Court Opinion

ID: 9699601
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:40:27.854622+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:54.458318
License: Public Domain

RAKER, J.,
concurring in result only:
I concur in the judgment of the Court only. I would affirm petitioner’s convictions for voluntary manslaughter and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony, but only because I believe, based on the facts of the case before us, that the question presented in the Petition for Certiorari and argued between the majority and dissenting opinions is not properly presented for review by this Court.
Petitioner argues, and the dissent agrees, that the trial court erred in instructing the jury on the applicable law regarding the killing of the perpetrator of a violent felony by the victim of the felony. The thrust of petitioner’s argument is that the victim of an armed robbery has no duty to retreat, but instead can employ deadly force to regain stolen property, even after the threat of deadly force to the victim has dissipated, as long as the robbery itself is still ongoing.1
The State argues, and the Court of Special Appeals and the majority find, that the right to employ deadly force to resist a *221robbery exists only at the moment when such force is necessary to protect against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. See maj. op. at 216-217. Therefore, the majority concludes, the question is not whether the robbery is still ongoing, but whether deadly force is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily harm to the victim of the robbery. See id. at 218-219.
The question, as presented by this appeal, is entirely academic because the argument (of whether the right to employ deadly force to repel an armed robbery continues throughout the course of the robbery or only while the threat of death or serious bodily harm remains) is not properly presented by the trial court’s supplemental self-defense jury instruction to which petitioner objected in this case.
The trial court’s original jury instruction, to which petitioner did not object, was that petitioner did not have the duty to retreat if he “was being robbed at the moment that the force was used ” (emphasis added). After the jury requested additional instructions on murder and voluntary manslaughter, the court gave a supplemental instruction, informing the jury that petitioner did not have the duty to retreat “if at the moment that the shots were fired [he] was being robbed” (emphasis added). Petitioner objected to the supplemental instruction on the basis of the change in language from “at the moment that the force was used” to “at the moment that the shots were fired.”
I simply fail to discern any legal significance to the difference in language in the two instructions. Both are accurate statements of the law of self-defense, and both instructions informed the jury that petitioner did not have the duty to retreat if he was being robbed at the time that he employed deadly force.
More importantly, it is not at all clear how the change from force-being-used, on the one hand, to shots-being-fired, on the other hand, adequately presents the question being argued on this appeal of whether the right to use deadly force to repel an armed robbery continues as long as the robbery is ongoing. Both the original and the supplemental jury instruction re*222quired the same temporal relationship between the robbery and the use of deadly force.2
At trial, petitioner’s counsel objected to the supplemental instruction solely on the ground that its difference in language constituted “commentary,” without any distinct explanation of how it was inadequate or specific suggestion of how the instruction should be amended. Cf. Bowman v. State, 337 Md. 65, 68-69, 650 A.2d 954, 956 (1994) (finding, inter alia, objection to jury instruction on imperfect self-defense waived by failure to offer specific additional instructions at the time of the objection). Petitioner’s duty-to-retreat argument was not presented to the trial court, but was advanced for the first time on appeal. See Maryland Rule 4-325(e) (requiring a party to object promptly to jury instructions and state the grounds of the objection distinctly). In keeping with the well-known tenet that appellate courts should not decide issues unnecessarily, see Philip Morris, Inc. v. Angeletti, 358 Md. 689, 722, 752 A.2d 200, 218 (2000), particularly when such issues were not raised in or decided by the trial court, see Maryland Rule 8-131(a), I would not reach the ground of decision relied upon by the Court of Special Appeals on the facts presented in this appeal. I would reserve resolution of this complex issue for a time when it is more precisely framed for decision by this Court. See, e.g., Blanchfield v. Dennis, 292 Md. 319, 322 n. 3, 438 A.2d 1330, 1332 n. 3 (1982). Therefore, I join the majority only in the judgment to affirm petitioner’s convictions.
Judge RODOWSKY has authorized me to state that he joins in the views expressed herein.

. As the opinion of the Court notes, see maj. op. at 210, Sydnor does not argue that the shooting resulted from an effort to apprehend Jackson for prosecution.

. Such a question might have been ripe for appellate review if petitioner had requested a jury instruction clarifying what was meant by "being robbed” and was denied, but that was not the objection that was made and preserved for review. The particular jury instruction at issue does not require us to resolve the propriety of the part of the self-defense instruction regarding the scope of the robbery. In fact, if anything, the jury instruction given by the trial court in this case was more favorable to petitioner than the majority opinion since it seems to imply that he could have used deadly force as long as he was "being robbed.”