Court Opinion

ID: 9683967
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:41:31.888206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:52:26.940067
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(dissenting).
Knowledge of deceased’s general reputation for a violent and dangerous disposition and knowledge of deceased’s specific acts of violence are one and the same in their effect upon the mind of the defendant. Evidence that defendant had knowledge of either tends to prove the reasonableness of his belief of imminent danger to his life. This being so, neither the ends of justice nor the practical administration of the law requires a hard and fast rule that we admit evidence of one and not the other, and each case should be determined on its own facts. See 121 A.L.R. 390-396. Here the prior conviction for armed robbery was not remote, it was known to the defendant, it does not create confusion nor diversion of issues, and bears squarely on defendant’s claim that he had a reasonable ground to believe himself in imminent danger from an assault by the deceased. For these reasons, I would hold it error in this case for the court to keep from the jury defendant’s knowledge of the victim’s prior conviction for violence.