Court Opinion

ID: 9685555
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:47:04.8942+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:22.516595
License: Public Domain

*326Connor, J.
(dissenting in part). I agree that this case needs to be remanded for further fact finding.
The trial court found that defendant had murdered without premeditation and had not acted in self-defense. Both findings are supported by the record, and I affirm both findings. However, the trial court made no findings regarding defendant’s claim that his crime should be reduced to manslaughter.
Defendant claims that he did not go to the house intending to kill his victim or cause her great bodily harm, nor did he intend, by kicking the door in while carrying an assault rifle, to create a very high risk of death or great bodily harm with knowledge that death or great bodily harm was the probable result of doing so. Instead, he claims that his desire to kill his victim was born of the moment. Confronted with a woman about to kill him, he claims to have acted rashly. Defendant calls his claim "imperfect self-defense.”
Up to now, in Michigan, if a person takes a life in lawful self-defense his actions are excused and he is not guilty of any crime. CJI2d 7.15(1). However, a person who started an assault on another with a deadly weapon cannot claim that he acted in self-defense unless he genuinely stopped his assault and clearly let the other person know he wanted to make peace. CJI2d 7.18.
A majority of the jurisdictions that recognize imperfect self-defense use it as a method of negating the malice element in a murder charge so as to mitigate murder to voluntary manslaughter. People v Heflin, 434 Mich 482, 509, 547; 456 NW2d 10 (1990). The claim of imperfect self-defense arises when a defendant kills another by an act that could be found to have been committed in self-defense except that the defendant was the initial aggressor or used excessive force. Id. at 509.
*327While some appellate courts have given the imperfect self-defense doctrine a cursory examination, before finding the theory inapplicable to the facts at hand, the Michigan Supreme Court has neither adopted nor analyzed the doctrine thus far. Id. at 508.
I think discussing this case in terms of imperfect self-defense is counterproductive. This decision may be perceived as breaking new ground, as creating a new route to a verdict of voluntary manslaughter, when, in fact, we are only following the longstanding law of voluntary manslaughter in Michigan. See Maher v People, 10 Mich 212 (1862).
In Michigan, the crime of murder is reduced to manslaughter if committed "under the influence of passion or in the heat of blood produced by adequate provocation.” CJI 16:4:02(1). If defendant’s desire to kill his victim was actually born of the moment, if it was the result of such provocation that would cause a reasonable person to kill in the heat of passion, then his crime is manslaughter, not murder. See People v Younger, 380 Mich 678, 681-682; 158 NW2d 493 (1968).
I do not believe that the theory of imperfect self-defense adds anything to Michigan’s traditional notions of self-defense or voluntary manslaughter, and I would not require the trial court to apply the theory of imperfect self-defense in this case. Whether the doctrine should be adopted in Michigan is best left to the Legislature or the Supreme Court.1
*328I would remand for additional findings of fact and conclusions of law concerning whether defendant committed the crime under the influence of passion or in the heat of blood produced by adequate provocation, so as to reduce his offense to voluntary manslaughter.

 Moreover, I do not believe the doctrine as applied in other states, but for Missouri, necessarily requires a determination of a defendant’s state of mind at the time he initiated the confrontation. Malice aforethought may be controlling when considering whether the offense was committed in the heat of passion. However, imperfect self-defense relates to the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the killing. Malice aforethought would be merely one factor to consider when determining actual malice.