Opinion ID: 1176393
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Initial Aggressor.

Text: (27a) Defendant contends it was error to give CALJIC No. 5.54 describing an aggressor's duty to withdraw before engaging in self-defense. He maintains that the instruction is inapplicable under the evidence presented at trial and erroneous in failing to distinguish between deadly and nondeadly force. (28) An aggressor who uses deadly force must not only endeavor to really and in good faith withdraw from the combat, but he must make known his intentions to his adversary. ( People v. Button (1895) 106 Cal. 628, 632 [39 P. 1073].) An aggressor using nondeadly force, on the other hand, who meets with deadly force in response, is not required to communicate an intent to withdraw and is required to retreat only if circumstances permit. ( People v. Hecker (1895) 109 Cal. 451, 464 [42 P. 307]; see also, People v. Roe (1922) 189 Cal. 548, 557-558 [209 P. 560].) The challenged instruction describes the steps which must be taken before a person who was originally an assailant may employ force in self-defense. The original assailant must really and in good faith endeavor to decline further combat and fairly and clearly inform his adversary of his desire for peace and that he has abandoned the contest. The instruction is correct if the original aggressor employs deadly force but erroneous as applied to a situation where deadly force is employed in response to a simple assault. (27b) Defendant maintains there was no substantial evidence he was an initial aggressor who thereafter was assaulted and thus he contends that no instruction on this topic should have been given. He asserts he was prejudiced because the jury, in an attempt to give meaning to the instruction, might have speculated, based on the bruises and scrapes found on Ernest's body, that defendant inflicted those injuries by the use of nondeadly force in an initial act of aggression which prompted Ernest to respond by threatening defendant with defendant's revolver. The jury would then have concluded from the instruction that he was required to retreat and to communicate his intent to withdraw. As there was no evidence of either attempted retreat or communication, defendant concludes, the jury may have rejected his self-defense theory by a chain of reasoning which was both legally and factually incorrect. We agree, as does the Attorney General, that the instruction was unsupported by the evidence and should not have been given, but we perceive no prejudice. It is not reasonably probable that the jury engaged in speculation, as defendant suggests, or that the instruction in any manner interfered with the jury's consideration of the self-defense theory on which defendant relied at trial, under which Ernest was the initial and sole aggressor.