Court Opinion

ID: 9569408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:13:35.808481+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:57:21.286111
License: Public Domain

BENHAM, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I fully concur with the reversal of the judgment of conviction due to the trial court’s failure to give the requested instruction that the State had the burden of disproving appellant’s affirmative defense of justification beyond a reasonable doubt. Griffin v. State, 267 Ga. 586 (1) (481 SE2d 223) (1997). I also agree that the holding to the contrary in Brace v. State, 259 Ga. 798 (3) (387 SE2d 886) (1990) must be overruled. However, I believe that appellant Bishop’s requests for “battered person syndrome” jury instructions were properly rejected because they were not adjusted to the evidence. Bishop’s presentation of evidence that danger from his wife immediately preceded his shooting of her (she allegedly pointed a gun at him, he saw the ligaments in her arm tighten, and her eyes had the “crazy blank-eyed stare look” she had exhibited when she had shot him in 1991) was in furtherance of a justification defense since the evidence showed that an actual threat of harm immediately preceded the homicide. The “battered person syndrome” is the means by which a defendant *295shows the existence of “ ‘a mental state necessary for the defense of justification although the actual threat of harm [did] not immediately precede the homicide.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.) Smith v. State, 268 Ga. 196, 199 (486 SE2d 819) (1997). Since appellant testified that he had shot his wife in response to signs that she was going to shoot him at that moment, his “battered person syndrome” jury instructions were not adjusted to the evidence and were properly refused by the trial court.
Decided July 6, 1999.
Cook & Connelly, Bobby Lee Cook, Todd M. Johnson, for appellant.
Herbert E. Franklin, Jr., District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Jayson Phillips, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
I am authorized to state that Justice Hunstein joins this concurrence.