Opinion ID: 1994158
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Initial Aggressor Instruction

Text: Appellant requested and received a self-defense instruction. See Criminal Jury Instructions for the District of Columbia, No. 5.16 (4th ed.2008). The trial court, however, denied appellant's request for an initial aggressor instruction under Jury Instruction 5.16(D), which informs the jury that if a defendant who provokes a conflict later withdraws from it in good faith, and communicates that withdrawal by words or actions, s/he may use deadly force to save himself/herself from imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm. Id. at 5.16(D). The trial judge found that subsection (D) was inappropriate in this case because nobody says that [appellant] was the aggressor, and then after he began the aggressive conduct that he withdrew. Appellant argues that this constituted error. We agree. Failure to give an instruction embodying a defense theory that negates guilt of the crime charged, when properly requested and supported by evidence, is necessarily reversible error. Bell v. United States, 950 A.2d 56, 64-65 (D.C.2008) (quoting Gray v. United States, 549 A.2d 347, 350-51 (D.C.1988)). In reviewing claims of instructional errors, we consider the instructions as a whole and in the context of the overall charge. Rorie v. United States, 882 A.2d 763, 771 (D.C. 2005) (citations omitted). Jury instructions must properly inform [the jury] of the applicable principles involved. Id. (citing Hernandez v. United States, 853 A.2d 202, 207 (D.C.2004)). Thus, a defendant is entitled to a jury instruction on a theory of the case that negates his guilt of the crime charged if the instruction is supported by any evidence, however weak. Id. (citing Graves v. United States, 554 A.2d 1145, 1147 (D.C.1989)) (quotation marks omitted). That evidence may come from either the prosecution or the defense, or a combination of the two. Hernandez, supra, 853 A.2d at 205; Harling v. United States, 387 A.2d 1101, 1103 n. 1 (D.C. 1978.). In determining whether a defense instruction was properly denied, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant. Bonilla v. United States, 894 A.2d 412, 417 (D.C.2006) (citations omitted). To be entitled to a self-defense justification, the record must reflect that (1) there was an actual or apparent threat to the defendant; (2) the threat was unlawful and immediate; (3) the defendant honestly and reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm; and (4) the defendant's response was necessary to save himself from danger. Hernandez, supra, 853 A.2d at 205. A defendant, however, cannot claim self defense if he or she was the aggressor or if s/he provoked the conflict upon himself/herself. Rorie, supra, 882 A.2d at 772 (citations omitted). That is, one who is the aggressor in a conflict culminating in death cannot invoke the necessities of self-preservation. Only in the event that he communicates to his adversary his intent to withdraw and in good faith attempts to do so is he restored to his right of self-defense. Id. (citing United States v. Peterson, 157 U.S.App.D.C. 219, 228, 483 F.2d 1222, 1231 (1973)). One does not recover the right of self-defense where one physically withdraws merely seeking competitive advantage in the conflict. See e.g., 55 A.L.R.3d 1000, 1012 (1974) (Although, in the course of an assault or encounter which the defendant initiated or provoked, he may have backed off or retreated, the courts ... [have held] that his retreat does not necessarily mean an abandonment of the conflict so as to justify him in later injuring or killing his adversary and claiming that it was done in self-defense, where the retreat represented merely a change to a better strategic position and not an attempt to retire from the conflict.). Appellant argues that a combination of his and Armstead's testimony creates some evidence, however weak that, even if he were the initial aggressor, he communicated his intent to withdraw and made a good faith attempt to actually do so. In particular, appellant argues that a jury could believe both Armstead's testimony that appellant came to collect a drug debt and appellant's testimony that he backed up when Armstead pulled a knife on him. Thus, he argues, he was entitled to the first aggressor instruction in subsection (D) because his testimony about backing up is some evidence of withdrawal. The government, in contrast, asserts that taking a few steps back in order to avoid being stabbed in a fight appellant started does not amount to a good faith attempt to withdraw, nor a clear communication of an intent to withdraw; rather, the government argues, those steps back were taken to gain a better strategic position to continue the fight that he started. Here, although the evidence is reasonably susceptible to either appellant's or the government's interpretation, taking the evidence in the light most favorable to appellant, Bonilla, supra, 894 A.2d at 417, his testimony that he stepped back from Armstead is evidence, however weak that he withdrew. See Hernandez, supra, 853 A.2d at 205. Accordingly, whether those steps constituted both a proper withdrawal and a proper communication of that withdrawal was an issue for the jury. See, e.g., Rowe v. United States, 164 U.S. 546, 554-55, 17 S.Ct. 172, 41 L.Ed. 547 (1896) (It should have been submitted to the jury whether the act of the accused, in stepping back and leaning against the counter, not in an attitude for personal conflict, was intended to be, and should have been reasonably interpreted as being, a withdrawal by the accused in good faith from further controversy with the deceased.). Accordingly, the trial court erred in denying appellant's request for the instruction in subsection (D) and appellant is entitled to a new trial. For the foregoing reasons, the decision below is Reversed.