Opinion ID: 2391972
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: instruction on manslaughter ii

Text: The respondent was charged with murder but convicted of the lesser included offense of manslaughter in the second degree, KRS 507.040, which provides: A person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree when he wantonly causes the death of another person. The respondent claims that it was error to instruct the jury on Manslaughter II as a lesser included offense because she claims that she shot intentionally in a perceived need for self-defense and intentionally and wantonly should be viewed as mutually exclusive mental states. Respondent cites Gray v. Commonwealth, Ky., 695 S.W.2d 860 (1985) as support for this contention. Notwithstanding the language in Gray , there may be, as there is in this case, evidence supporting either view, self-defense or wantonness, depending on how the jury should view the evidence. Here it was reasonable for the jury to conclude that the accused shot the victim in a perceived need for self-protection but a wanton state of mind. It is true that the use of physical force in self-protection is based on what the defendant believes. KRS 503.050. But KRS 503.120(1) provides that when such belief . . . is wanton . . . the justification afforded by [KRS 503.050] is unavailable in a prosecution for an offense for which wantonness. . . suffices to establish culpability. Very often, as in this case, the fact of killing is unambiguous but the accused's mental state at the time of the killing presents a mixed picture. KRS 501.020(1) provides that [a] person acts intentionally with respect to a result or to conduct described by a statute defining an offense when his conscious objective is to cause that result or to engage in that conduct. KRS 501.020(3) provides that [a] person acts wantonly with respect to a result or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense when he is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstance exists . . . [when] disregard thereof constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation. A person who perceives a need to kill in self-defense when this perception is a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the situation kills intentionally but also should be classified under KRS 501.020(3) as one who is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur. The Commentary states wanton conduct involves conscious risk taking. Thus the same act should be classified as both intentional and wanton in that situation. The act of killing in self-defense may be intentional, but it is not planned or premeditated. It is a reaction to existing or imminent use of force. KRS 503.050(1). When, viewed objectively, the act involves an excessive use of force which is grossly unreasonable and therefore culpable, it is punishable as wanton criminal behavior. This is the set of circumstances that KRS 503.050(1) and KRS 503.120(1), when read together, were designed to address. See the Commentary (1974) for the Penal Code, KRS Sections 503.050 and .120. The Code sets out, and the Commentary explains, that the need for self-defense must be viewed subjectively from the standpoint of the accused, not objectively from the standpoint of a reasonable person, but that the defendant who acts culpably in self-defense because his behavior, viewed objectively, is wanton, shall not go unpunished. The holding in Gray, supra , while perhaps appropriate to the facts of that case, would be inappropriate to the present situation. Here, the jury could reasonably believe that this was a wanton killing to terminate what the accused subjectively believed to be an intolerable situation from which there was no other way out. The Penal Code was intended to provide Manslaughter II as a lesser homicide offense to murder to punish an unjustified killing under circumstances such as this which warrant a conclusion of diminished culpability, but do not warrant exoneration. The evidence justified the trial court's instructions on Manslaughter II, and the jury's finding of guilty thereunder. To the extent that Gray is in conflict with this decision, it is limited to its facts. The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed. The verdict of the jury and the judgment of the trial court is affirmed. STEPHENS, C.J., and GANT, LAMBERT, LEIBSON and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ., concur. VANCE, J., concurs by separate opinion. STEPHENSON, J., concurs in results only.