Court Opinion

ID: 9718566
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:27:17.000773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:00.379633
License: Public Domain

Per Curiam.
Originally charged with murder, James E. Hoskins pled guilty of manslaughter over the prosecutor’s objection in 1972. He received a 7-1/2 to 15-year prison sentence.
After a complaint was filed by the prosecutor’s office, this Court, in Genesee Prosecutor v Genesee Circuit Judge, 391 Mich 115; 215 NW2d 145 (1974), granted an order of superintending control and remanded for trial on the information. A jury convicted defendant of second-degree murder on May 8, 1974, and he was sentenced seven weeks later to 20 to 35 years in prison.
Throughout the trial the defendant’s attorney argued that the killing was done in self-defense. Defense counsel’s timely request for an instruction on self-defense was denied by the trial judge, however, on the ground that insufficient evidence *97had been presented to justify the requested instruction. The trial court added that it could not instruct the jury on self-defense unless the defendant had taken the stand and testified to his state of mind at the time the killing occurred.
The Court of Appeals, in an unpublished per curiam opinion which cited People v Williams, 118 Mich 692; 77 NW 248 (1898), affirmed because the panel found no evidence in the case to support a theory of self-defense.
We have considered the defendant’s delayed application for leave to appeal and, pursuant to GCR 1963, 853.2(4), in lieu of granting leave to appeal, we reverse the Court of Appeals and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings. Our careful review of the record discloses that there was evidence in this case pointing to the conclusion that the defendant had acted in self-defense; the sufficiency of this evidence was for the jury to determine under proper instructions on self-defense. The right to assert a theory of self-defense is, of course, not contingent on a waiver of the privilege against self-incrimination.
I
Testimony at trial revealed that the victim and the defendant were drinking with friends at Frederick Bridges’ house when the victim asked the defendant to repay a seven-dollar debt. Defendant asked Victor Doan, another guest, to drive him to the home of defendant’s mother to get money. Doan agreed to do so as soon as he finished his drink. The victim went to the bathroom and the defendant went outside to wait. The victim returned from the bathroom and went outside. Bridges and Doan both testified that they then heard a shot. Both men went to the window and *98observed the victim staggering back against Doan’s car. They both then observed the defendant fire a second shot at the victim.
Wayne Bachman, another guest at the party, stated that at the time of the shooting he and Tom Harrington were backing out of Bridges’ driveway in Harrington’s car, preparing to leave. Like Doan and Bridges, Bachman observed the second shot but was not in a position to observe what had happened between the defendant and the victim before the first shot was fired. The three witnesses, Doan, Bridges and Bachman, characterized the discussion between the victim and the defendant as a request for money rather than an argument, although Bridges was impeached with the testimony he gave at the preliminary examination two years earlier that the victim was raising his voice and was "hot under the collar” while requesting the seven dollars from the defendant.
Since Tom Harrington was found to be unavailable, his previous testimony at defendant’s preliminary examination was admitted as an exhibit and read to the jury. Harrington described the discussion between the victim and the defendant as an "argument”, not a "conversation”. The argument prompted Harrington to leave because he did not want to be around if something "developed”. The witness recalled the victim telling the defendant that he would "whip” the defendant.
Harrington was the only witness to the events leading up to the shooting other than the defendant, who did not testify, and the victim. Harrington said that as he and Bachman were leaving, he saw the victim advance toward the defendant "with his hands up” and that "the defendant stepped into him and right then I heard a shot”. Harrington said that the two men were talking to *99each other just before the shooting, but he could not hear what they were saying.
Defense counsel advanced his theory of self-defense from his initial voir dire of and opening remarks to the jury through his closing argument. Harrington’s testimony, defense counsel argued, demonstrated that before the actual shooting, a potentially violent situation was building up between the defendant and the victim in which the victim was the aggressor. Defendant’s reaction to this situation was conciliatory, and once outside the house the victim made the first move toward the defendant.
The trial court explained its denial of defense counsel’s request for an instruction to the jury on self-defense in this way:
"The Court: * * * There is no question in my mind, I think he [defendant] should have taken the witness stand. I advised him of his rights. He chose not to. But I think that’s a mistake that he made. He could have then developed the theory, and I would have instructed on the theory of self-defense had he taken the witness stand and given anything that I could use as a factual basis. And, that’s why I denied your instruction on self-defense, because I could not make — I don’t believe, as I stated before, you — you can utilize the self-defense without the defendant showing his state of mind and how he felt at the time, if he felt his life was in danger and he had no other choice but to take the life. And, absent that, I could not do it. But I just like to throw it in while I’m thinking about it.”
Thus the trial judge found that there was insufficient evidence to justify giving the requested instruction, an insufficiency the trial judge apparently believed was created by the defendant’s failure to take the stand and testify as to "his state of *100mind and how he felt at the time [of the shooting]”.
II
If supported by the evidence, defendant’s theory of the case must be given. See People v Reed, 393 Mich 342, 350; 224 NW2d 867 (1975); GCR 1963, 516.7, 785.1; and 1 Michigan Criminal Jury Instructions (Ann Arbor: Institute of Continuing Legal Education), ch 7, § 4, Commentary, pp 7-45-7-48. Here, there was some evidence of self-defense, as distinguished from the situation in Williams where there was no evidence of self-defense. The testimony of Tom Harrington supports the inference that the shooting was preceded by a potentially violent situation during which the victim was aggressive and the defendant was conciliatory, and that the defendant shot the victim as the victim moved towards him with his hands raised after the defendant had withdrawn from the site of the argument. The sufficiency of this theory was for the jury to decide under proper instructions on self-defense from the trial judge.
A defendant need not take the stand and testify in order to merit an instruction on self-defense. Because of the absence of direct evidence, the prosecutor in the instant case was forced to use circumstantial evidence in his attempt to prove that the defendant had the requisite state of mind at the time of the shooting to support a conviction of second-degree murder. Similarly, a defendant may show his state of mind by circumstantial evidence to establish that he acted in self-defense. A ruling to the contrary compromises a defendant’s privilege against self-incrimination and his right to have the prosecutor prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was not acting in self-de*101fense. See US Const, Am V; CJI 7:9:06. By refusing to instruct the jury on self-defense, the trial court deprived the defendant of his primary defense.
Reversed.
Kavanagh, C.J., and Williams, Levin, Coleman, Fitzgerald, and Blair Moody, Jr., JJ., concurred.