Court Opinion

ID: 9751983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 17:24:33.001247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:02.861693
License: Public Domain

RIDGELY, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
The Delaware Criminal Code requires that the objective standard of a reasonable person be used to determine the availability of the defense of duress. Specifically, the defense is not available if a reasonable person in the defendant’s situation would have been able to resist the alleged coercion. Wonnum failed to present credible evidence of a threat that a reasonable person would have been unable to resist. Significantly, there were reasonable legal alternatives available to Wonnum after she left Martin. She had “a chance both to refuse to do the criminal act and also to avoid [any] threatened harm.”22 Because no reasonable juror could conclude otherwise, the trial judge did not err in denying her request for a duress instruction.
Under English common law, duress was the “fear of loss of life, or else for fear of mayhem, or loss of limb ... upon sufficient reason.”23 According to Blackstone, “[a] fear of battery, or being beaten, though never so well grounded, is no duress.”24 Even though the common law defense of duress was available in the United States,25 there were no reported cases in Delaware addressing it prior to 197S.26 In 197B, the General Assembly established the elements of duress in Dela*577ware by enacting 11 Del. C. § 431.27
Section 431(a) permits the defense to be raised where the use of, or the threat to use force, is such that “a reasonable person in the defendant’s situation would have been unable to resist.”28 Section 431(b) precludes the defense from being raised “if the defendant intentionally or recklessly placed himself or herself in a situation in which it was probable that the defendant would be subjected to duress.”29 Therefore, in order to establish a defense of duress, a defendant must show, by a preponderance of the evidence, two elements: (1) the defendant was coerced to engage in the conduct charged by the use of, or a threat to use force against the defendant or another person, which a reasonable person in her situation would have been unable to resist; and (2) that the defendant did not intentionally or recklessly place herself in a situation in which it is probable she would be subjected to duress.
A jury may not consider a defense “unless the court is satisfied that some credible evidence supporting the defense has been presented.”30 “Evidence supports a defense when it tends to establish the existence of each element of the defense.”31 “If some credible evidence supporting a defense is presented, the defendant is entitled to a jury instruction that the jury must acquit the defendant if they find that the evidence raises a reasonable doubt as to the defendant’s guilt.”32
The objective standard of Section 431(a) requires consideration of what “a reasonable person in the actor’s situation [would] have done in response to the threat.”33 Even though Wonnum claimed she was battered by Martin, there is “no place for battered woman syndrome evidence in that assessment.”34 The “actor’s situation” is not further defined in the Delaware Code or commentary but necessarily includes the time frame leading up to the crime. In that context, the availability of legal alternatives to violating the law is part of the objective analysis.
*578In United States v. Bailey,35 the United States Supreme Court addressed the consequences of the availability of legal alternatives to violating the law in a case involving an escape from a federal prison. Citing prison conditions, the defendants raised the defense of duress. Under federal law, escape is a continuing offense. To support this defense, the defendants focused on the allegedly inhumane conditions in the jail and threats of beatings and death made against them by guards while imprisoned.36 The trial judge refused to give a duress instruction, and the Court of Appeals, by a divided court, reversed.
The United States Supreme Court upheld the denial of the duress instruction because there was no evidence of a bona fide effort to surrender or return to custody as soon as the claimed duress lost its coercive force. In recognizing the common law defenses of duress and self-defense, the Court stated that “[ujnder any definition of these defenses, one principle remains constant: if there was a reasonable, legal alternative to violating the law, ‘a chance both to refuse to do the criminal act and also to avoid the threatened harm,’ the defenses will fail.”37
The defense of duress fails as a matter of law in this case. Once Wonnum left Martin, it is undisputed that she had the chance both to refuse to do the criminal act and to avoid the threatened harm. A reasonable person would refuse to commit the robbery Martin solicited and seek refuge elsewhere. In Bailey, the defendants argued, as Wonnum does here, that the jury should decide whether the defense of duress has been established. The United States Supreme Court held otherwise:
The requirement of a threshold showing on the part of those who assert an affirmative defense to a crime is by no means a derogation of the importance of the jury as a judge of credibility. Nor is it based on any distrust of the jury’s ability to separate fact from fiction. On the contrary, it is a testament to the importance of trial by jury and the need to husband the resources necessary for that process by limiting evidence in a trial to that directed at the elements of the crime or at affirmative defenses. If, as we here hold, an affirmative defense consists of several elements and testimony supporting one element is insufficient to sustain it even if believed, the trial court and jury need not be burdened with testimony supporting other elements of the defense.38
As in Bailey, the trial court and the jury did not have to be burdened with testimony supporting other elements of the defense because a reasonable person would have been able to resist.
The Supreme Court of New Hampshire also has upheld the denial of a duress instruction where lawful alternatives are available to a defendant. In New Hampshire v. Daoud,39 the defendant attempted to raise a duress defense by introducing evidence of battered woman syndrome to a charge of driving while intoxicated, alleging that her boyfriend had forced her to drive her car.40 The Supreme Court of New Hampshire found that the trial court had properly rejected this defense because she presented “no evidence which could *579overcome the State’s proof that she had lawful alternatives to violating the law.”41
The availability of lawful alternatives to violating the law is a necessary component to the determination of whether a reasonable person in the defendant’s situation would have been unable to resist the alleged coercion. Wonnum was away from Martin at another person’s house when Boyd and Jackson arrived to pick her up. A reasonable person in Wonnum’s situation would have had several legal alternatives to robbing and killing Jackson, including reporting Martin’s conduct to the police, avoiding Martin altogether, and seeking refuge from him elsewhere.
I do agree with the majority that the psychological report was relevant to showing Wonnum’s state of mind in this case.42 To that extent, I concur with Part I of the opinion. Even though the psychological report was relevant to Wonnum’s state of mind, the ruling of the trial judge excluding it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt43 because credible evidence tending to establish each element of the defense of duress was not presented. After leaving Martin, a reasonable person in the defendant’s situation would have been able to refuse to do the criminal act and avoid any threatened harm. I dissent from the majority’s conclusion that the trial judge committed reversible error in denying a jury instruction on duress. I concur with Part III of the opinion.
Accordingly, I would affirm the convictions in this case.

. U.S. v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 410, 100 S.Ct. 624, 62 L.Ed.2d 575 (1980) (quoting W. La-fave & A. Scott, Handbook on Criminal Law 379 (1972)).

. Sir William Blackstone, 1 Commentaries on the Laws of England 130 (1882).

. Id.

. See Bailey, 444 U.S. at 409-10, 100 S.Ct. 624.

. Delaware Criminal Code Commentary § 431, at 93 (1973) (“There are no reported cases in Delaware dealing with the defense of duress (also sometimes called coercion).”). (Commentary).

. Id. at 95; 11 Del. C. § 431. In codifying the criminal law generally, the commentary notes that "[i]n many of its parts, the Delaware Criminal Code is patterned on the New York Penal Law, adopted in 1965 and effected in 1967, as well as on the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code [the "MPC”].” Commentary § 101, at 2. Thus, the Assembly had the MPC available in 1973 when it codified the duress statute.

. 11 Del. C. § 431(a) (emphasis added). The equivalent duress provision in the MPC code permits the defense to be raised when the threat is such that “a person of reasonable firmness in his situation would have been unable to resist." American Law Institute, Model Penal Code, § 2.09 (1985) (emphasis added).
In explaining this provision, the commentary to the MPC states that “The standard is thus partially objective; the defense is not established by the fact that the defendant was coerced; he must have been coerced in circumstances under which a person of reasonable firmness in his situation would likewise have been unable to resist." Id. at 367. (emphasis added). By contrast, the commentary to our provision states; “An objective standard is proposed; what would a reasonable person in the actor’s situation have done in response to the threat. Here we are looking not to the mythical perfect man encountered in the law of torts, but to the man of ordinary firmness and resolution to obey the law, who nevertheless is unwilling to take grave risks of injury.” Commentary § 431, at 94-95. Thus, the General Assembly rejected the MPC’s "partially objective” approach.

. 11 Del. C. § 431(b).

. 11 Del. C. § 303(a).

. 11 Del. C. § 303(b).

. llDeZ. C.§ 303(c).

. Commentary § 431, at 95.

. New Jersey v. B.H., 183 NJ. 171, 870 A.2d 273, 290 (2005).

. 444 U.S. 394, 100 S.Ct. 624, 62 L.Ed.2d 575 (1980).

. Id. at 398-99, 100 S.Ct. 624.

. Id. at 410, 100 S.Ct. 624.

. Id. at 416, 100 S.Ct. 624.

. 141 N.H. 142, 679 A.2d 577.

. Id. at 579.

. Id. at 582.

. D.R.E. 702; see New Jersey v. B.H., 183 N.J. 171, 870 A.2d 273, 287-91 (2005).

.See Van Arsdall v. State, 524 A.2d 3, 10 (Del.1987).