Court Opinion

ID: 9790463
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:53:24.710967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:29.686810
License: Public Domain

Grosse, J.
(dissenting) — I dissent. While I agree that the self-defense instruction was error, applying the hindsight of State v. LeFaber,43 decided after the trial in this case, I do not agree that the error requires reversal under these facts.
There were two distinct theories here as to what occurred in the breathalyzer room. The defense theory was that Hutchinson shot the deputies while standing in one *743corner, after they had slammed him up against a Plexiglas window, and as they were lunging at him again. This theory was backed by expert testimony regarding bullet trajectories and grease marks on the window, consistent with Hutchinson’s story. The State’s theory was that the fatal shots were’ fired while Hutchinson was seated in a different corner of the room away from the Plexiglas window and while the deputies were occupied with paperwork. This theory was also bolstered by expert testimony.
The events either happened in one part of the room or the other. If they happened as the State outlined them, then the error in the instruction could not have affected the outcome because no reasonable trier of fact could have found that Hutchinson had a reasonable belief that death or great bodily injury was intended, or that he was in any imminent danger of its being accomplished, particularly the latter. If the events happened as Hutchinson related them, and the defense argued them, then the error was harmless because the danger of the harm that Hutchinson reasonably believed was going to occur was by definition imminent because it was occurring at the moment he shot the officers. The reasonableness of his belief in that regard was irrelevant because he was reacting to an actual attack, not to a fear that an attack was in the offing. Therefore, even if the jury was misled as to the exact requisites of self-defense, it did not matter in this case.
Given Hutchinson’s version of events, the difficult question was the reasonableness of his belief that the officers intended him harm, and whether that harm was of a nature that justified deadly force in response. The timing of his actions in response did not need to be explained in terms of his perceptions of danger. The officers were either assaulting him or they were not. In convicting, the jury either did not believe Hutchinson’s version of events, or it believed the State’s version. Neither version required the jury to decide what Hutchinson reasonably believed was about to happen to him.
*744If the jury believed the State’s version of events, the error was even the more harmless. At trial, Hutchinson proffered no facts or argument that placed him in the chair in a seated position when he shot the deputies. And, it is easy to understand why. If the State’s version is accepted, then he shot two unarmed men while they were turned away from him doing paperwork—a circumstance in which no reasonable trier of fact could find justification for his use of deadly force.44 This case should end here.
Reconsideration denied July 14, 1997.
Review granted at 133 Wn.2d 1033 (1998).

State v. LeFaber, 128 Wn.2d 896, 913 P.2d 369 (1996).

Despite the majority’s ad hominem rhetoric, our role is to determine harmless error using as a test how a reasonable juror would interpret the instruction. See State v. Miller, 131 Wn.2d 78, 90, 929 P.2d 372 (1997). Performing that role is neither tyrannical nor hypothetical. Rather, it is our job.