a deadly weapon and hunt another, with design to kill him with it, and provoke and be the aggressor in the encounter in which he kills the other, and still, in the progress of the difficulty should not be denied the right of self-defense, if the killing be not pursuant to the original purpose to kill. If he abandon the conflict, and is fleeing from it in good faith, and not for vantage, he may defend, himself from threatened death or great bodily harm. Lofton v. State, 79 Miss. 723, 734, 31 South. 420." 82 Miss, at 555, 34 So. at 3-4. (401 So.2d at 1286).
At issue in the case was whether Hall armed himself with a deadly weapon with the intention of invoking a difficulty or voluntarily entered into a difficulty with the victim with the designed and felonious intent to cause serious bodily harm to the victim. S-3 instructed the jury that Hall could not invoke the law of self-defense if he armed himself with a deadly weapon and was the aggressor. The instruction did not peremptorily estop Hall from claiming self-defense, but submitted the issue to the jury for its determination. This was a proper instruction under Parker and Woods, supra, and the evidence supported the instruction.
Moreover, Hall was given a self-defense instruction which permitted the jury to consider whether he acted in self-defense under all the circumstances then existing viewed from the standpoint of Hall. The instruction was obviously an attempt to instruct the jury in accordance with Lofton and Pulpus, supra, that although one arms himself with a deadly weapon and hunts another with the intent to provoke and be the aggressor in the encounter, the right of self-defense should not be denied if such person had abandoned the conflict and was fleeing from it in good faith, and not for vantage, but such person may defend himself from threatened death or great bodily harm. Instruction D-5 does not clearly express this principle of law, but the trial court cannot be put in error for Hall's failure to request an instruction correctly and fully stating applicable law. It is a familiar rule of law that one may not complain of his own instruction. Buford v. State, 372 So.2d 254 (Miss.1979) and Musselwhite v. State, 212 Miss. 526, 54 So.2d 911 (1951).
The jury was presented with two ques- ' tions by these instructions. First, whether Hall armed himself with a deadly weapon and sought his victim with the intent of invoking a difficulty and second, whether Hall had abandoned the conflict and was fleeing in good faith, in which event he could invoke the right of self-defense. The jury by its verdict rejected Hall's contention that he was fleeing in good faith. Therefore, we find no error was committed by giving Instruction S-3.
Hall also assigns as error that the verdict of the jury was against the overwhelming weight of the evidence and that certain remarks by the district attorney in his closing argument were prejudicial and inflamatory. We have carefully considered the arguments and authorities cited in support of these assignments, but find no merit in either of them.
AFFIRMED.
PATTERSON, C.J., WALKER, P.J., and BROOM, ROY NOBLE LEE, and PRATHER, JJ., concur.
HAWKINS, BOWLING and DAN M. LEE, JJ., dissent.