Court Opinion

ID: 9811880
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:32:02.123203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:14.954216
License: Public Domain

BaeNHILL, J.,
dissenting: In my opinion, when the charge is considered contextually, no harmful error appears.
The court repeatedly charged that the necessity upon which the right of self-defense rests may be either real or apparent. It is so stated in the excerpt quoted in the majority opinion.
*776Likewise, it charged that “where a person thinks” he is abont to be assaulted and he has reasonable grounds to believe that he is about to suffer death or great bodily harm he has the right to defend himself, even to the extent of taking human life. This was repeated more than once.
But I need not elaborate upon this phase of the case, for, in my opinion, there is a stronger reason why we should conclude that the error in the quoted excerpt is harmless.
There is no evidence of a felonious assault or threatened assault. At most defendant can only show that he believed a felonious assault was about to be made upon him. So concludes the majority opinion. -
There is not a particle of evidence which should cause a person, in the exercise of ordinary firmness, to apprehend that it was more dangerous to retreat than to stand his ground and repel the anticipated attack. The defendant merely pyramided his fears — none of which were well founded. He thought it was Jesse Rogers; he thought he was armed and looking for trouble; he thought he was about to make a felonious assault upon him.
Defendant was not in his own home. He was in one room, and his imaginary assailant was in the adjoining room. He had ample opportunity to retreat. I submit, then, that on the facts in this case it was the duty of defendant to retreat and. avoid the difficulty he apprehended was about to occur. ■ Being armed for combat, he elected instead to stand his ground and shoot when no occasion for shooting in his own defense had arisen. To my mind there is no other conclusion to be drawn from the evidence. Hence, the submission of the issue to the jury was more favorable to him than he had any right to demand, and any error in the charge in that respect is harmless.
The law of self-defense is not' fashioned to suit the needs of the person who is armed and looking for trouble. Nor does it protect the cowardly or unusually apprehensive person. It should not avail the defendant here.
In the final analysis this is just a case where too many men were attempting to visit the same woman at the same time. Defendant was the first on the ground and apparently the favored one. He caused the first interloper to leave, and he shot the second. He should pay the penalty of the law.
I vote to affirm.