Court Opinion

ID: 9667852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:56:21.604543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:41.197803
License: Public Domain

DROWOTA, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
While I concur with the result of the majority opinion insofar as the evidence in this case will not sustain the jury’s finding that Defendant, James C. Thornton, III, is guilty of murder in the first degree, I must respectfully dissent from the holding of the majority that the conviction should be reduced to voluntary manslaughter. Because the evidence clearly establishes that Defendant acted with sufficient malice, the killing constitutes murder in the second degree.
In this case, the facts demonstrate that the events on the evening of May 3, 1983, took place over about a four hour period between approximately 7:30 and 11:30 p.m. Without reciting the evidence extensively, I summarize the evidence here to emphasize the sequence and timing of the events and Defendant’s state of mind during this period. After returning to the marital home following dinner with his estranged wife and son, Defendant went to his apartment several miles away, arriving there sometime close to 7:30 p.m. He was tense, distraught, and depressed and decided to make telephone calls to mutual friends of his and his wife to discuss his problems. These telephone conversations continued until about 8:30 p.m. In his desperation, Defendant returned to the marital home to talk to his wife again and upon arriving discovered an unfamiliar car parked in the *316driveway. Aware that his wife might be dating someone, Defendant parked some distance away and stealthily made his way to the rear of the house to see who was visiting his wife. Defendant’s wife testified that the victim, Mark A. McConkey, had arrived at the house close to 8:30 p.m., her date with him having been pre-ar-ranged earlier that same day. Defendant saw his son playing in the den while his wife and the victim, whom he did not recognize, were kissing and embracing. He described his emotional state as one of shock and a sickening fear. He was upset at seeing his wife being embraced by another man in front of his child. Not unreasoning, however, in view of a pending divorce, Defendant determined to return to his apartment to get his camera to take photographs of his wife’s adulterous rendezvous. Before departing, Defendant deflated the left rear tire of the victim’s car.
At about 9:00 p.m., according to the wife’s testimony, their son was put to bed in the master bedroom on the second floor of the house. She testified that for about two hours after putting her son to bed, she and Mr. McConkey ate, read, and did laundry in the kitchen and den area on the first floor of the house. Evidently, Defendant left before his son was put to bed. At his apartment, Defendant changed clothes, obtained his camera, which had flash and telescopic lens attachments, and his loaded .45 caliber service automatic pistol. Having no film for the camera, Defendant was required to stop at two places before finding film, purchasing some at a Walgreen’s Drugstore at about 9:30 p.m. He loaded the camera and drove back to his wife’s neighborhood, parked around the corner from the house, and again walked to the marital home. The first photograph he took was of the license plate on the rear of the victim’s car. Defendant then went behind the house to look into the windows of the kitchen and den. His wife and Mr. McConkey were in the den reading. Defendant watched this scene for some time, feeling despondent. Eventually, he saw his wife go to Mr. McConkey and lie down on top of him on the couch; they became affectionate, kissing and talking. At this point he started taking a series of twelve to fifteen photographs. Anger started welling up in him, yet he did nothing more than make photographs. They got up to complete Mr. McConkey’s laundry. After folding the laundry, Defendant’s wife and Mr. McConkey turned off the lights in the kitchen and den and carried the laundry to the front of the house. Believing or hoping that the victim would then be leaving, Defendant waited at the rear of the house for a short time and then walked around to the front; he saw Mr. McConkey’s car still parked in the driveway. Noticing that the curtains to the guest bedroom were drawn, Defendant feared that his wife and the victim had retired to this bedroom. He drew closer to the window to listen and heard the sounds of two persons engaged in sexual relations. Defendant testified that his head started to swim and that he felt sickened.
Suddenly, at approximately 11:15 p.m., Defendant, a small man, kicked through the locked front doors of the house and went directly to the guest room. The room was dark but the door was open. His camera ready to take photographs, Defendant switched the lights on; the first thing he saw was his nude wife. Mr. McConkey, nude but covered with a sheet, was on the side of the bed nearest to the door. Defendant’s first reaction was to attempt to take photographs but he could not focus the camera. He then reached down and jerked the sheet off of Mr. McConkey. Again he attempted to take a photograph but without success. While trying to work the camera, thinking that he saw the victim’s hands reaching towards him in his peripheral vision, Defendant drew the loaded pistol from his coat pocket. Defendant testified that at this moment he lost control and began screaming, the pistol in his hand, saying to Mr. McConkey: “I ought to teach you screwing around with somebody else’s wife. I ought to shoot you in the ass.” He further testified that he intentionally pointed the muzzle of the pistol at the victim’s lower body. He didn’t remember cocking the single action pistol but the pistol discharged, the bullet striking Mr. *317McConkey in the left rear hip, passing completely through the abdomen to lodge in a wall. Defendant also testified that when he pulled the pistol, Mr. McConkey had retreated and turned away from him, exposing his left rear side to him. After being shot, the victim pulled himself off of the bed and tried to push the bed between himself and Defendant, who again was trying to take a photograph. When he realized that Mr. McConkey was injured, Defendant regained sufficient control of himself to disarm the weapon. He subsequently gave instructions on the telephone to assist an ambulance in .locating the address. At about 11:41 p.m., the first police officers arrived on the scene. Asked what had happened, Defendant stated: “He was in bed with my wife and I shot him. I don’t know what came over me.” Defendant was then arrested.
None of the evidence in this case is sufficient to sustain a verdict of first degree murder. As this Court observed in State v. Bullington, 532 S.W.2d 556, 559-560 (Tenn.1976):
“The premeditation-deliberation element of first degree murder requires that the act be performed with a cool purpose.... In order to constitute murder in the first degree, the cool purpose must be formed and the deliberate intention conceived in the mind of the accused, in the absence of passion, to take the life of the person slain.... If the purpose to kill is first formed during the heat of passion, the accused, to be guilty of first degree murder, must have committed the act after the passion has subsided. ‘Passion’ as here used means any of the human emotions known as anger, rage, sudden resentment or terror which renders the mind incapable of cool reflection.” (Citations omitted.)
I think that Defendant did not act after a cooling off period and thus a conviction of first degree murder cannot be supported on these facts. See also Clarke v. State, 218 Tenn. 259, 267-268, 402 S.W.2d 863, 867-868, cert. denied 385 U.S. 942, 87 S.Ct. 303, 17 L.Ed.2d 222 (1966). Although the State argues with force and logic that these facts demonstrate premeditation and sustain the jury’s verdict, as this Court observed in Drye v. State, 181 Tenn. 637, 646, 184 S.W.2d 10, 13 (1944):
“That [defendant’s] actions in procuring the weapon and seeking contact with his wife appeared deliberate and determined, is not persuasive that his passion had cooled. Suppressed anger is a common accompaniment of passion, the deepest and most powerful emotion, and of a determination beyond control to carry through a design formed in passion. Nor is the fact that he was relatively calm after the event inconsistent. Having discharged the weapon, his mind recoiled into calm....”
The law is well established that the presence and amount of passion will affect the degree of a homicide; however, “[i]n order to reduce second degree murder to voluntary manslaughter, it must be shown that the defendant acted upon a sudden heat of passion, without malice.” State v. Estes, 655 S.W.2d 179, 183 (Tenn.Cr.App.), perm, to app. denied (Tenn.1983) (citation omitted; emphasis in original). See also State v. Morgan, 541 S.W.2d 385, 390 (Tenn.1976). Malice is evident on the facts of this case and “is an essential element of both murder in the first degree and murder in the second degree.” State v. Martin, 702 S.W.2d 560, 563 (Tenn.1985).
“Malice is not necessarily confined to an intention to take the life of the deceased, but includes an intention to do any unlawful act which may probably result in depriving the party of life. It is not so much spite or malevolence to the individual in particular as an evil design in general, the dictates of a wicked and depraved and malignant heart.”
Bailey v. State, 479 S.W.2d 829, 834 (Tenn.Cr.App.1972).
Aside from the use of a firearm, which in itself permits an inference of malice, State v. Martin, supra, at 563, Defendant threatened the victim immediately before the weapon discharged, striking the victim precisely where Defendant threatened to shoot. Defendant intentionally aimed the weapon at the victim to avoid a fatal wound, but this inadequate precaution was *318insufficient to prevent the foreseeable consequence of death from a serious wound at close range with a large caliber weapon. Cf. State v. Taylor, 668 S.W.2d 681, 683 (Tenn.Cr.App.), perm, to app. denied (Tenn.1984) (Defendant failed to lower the weapon sufficiently to prevent a mortal wound). In Ferguson v. State, 528 S.W.2d 64, 65 (Tenn.Cr.App.), cert. denied (Tenn.1975), the use of a firearm coupled with threatening statements supported the finding of malice to sustain a conviction for second degree murder. Other evidence of malice exists in this record as well,1 but these two facts are sufficient to negate the majority’s conclusions that no malice exists and that Defendant is guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
Furthermore, assuming that Defendant was provoked to act when he heard the sounds of sexual relations emanating from the guest room and was provoked to such an extent that he was able to break through the locked front doors, he did not fire immediately upon entering the bedroom but instead attempted to take photographs and then threatened the victim before the gun discharged. These actions preceding the shooting do not indicate that Defendant’s reason had been so overcome by passion and excitement to make him incapable of malice. See Davis v. State, 161 Tenn. 23, 35, 28 S.W.2d 993, 996 (1930). For a killing to be considered voluntary manslaughter, absence of malice as well as sufficient provocation are among the required elements of the offense. Any killing that is not first degree murder but cannot constitute a lesser offense of manslaughter is second degree murder. See T.C.A. § 39-2-211. Defendant acted in passion and without any previously formed design to kill, but he didn’t act without malice at the time of the shooting. The reasoning of the Court in Drye v. State, supra, is applicable here:
“[I]f the killing is done in passion, the offense is not murder in the first degree; if in passion adequately provoked and acted on before the passion has cooled, it is voluntary manslaughter; and, if in passion in fact, although the provocation be insufficient to reduce the offense to manslaughter, it will nevertheless be murder in the second degree only.”
181 Tenn. at 644, 184 S.W.2d at 13.
Similarly, as in this case, if a killing is provoked but committed with malice, it will constitute second degree murder because not every element of voluntary manslaughter is shown but every element of second degree murder is shown on the facts. Consequently, I would reduce the conviction to second degree murder.

. For instance, Mr. McConkey asked Defendant not to shoot; he was retreating at the time the Defendant’s weapon discharged and was shot from the rear. That Defendant deflated one of Mr. McConkey’s tires may also be some evidence of malice.