Court Opinion

ID: 9467996
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:01:28.227151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:37.702653
License: Public Domain

SPROUSE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
In my opinion any error which might have resulted from defendant’s counsel not requesting an instruction on assault and battery was harmless. The evidence could have established malicious wounding, unlawful wounding, or that the defendant was not guilty. There was no evidence upon which it could have been decided she was guilty of assault and battery.
The majority’s opinion quotes the short summary of Taylor’s self-defense evidence contained in the State’s brief.
If, on the other hand, the jury had believed the account of defense witnesses, Legg and , Walker, that appellee had struck at Pritt only in reaction to Pritt chasing her behind the bar in this tavern, during which Pritt had threatened her life and called her a whore, they could have returned only a verdict of not guilty of malicious wounding and unlawful wounding, since they would have been compelled to agree with the self-defense theory put forward by appellee’s counsel.
*42The quoted summary is a considerably inaccurate characterization of the self-defense evidence. The State initially contended there was not sufficient evidence to sustain a self-defense instruction but abandoned that position in the interest of economizing trial time. It would have been justified in maintaining its original position. A review of the testimony strongly suggests there is not sufficient evidence to sustain a self-defense instruction. Even had there been, there is no evidence that the excessive, unreasonable force used by Taylor resulting in the victim’s injuries was motivated by self-defensive impulses. Uncontradicted evidence demonstrates that the injuries were inflicted by purely offensive acts on the part of Taylor. The evidence thus could not support an instruction basing a possible assault and battery conviction on the use of excessive force in self-defense — Taylor was guilty of either malicious or unlawful wounding or was innocent.
The melee in which Pritt, the victim, was wounded took place in the Rondavu, also known as Frank and Wanda’s Place, a tavern in rural West Virginia. Immediately prior to the wounding, seven or eight of the tavern’s imbibing patrons were engaged in a contest described variously as only “friendly pushing and shoving,” and “throwing tables and chairs at each other, beating each other’s brains out.” Wanda Taylor, the defendant, quickly moved to conclude the activities and, although there were conflicting descriptions of her methods, there were no doubts about the results. Six witnesses testified at trial — four for the State and two for the defense. The defendant Wanda Taylor did not testify. Three of the four State witnesses testified that Taylor first struck one Anderson on the head with a ball bat, then administered the same treatment to Pritt. According to this testimony, after being relieved of the ball bat, she procured a machete, and slashed Pritt several times while he was lying face up on the dance floor. The treating doctor testified that Pritt’s left wrist was partially severed. This wound also included deep lacerations of tendons, a nerve and ligaments in the wrist joint in addition to fractures of three bones. The victim also received a long slash wound to his forehead and wounds to his forearm from Taylor.
Contrary to the evidentiary summary quoted in the majority opinion, the evidence for the defense was not that Taylor struck at Pritt only in reaction to his threats. One of the two defense witnesses, Walker, testified that he did not see Taylor wield the machete or swing or cut at the victim at all. The other defense witness, Legg, testified that he saw Taylor once swing the machete at the victim while he was standing but categorically stated that he did not see that she cut him with this effort.
The State’s witnesses testified that after his initial wounds, the victim fled the melee through the tavern door and that while he was exiting, bleeding heavily from his wounds, Wanda Taylor slashed him several times in the back with the machete. At trial, the victim exhibited to the jury multiple scars on his back identified as having been inflicted by those last machete cuts. Neither Walker nor Legg, the defense witnesses, saw the victim as he exited. They could not testify in any fashion concerning these actions on the part of Wanda Taylor.
West Virginia law does not require the trial court to give an instruction on assault and battery under such evidence even had one been requested. The West Virginia standard is clear as to when an instruction on a lesser included offense should be given. State v. Spicer, 245 S.E.2d 922 (W.Va.1978); State v. Wayne, 245 S.E.2d 838 (W.Va.1978); State v. Hudson, 157 W.Va. 939, 206 S.E.2d 415 (W.Va.1974). The State Supreme Court of Appeals in Wayne said:
While it is reversible error for a trial court to refuse to instruct a jury on lesser offenses charged in the indictment if there is any evidence in the record to prove such lesser offenses .. ., when the evidence, if believed, supports only first degree murder, an instruction omitting all lesser offenses not in any way supported by the evidence is not error.
245 S.E.2d at 842 (citation omitted).
In Spicer the Court reiterated:
*43[WJhere there is doubt about whether there is appreciable evidence supporting an instruction on a lesser included offense, the wiser and preferred course for the trial court is to instruct on such lesser included offense. Since we find, however, that there was no appreciable evidence supporting an unarmed robbery theory in this case, the refusal of the trial court to instruct thereon was not error.
245 S.E.2d at 927-28.
The majority cites State v. King, 140 W.Va. 362, 84 S.E.2d 213 (1954), as supporting its result. King, however, holds simply that although assault and battery is a lesser included offense in the felony of malicious assault, a conviction of assault and battery, is barred by the one-year statute of limitations imposed for misdemeanors rather than the five-year statute of limitations for malicious wounding.
Likewise, Matthews v. Johnson, 503 F.2d 339 (3rd Cir. 1974), is completely inapposite to the issue decided by the majority. , It is true that the Third Circuit in Matthews decided that the failure to include an involuntary manslaughter instruction in a murder prosecution was a denial of due process of law. That decision, however, is premised on the law of Pennsylvania permitting a voluntary manslaughter instruction in a murder ease even where no evidence justified a voluntary manslaughter conviction. The Third Circuit reasoned that some defendants received the benefit of the instruction and some did not. In deciding that no standards guided the granting of the instruction, it held the Pennsylvania rule was impermissibly vague and violated due process. The decision was inextricably inter-, woven with Pennsylvania criminal law. West Virginia’s standard is definitive. It simply does not require an instruction on the lesser included offense when there is no appreciable evidence to support it.
I do not quarrel with the majority’s view that had there been evidence that Taylor was excited to the use of excessive force by self-defense instincts, an assault and battery instruction would have been required. Effective representation, under the Marzullo standard, would in such circumstances have- required an affirmative request for the instruction. Such circumstances were not present. Taylor repeatedly slashed the victim with a machete on the wrist, forearm, forehead, and back, practically severing his left wrist. The number and severity of these wounds belie any theory of self-defense-motivated excessive force. Add to this the uncontradicted evidence of her savage pursuit and there is scarcely enough evidence to sustain an instruction on self-defense. The uncontradicted evidence is that she hacked the victim several times in the back as he fled the scene. Neither Legg ,nor Walker testified as to this incident. Even had Taylor been justified in brandishing a machete initially, no rational juror could believe that her later actions were merely an extended self-defense.
I would reverse the district court’s decision granting the writ of habeas corpus. Taylor’s counsel was in error when he admitted during the habeas corpus proceeding that the evidence would have supported an instruction of assault and battery. Had he been correct, his failure to request the instruction would have demonstrated a degree of incompetent representation which could not have been characterized as harmless. Nor can his professed attempt to get error in the record by his failure to request the instruction be applauded as competent. Contrary to his post-trial belief, however, there was not sufficient evidence to support an assault and battery instruction and any ineffectiveness in failing to request one amounted to harmless error.