Court Opinion

ID: 9661180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:31:36.292422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:26.058549
License: Public Domain

JONES, Justice,
dissenting.
At the close of all of the evidence, trial counsel for Lanorma tendered an instruction on the defense of self-protection. The trial court in my view properly refused to submit that instruction to the jury.
During direct examination Lanorma testified that she “was trying to throw the gun in another room to keep him from getting it . and when I did I hit the wall and that’s . . . when the gun went off.” She emphatically denied she intended to shoot her husband.
It is apparent from Lanorma’s testimony that her justification for the killing of her husband was not that she acted in self-protection, but that the killing was accidental. Her testimony clearly indicates the shooting was accidental; not in self-protection.
Since time immemorial, this court has repeatedly held where, in a case of homicide, the only defense interposed is that the killing was accidental, and the accused himself so testifies, an instruction on the law of self-defense should not be given. See Maiden v. Commonwealth, 203 Ky. 446, 262 S.W. 588 (1924); Pelfry v. Commonwealth, 247 Ky. 484, 57 S.W.2d 474 (1933); Howard v. Commonwealth, 260 Ky. 467, 86 S.W.2d 126 (1935); Howard v. Commonwealth, Ky., 240 S.W.2d 616 (1951); and Blaine v. Commonwealth, Ky., 459 S.W.2d 759 (1970).
The majority opinion is bottomed on a case decided by this court in 1908. Gatliff v. Commonwealth, Ky., 107 S.W. 739 (1908). In that case the deceased was making a violent assault upon the prosecuting witness. He had the officer by the throat and was choking him. That case is as different from the case at bar as night is from day, and in my view, is not applicable here. I am of the opinion that the trial court properly instructed the jury, who heard all the evidence and rendered its verdict based upon the law and the facts. I am unwilling to substitute my judgment for that of a properly instructed jury.
Therefore I dissent.