Court Opinion

ID: 9825385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:50:58.205595+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:18.217307
License: Public Domain

BROWN, P. J.
The refusal of charge 6 requested by the defendant is made the basis of the only serious contention advanced by able counsel for appellant for a reversal of the judgment appealed from. The charge, aft it appears in the record before us, is as follows :
“(6) I charge you that if the defendant had in good faith retired from the difficulty, and that he thereafter did nothing to provoke a fur*76ther difficulty, and did not enter willingly into' any further difficulty, and that there arose a situation wherein he was in either real or apparent imminent danger of loss of life or grievous bodily harm, and the appearances were such at the time to impress upon the mind of a reasonably prudent person that there was such real or apparent imminent danger, and the defendant had no mode or means of retreat without increasing his real or apparent peril, then the defendant should not be convicted of any offense, provided defendant honestly entertained the belief that he was in real or apparent imminent peril to his life or grievous bodily hurt when he fired the shot at Jim McCowen.” (Italics supplied.)
[1] If the peril of. the defendant was not real, but merely apparent, and the defendant knew or honestly believed that his peril was not real, but was merely apparent, he would nqt be justified in making a deadly assault to extricate himself from such apparent peril. To justify under such circumstances the party resorting to extreme measures must entertain the honest belief that his peril is real and imminent. Shep Owen and John Berry Cheatwood v. State, 81 South. 365;1 Bluett v. State, 151 Ala. 41, 44 South. 84. The refusal of the charge was not error.
The other questions presented are not insisted upon, and we find nothing that warrants further notice.
Affirmed.

Ante, p. 29.