Opinion ID: 1708512
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the lower court erred in refusing to grant instructions d-2, d-4 and d-5, depriving the jury of a full and complete instruction on the law as to self-defense.

Text: The lower court granted the instruction set forth in Robinson v. State, 434 So.2d 206 (Miss. 1983), which was suggested by this Court as a proper instruction on self-defense. Instruction D-2 and D-4, requested by the appellant, were self-defense instructions embodying in different verbiage the law of self-defense. Appellant states in his brief that Instruction D-2 would have duplicated to a great extent the matters contained in the Robinson instruction and was properly refused by the court. He further stated that D-4 and D-5 are duplicative of each other. The trial judge refused Instruction D-5, which follows: In passing upon his [sic] guilt or innocence of the Defendant, the jury should not try him by the light of after developed events, nor hold him to the same cool and correct judgment which you are able to form sitting in the jury box as you are, but you should put yourselves in his place and judge his acts by the facts and circumstances by which he was surrounded at the time of the difficulty. The lower court's assigned reason for denying D-5 was that he felt the theory of self-defense was fully covered in the Robinson instruction. In Arrington v. State, 366 So.2d 246 (Miss. 1979), the Court granted a similar instruction absent that part which appears in D-5, supra, and the Court held that the refusal of the instruction did not constitute reversible error, since the jury was adequately instructed by other self-defense instructions. In the case sub judice, defense counsel was able to argue the sense of the instruction to the jury, even though the instruction was not granted. We are of the opinion that the court did not commit reversible error in refusing the instructions.