Opinion ID: 1839020
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: whether the circuit court erred in failing to give the proposed defense instructions on the lesser included defense of manslaughter

Text: The prosecution presented a story which involved burglary, robbery and murder. According to the state's evidence, Mackbee was seen in the area of Montgomery's home before noon on April 2, 1986. This was not an unusual occurrence because he lived in the same neighborhood as Montgomery. Lizzie Tyler testified that she saw Montgomery in his car in the neighborhood between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. He was returning home from Brookhaven where he bought seed and fertilizer to plant his garden. Her son, Leon Tyler, a twenty-nine year old mentally retarded neighbor and a cousin of Mackbee and Montgomery, left his home at approximately 3:00 that afternoon to help Montgomery finish planting his garden. (Vol. V., T. 660). After Leon failed to return home, his mother went down near Montgomery's home at approximately 5:30 p.m. As she approached she only saw the bicycle that Leon rode down to Montgomery's home. She did not see Montgomery's car. She returned to Montgomery's home at around 7:30 or 8:00 that night, but she still did not see anything but the bicycle. After going to Montgomery's once again between 10:30 and 11:00, she still did not see anything but the bicycle. Having become suspicious and apprehensive, Mrs. Tyler returned home and called the law enforcement officials. After meeting with the Sheriff and two Forrest County Deputies, Garry Austin of the Mississippi Highway Patrol went to Montgomery's residence. [3] When they arrived they discovered several shoe prints in the area. When they went inside Montgomery's home, they saw that the furniture was in total disarray. The dining table in the dining room was broken through the middle, and there was blood on it. There was blood on a plate which was on the table. (Vol. IV. T. 435). As the officers went outside the house, they saw more blood on the carport, and they found fired shotgun shell. (Vol. V, T. 605-07). As they continued to investigate, they observed that a screen was missing from one of the windows of the house. In examining the footprints that were located near the home, the officers followed [the] footprints, started from the Montgomery residence, and ... backtrailed the shoe prints, the shoe prints that [they] thought were headed toward the Montgomery residence, back to the Mackbee residence. (Vol. IV, T. 467). Upon this evidence as well as other evidence the state argued that Mackbee broke into Montgomery's home. He was in Montgomery's home when Montgomery returned from Brookhaven. While Montgomery was taking off his shoes and putting on those that he wore when working in his garden, Mackbee approached him from behind and hit him in the back of the head with a blow that [was] so hard ... that it cut, ripped a gash in the back of [Montgomery's] head... (Vol. VI, T. 977). The disarray in the home reflected the violence, and the fact that Montgomery's body and wallet were found in Forrest County indicated that there had been a robbery. Furthermore, Montgomery did not die from the blow to the head, but he died from asphyxiation after he was placed in the trunk of his car and an accelerant poured over his body and ignited. Testimony presented by the medical examiner indicated that when she examined Montgomery's body, it was charred, and it smelled of accelerant residues. Also while examining Montgomery's body, the examiners observed a laceration, which measured approximately one inch, in the back of his head. They also found a hemorrhage to the brain, and soot in Montgomery's trachea. A second medical examiner, who also took part in the autopsy testified that the laceration in Montgomery's head was the result of a blow to the head by a blunt object. (Vol. IV, T. 577). The striking finding, according to this witness, was that the lining of the airway all the way from the nose and the mouth into the lungs was covered with soot, fine particles of what is produced by smoke. The airway was lined all the way down into the lungs with soot. Id. This indicated to the medical examiners that Montgomery was alive at the time of the fire and that he had breathed the smoke into his lungs, all the way into his lungs down into his small airways. (Vol. IV., T. 578). Therefore, the blow to the head that he suffered only damaged his brain and was not enough to have killed [him]. It could have knocked him unconscious ... (Vol. IV. T. 582). In his first assignment, Mackbee argues that the trial court erred in refusing to grant his instruction on the lesser included offense of manslaughter. The indictment for Mackbee's crime read in part: ... that Frank Mackbee, ... did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously and of his malice aforethought kill and murder one Cicero Montgomery, a human being at a time when he, ... was then and there engaged in the commission of the crime of robbery of the said Cicero Montgomery, contrary to and in violation of Section 97-3-19(2)(e) of the Mississippi Code of 1972, ... (Vol. I, T. I, 3). MISS. CODE ANN. § 97-3-27 (1972), on the other hand, provides that: [t]he killing of a human being without malice, by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, while such other is engaged in the penetration of any felony, except rape burglary, arson, or robbery, or while such other is attempting to commit any felony besides such as are above enumerated and excepted, shall be manslaughter.