Opinion ID: 1789021
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Rational basis for manslaughter instruction

Text: Rainey's proffered manslaughter instruction is based upon Ark.Code Ann. § 5-10-104(a) (1987) which provides in part: (a) A person commits manslaughter if: (1) He causes the death of another person under circumstances that would be murder, except that he causes the death under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there is a reasonable excuse. The reasonableness of the excuse shall be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant's situation under the circumstances as he believes them to be;       (3) He recklessly causes the death of another person;.... When there is a rational basis for a verdict acquitting a defendant of the offense charged and convicting him of an offense included in the offense charged, an instruction on the lesser included offense should be given, and it is reversible error to fail to give such an instruction when warranted. Sanders v. State, 305 Ark. 112, 805 S.W.2d 953 (1991); ArkCode Ann. § 5-l-110(c) (1987). When there is the slightest evidence to warrant an instruction on a lesser included offense, it is error to refuse to give it. See, e.g., Henson v. State, 296 Ark. 472, 757 S.W.2d 560 (1988); Robinson v. State, 269 Ark. 90, 598 S.W.2d 421 (1980) (emphasis added). In this case, there was evidence which would support a finding that, although Rainey admittedly purposely killed Kirkpatrick and thus committed what would otherwise have been murder, he did so under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable excuse. The jury was presented with evidence that Kirkpatrick had attempted to kill Rainey just before he shot her. There was testimony that Kirkpatrick had threatened to tell Rainey's wife about his affair. Rainey testified that at the time of the shooting he was hysterical, upset, and mad. There was thus some evidence to support the manslaughter instruction. In a recent case, Frazier v. State, 309 Ark. 228, 828 S.W.2d 838 (1992), Frazier admitted killing the victim but stated he did so because the victim teased him. The Trial Court denied Frazier's request for a manslaughter instruction, and we affirmed. There was no evidence that Frazier was acting under the influence of an extreme emotional disturbance. His irritation over being teased did not constitute evidence of an extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable excuse. The Frazier case is readily distinguishable from this one. Here, evidence indicated that Rainey had been threatened with a gun before the killing occurred which, combined with the ongoing argument and the threat to ruin his family relationship, could well have been considered by the jury to have caused him to suffer extreme emotional distress, especially when viewed from his perspective as the statute requires. There is a substantial difference between the emotional effect of being teased and being threatened with a gun. In Wootton v. State, 232 Ark. 300, 337 S.W.2d 651 (1960), quoting from Clardy v. State, 96 Ark. 52, 131 S.W. 46 (1910), the following obiter dictum appears: The passion that will reduce a homicide from murder to manslaughter may consist of anger or sudden resentment, or of fear or terror; but the passion springing from any of these causes will not alone reduce the grade of the homicide. There must also be a provocation which induced the passion, and which the law deems adequate to make the passion irresistible. An assault with violence upon another who acts under the influence thereof may be sufficient to arouse such passion. Continuing, we stated that mere threats or menaces, where the person killed was unarmed and neither committing nor attempting to commit violence on the defendant at the time of the killing, will not free him of the guilt of murder. On the other hand, we made it clear that adequate provocation can occur when the victim is armed or is attempting to commit violence toward the defendant. In Collins v. State, 102 Ark. 180, 143 S.W. 1075 (1912), we held the grade of a homicide may be reduced from murder to manslaughter by reason of a passion caused by a provocation sufficient to make the passion irresistible. We said [i]t was perfectly proper to show that in a given case the passion did exist for the reason that it was induced by anger suddenly aroused, or by surprise, or by fear, or by terror. We find these older cases to be instructive and relevant regardless of the fact that they are couched in terms of the heat of passion, Ark.Stat.Ann. § 41-2208 (Repl.1964) (repealed), rather than the replacement language extreme emotional distress found in our current statute. See also Wharton's Criminal Law § 158 (1979) (stating an assault may constitute adequate provocation to reduce a killing to voluntary manslaughter); LaFave & Scott Substantive Criminal Law § 7.10(b)(3) (1986) (stating an unsuccessful attack on the defendant may constitute adequate provocation in extreme cases, such as where the attacker fires a pistol at him). The jury was presented with evidence that Rainey shot Kirkpatrick while in a fit of anger aroused by being threatened with a gun. The jury could have believed that this anger provoked an extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable excuse, and thus it could have found Rainey guilty of manslaughter rather than murder in the first degree. A manslaughter instruction was warranted. No right has been more zealously protected by this Court than the right of an accused to have the jury instructed on lesser included offenses. Robinson v. State, supra ; Caton & Headley v. State, 252 Ark. 420, 479 S.W.2d 537 (1972). Assuming that a killing described as manslaughter because of the extreme emotional distress is indeed a lesser offense included in first and second degree murder, there is no need in this case to depart from that tradition.