Opinion ID: 2416611
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jury instruction on extreme emotional disturbance (eed)

Text: Hudson first asserts that the trial court committed reversible error in failing to instruct the jury on extreme emotional disturbance (EED). Hudson did not take the stand. However, after confessing that he killed Ms. Thompson, Hudson agreed to give a taped statement to the police. This statement was played for the jury. Hudson argues that the evidence contained in the taped statement entitled him to an EED instruction. In the statement, Hudson claims that Ms. Thompson was drunk, and that she accused him of having a relationship with a young girl. Later, according to the statement, Ms. Thompson began talking to a crackhead and offered him beer. At this point, Hudson became a little upset. Hudson tried to reason with Ms. Thompson as she continued to drink. She began to hit him. Hudson tried to explain to Ms. Thompson that she should not talk to people like the crackhead, but she just got angrier. When Hudson tried to leave, Ms. Thompson would not let him go. She began to hit him again. Then, in Hudson's own words: I pushed her and her head hit the side of the fireplace. I guess I just panicked. I don't know what I did after that. I was scared to death. According to Hudson, after Ms. Thompson hit her head on the fireplace, while she was lying motionless on the floor, she starts bleeding out the side of her head and stuff and I did not . . . I went crazy. I don't know what happened after that. I just blacked out. The presence or absence of extreme emotional [disturbance] is a matter of evidence . . . . Wellman v. Commonwealth, Ky., 694 S.W.2d 696, 697 (1985). The evidence offered in support of an EED instruction must show: a temporary state of mind so enraged, inflamed, or disturbed as to overcome one's judgment, and to cause one to act uncontrollably from the impelling force of the extreme emotional disturbance rather than from evil or malicious purposes. It is not a mental disease in itself, and an enraged, inflamed, or disturbed emotional state does not constitute an extreme emotional disturbance unless there is a reasonable explanation or excuse therefor, the reasonableness of which is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation under circumstances as defendant believed them to be. McClellan v. Commonwealth, Ky., 715 S.W.2d 464, 468-69 (1986), cert. denied 479 U.S. 1057, 107 S.Ct. 935, 93 L.Ed.2d 986 (1987). Further, there must be evidence of an event which triggers the explosion of violence on the part of the defendant, and the triggering event itself must be sudden and uninterrupted. Foster v. Commonwealth, Ky., 827 S.W.2d 670, 678 (1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 921, 113 S.Ct. 337, 121 L.Ed.2d 254 (1992). According to Hudson, he panicked after he pushed Ms. Thompson and she hit her head on the fireplace; he went crazy when he saw her bleeding out of the side of her head. Ms. Thompson was strangled to death. She did not die from a blow to the head. The only inference to be drawn from Hudson's statement is that Ms. Thompson was strangled after Hudson went crazy, upon seeing her lying unconscious and bleeding from the head. Assuming arguendo that Ms. Thompson actions verbal and physical abuse, talking to the crackhead, etc. were sufficient to inflame Hudson's mind or to overcome his judgment, it is beyond belief that those actions, in and of themselves, establish from Hudson's point of view, a reasonable explanation or excuse for strangling the unconscious and bleeding Ms. Thompson to death. Furthermore, the taped statement provides no evidence that at the time of the act of homicide there was some event, some act, some words, or the like, to arouse extreme emotional disturbance. Wellman, 694 S.W.2d at 697 (emphasis in the original). At the time Hudson strangled Ms. Thompson to death, she was unconscious and bleeding from the head. There must be some definitive, non-speculative evidence to support an EED instruction. Morgan v. Commonwealth, Ky., 878 S.W.2d 18, 20 (1994). In this case, there was no evidence to show that a triggering event occurred at the time of the act as required by law. Hudson was not entitled to an instruction on extreme emotional disturbance. There was no error.