Court Opinion

ID: 9672271
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:51:48.167081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:15.156428
License: Public Domain

Kelly, J.
{concurring in reversal). I agree with Brother O’Hara that reversible error in the charge to the jury calls for a reversal of the judgment of conviction and a new trial, but I disagree with his conclusion that the testimony justifies a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree.
The relationship existing between defendant and deceased during the approximately six years they lived next to eaeh other as neighbors is set forth in the people’s brief:
“Prior to the shooting, the deceased and the defendant were cordial and friendly, although they had little contact. The defendant was known by the deceased and the widow as always being a quiet, mild-*439mannered, retiring individual and a good neighbor, uniformly well liked. There had never been an angry word between the deceased and the defendant.”
The record establishes clearly that while decedent’s erection of the string boundary agitated defendant’s wife, it did not in any way create in defendant an animus or malice toward deceased.
My Brother’s opinion briefly sets forth the fact that as defendant was in his basement an altercation and argument took place between deceased and defendant’s wife and the opinion properly states “both people were in a frenzied rage,” and that deceased threatened defendant’s wife with a physical attack.
That this argument was intense but brief is described in appellee’s brief as follows:
“There was name calling, shouting, and loud argument. A neighbor, some several hundred feet away, later described the noise as ‘like a hornet’s nest.’ The shouting lasted only a few minutes and ended when the gun was heard, which provoked the neighbor’s wife to remark to her husband, ‘You don’t suppose he (the deceased) shot her.’ ”
That the defendant’s wife realized the tragic part she played in the shooting was evidenced by her daughter’s testimony that immediately after the shooting, “She just sat there, said over and over to herself, ‘Oh, my god, why did I pull the stakes up? It’s all my fault. It’s all my fault. Milton, what did I do to you?’ ”
The police were called immediately after the shooting and arrived at defendant’s home very shortly thereafter, took defendant into custody and brought him to the police station. Before anyone had an opportunity to visit with him, or before any attorney had contacted him, defendant’s lengthy *440statement was taken. I quote from appellee’s brief in regard to that statement:
“In his statement taken that night, the defendant said that the deceased struck his wife, that, somehow or other, he must have put the bullet into the gun,, ‘that he pointed the gun toward the deceased, yelled to the deceased something to the effect, “knock it off” or, “cut it out” or, “stop,” or something.’ He stated ‘I don’t know whether I figured on hitting him or scaring him.’ ‘When I hollered something at him— at the same time I pulled the trigger.’ And the deceased went down. He went back into the house, laid the gun down on the cedar chest in the bedroom and waited for the police.”
Testifying in his own behalf, when asked if he intended to kill, defendant answered: “Never. I wasn’t mad at the man,” and when asked if he could give his reasons for shooting, defendant said: “No. I don’t believe I can. All I was interested in was my wife, and I thought he was going to do bodily damage to her.”
This Court for a century or more has made clear the meaning of the word “malice” in distinguishing murder from manslaughter, both with respect to the State’s duty and the defendant’s rights.
In 1862, Justice Christiancy, in Maher v. People, 10 Mich 212 (81 Am Dec 781), established the fact that when we refer to “malice” as a necessary element of murder, we refer to acts that are prompted or spring from (p 219) “a wicked, depraved or malignant mind,” under conditions that did not create excitement or provocation “liable to give undue control to passion in ordinary men” and, in this same case, this Court made it clear that a presumption of innocence must be considered in determining malice, stating (p 218) “every man is presumed innocent of the offense with which'he is charged till he is proved to be guilty, this presumption must apply equally *441to both ingredients of the offense—to the malice as well as to the killing.”
In People v. Potter, 5 Mich 1 (71 Am Dec 763), the Court made it clear that while a presumption of malice attends a killing with a deadly weapon, yet there is a limitation to this presumption, stating (p9):
“Now, it is true, as charged, that if the act of killing was proved, the presumption of law is that it was done with malice aforethought; but this rule only obtains where there is an entire absence of qualifying or explanatory evidence involved in, or deducible from, the manner of the killing. But, malice aforethought is as much an essential ingredient of murder in the second degree, as in that of the first. Without this, the killing would be only manslaughter, if criminal at all.”
The trial court instructed the jury:
In re second-degree murder: “This offense charged here is that of second-degree murder. In this offense there is a design, an intent to take human life. But in this the premeditation is not present as in first-degree murder. In second-degree murder there is malice but it arises suddenly and previous to the killing and is not premeditated.”
In re manslaughter: “It is the offense committed without malice or premeditation and as a result of temporary excitement in which the control of the reason is disturbed rather than from any wickedness of heart or cruelty or reckless disposition.”
In re malice: “Malice * * * includes not only anger, ill will, hatred and revenge, but every unlawful and unjustifiable motive.”
There is no proof in the record before us of a design to take life, no anger, ill will, hatred, or revenge in this defendant, who is properly described by Jus-*442tiee O’Hara as a “mild-mannered, almost self-effacing person,” and who is admitted by the people to be “a quiet, mild-manner, retiring individual,” who had lived for six years as deceased’s neighbor on cordial, friendly terms, without an angry word.
There is no testimony in this record to support the contention that defendant had “a wicked, depraved or malignant mind.”
If defendant committed any crime, it was within the court’s definition of manslaughter, namely: “As a result of temporary excitement in which the control of the reason is disturbed,” such excitement having been caused by the “hornet’s nest” altercation between deceased and defendant’s wife—an altercation described by Justice O’Hara where “both people were in a frenzied rage,” with deceased calling defendant’s wife insulting and profane names and threatening her physical harm.
In a December, 1962, decision* we dealt with a case where defendant was charged with first-degree murder and convicted of second-degree murder. In our opinion we called attention to the fact that the “undisputed evidence establishes that defendant was excited and afraid for himself and his family,” and in reversing the conviction and remanding for further proceedings, we said (pp 351-353):
“The record fails to disclose any fact that would justify a conclusion that premeditation existed or that there was intent to kill. Clearly, there was no circumstance shown indicating malice aforethought; and if the jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, we would have set it aside as being unsupported by the evidence. See People v. Marshall, 366 Mich 498. * * *
“There is absolutely nothing in the record which could possibly establish an inference in any reason*443able person’s mind that the defendant shot at the deceased with malice aforethought, either express or implied.
“We conclude, then, that the charge with reference to murder ought to have been omitted and that it was reversible error for the trial court to instruct with reference to first-degree murder! See People v. Stahl, 234 Mich 569, with reference to how defendant was prejudiced by this charge when there was no evidence to support the charge. See, also, People v. Gessinger, 238 Mich 625, and People v. Marshall, supra.
“We conclude, also, that there was no evidence from which maliee could be inferred sufficient to justify the verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree.
“We find, therefore, that reversible error was committed in submitting the charge with reference to both first-degree murder and second-degree murder.”
While the jury rejected in our present case the charge of second-degree murder, defendant should not again be subjected to a possible compromise verdict and the charge on retrial should be manslaughter and not second-degree murder.
Kavanagh, C. J., and Dethmers and Smith, JJ., concurred with Kelly, J.

 People v. Hansen, 368 Mich 344.