Opinion ID: 2354297
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: EED as a defense.

Text: Appellant claims that despite his waiver of the EED defense, the trial court erred by refusing defense counsel's tendered guilt phase instructions that would have included the absence of EED as an element of the offense of murder and an instruction on manslaughter in the first degree as a lesser included offense. The trial court refused the tendered instructions because of Appellant's prior waiver of the defense. EED is a defense to the crime of murder. Coffey v. Messer, Ky., 945 S.W.2d 944, 945-46 (1997). The whole thrust of Appellant's Jacobs argument was that he did not wish to assert EED as a defense because it would impair his defense of innocence  and the trial court found, per Jacobs , that Appellant's decision was voluntarily and intelligently made. Thus, instructing the jury on the defense of EED would have violated Appellant's right to control his defense. Furthermore, pursuant to Appellant's waiver, no evidence had been introduced that would justify the tendered instructions, i.e., no evidence of uninterrupted EED from a triggering event to the killings, Caudill, supra, at 667-68; Fields v. Commonwealth, Ky., 44 S.W.3d 355, 357-59 (2001); Springer v. Commonwealth, 998 S.W.2d at 452-53, and no evidence of a reasonable explanation or excuse for Appellant to become so enraged, inflamed, or disturbed as to cause him to kill the Porters. KRS 507.020(1); McClellan v. Commonwealth, Ky., 715 S.W.2d 464, 468-69 (1986). The trial court correctly refused to give the tendered instructions.