Opinion ID: 2459921
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Jeremy Moten

Text: Mr. Moten has only one point of appeal. It concerns failure of the Trial Court to instruct on manslaughter. More particular is his complaint that he was entitled to have the jury consider whether he was under excusable extreme emotional disturbance. The request for that part of the manslaughter instruction concerning extreme emotional disturbance for which there is a reasonable excuse presents a problem excepting it from the skip rule in these circumstances because it does not deal with a lesser culpable mental state. Rainey v. State, 310 Ark. 419, 837 S.W.2d 453 (1992). It was not error, however, for the Trial Court to have refused that aspect of the manslaughter instruction in this case because it was combined in the instruction proffered with language which would have allowed the jury to find Mr. Moten acted recklessly. The jury apparently believed that Mr. Moten was a principal or accomplice in a premeditated, deliberate murder. The evidence supported that conclusion. The evidence to which Mr. Moten refers in support of his manslaughter instruction might have led the jury to conclude he acted in self defense. Nothing in the evidence suggested he might have acted recklessly. It would not have been proper to have given the instruction presented to the Trial Court; thus there was no error.