Opinion ID: 1785226
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendant's Special Requested Jury Charge

Text: Defendant contends that the trial judge erred in refusing to give the requested special charge that: Mere words, even though uttered and designed to incite or irritate, cannot excuse a battery. Thus, if you find that the defendant uttered words which were designed to incite or irritate the victim, such words are insufficient to justify an attack upon the person uttering such words.[ [4] ] He argues that without this instruction, the jury might have concluded that his verbal provocations made him the aggressor such that La.R.S. 14:21 would bar him from claiming the right of self-defense. The requested special charge was a correct statement of the law, but it was incomplete. In determining whether defendant was the aggressor under La.R.S. 14:21, the jury must consider all the circumstances from the inception of the confrontation to its cessation. State v. Brent, 347 So.2d 1112 (La.1977). See also State v. Simmons, 414 So.2d 705 (La.1982); State v. Domingue, 166 La.859, 118 So. 46 (1928). The proposed instruction, however, focuses on the battery implying that St. Pierre, because he threw the first blow, was the aggressor and that defendant was not. In order to avoid this implication, the trial judge would have been required to add a qualification to the effect that the legal principle set forth in the instruction was only one factor to consider in determining whether defendant was the aggressor. [5] A trial judge is required to give a special requested charge only if it does not require qualification, limitation, or explanation, and if it is wholly correct and pertinent. La. Code Crim.P. art. 807. Since defendant's requested special charge required qualification and, without such qualification it might have misled and confused the jury, the trial judge did not err in refusing to give it. In any event, the judge's failure to give the requested charge was harmless because the evidence concerning the events surrounding the confrontation clearly established to the jury that defendant was not the aggressor and that he had a right to claim self-defense. [6]