Court Opinion

ID: 9705097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:56:14.900826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:07.877892
License: Public Domain

Clinton, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent because I believe the defendant was entitled to an instruction under the provisions of section 28-834 (1) (a), R. R. S. 1943, which provides: “(1) Conduct which the actor believes to be necessary to avoid a harm or evil to himself or to another is justifiable if:
“(a) The harm or evil sought to be avoided by such conduct is greater than that sought to be prevented by the law defining the offense charged”; insofar as that such an instruction would relate to the lesser-included offense of assault with intent to commit great bodily harm. That is the offense of which the defendant was found guilty. I do not believe he was entitled to such an instruction insofar as the offense of stabbing with intent to kill was concerned.
Section 28-834 (1) (a) and section 28-836 (1), R. R. S. 1943, must be read together. Section 28-836 (1), R. R. S. 1943, provides that the use of force may be justifiable if the actor believes that such force is immediately necessary for the purpose of protecting himself against the use of unlawful force by the other person “on the present occasion.”
The comments to section 3.04 of the Model Penal Code, from which section 28-836, R. R. S. 1943, was taken, contain the following: ‘‘Nor does the draft *828limit the privilege of using defensive force to cases where the danger of unlawful violence is 'imminent’, as many formulations of the rule now do. The actor must believe that his defensive action is immediately necessary and the unlawful force against which he defends must be force that he apprehends will be used on the present occasion, but he need not apprehend that it will be immediately used. There would, for example, be a privilege to use defensive force to prevent an assailant from going to summon reinforcements, given belief and reason to believe that it is necessary to disable him to prevent an attack by overwhelming numbers — so long as the attack is apprehended on the ‘present occasion.’ The latter words are used in preference to ‘imminent’ or ‘immediate’ to introduce the necessary latitude for the attainment of a just result in cases of this kind.”
In this case the defendant was faced with a threat by Riggs that he would ‘‘collect some of this money I got owed to me tonight.” The defendant could not be expected to remain awake all night, every night, waiting for the attack that Riggs had threatened to make. The defendant’s evidence here was such that the jury could have found the defendant was justified in believing the use of force was necessary to protect himself against an attack by Riggs ‘‘on the present occasion.”
Under the evidence in this case, which the majority opinion fairly states, I think that a factual question was presented for the jury to determine whether evil of forcible sodomy was greater than the evil of the assault with intent to commit great bodily harm, where the assault was made to avoid a forcible sexual attack by Riggs. Forcible sodomy is surely a great wrong to the victim. Our statute recognizes the common law rule that one may use deadly force to protect oneself from a forcible sexual assault. § 28-836 (4), R. R. S. 1943. The evidence would justify the conclusion and permit the jury to find that de*829fendant could not have waited and protected himself by the use of deadly force. With the weapon which was available to him, he seemingly could not have exercised such deadly force had he waited. Without much doubt, the jury, in finding the defendant guilty of the lesser crime considered the nature of the weapon which he had available and which he used. That weapon may have been inadequate to protect him had he waited until the actual assault commenced.
I would remand for a new trial.