Court Opinion

ID: 9825386
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 12:50:58.211795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:40:46.321685
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
[2] That there is, in contemplation of law, a clear distinction between “actual impending peril,” and “apparent impending peril” there can be no question. In a cáse of actual impending peril, the law makes no'inquiry as to the existence of such circumstances as would impress a reasonable man with the honest belief that impending ” peril existed, nor as to the honest belief of the defendant in such peril (O’Rear v. State, 188 Ala. 71, 66 South. 81), while in the case of apparent impending peril, which means no more than that the defendant is surrounded by such circumstances at the*time he acts as would impress upon the mind of a reasonable person that he is in actual peril of losing his life or suffering grievous bodily harm and that he cannot retreat without increasing his peril (though, in fact, no such peril exists), if he honestly believe there is an impending necessity to strike to save himself from death or grievous harm, the law, applying the rule that men can .only be judged as ordinary men, because .that is the only standard of men known to the law, justifies him. O’Rear v. State, supra; Bluett v. State, 161 Ala. 17, 49 South. 854; s. c. 151 Ala. 41, 44 South. 84; Dolan v. State, 81 Ala. 11, 1 South. 707; De Arman v. State, 71 Ala. 351.
[3] Though the peril is merely apparent,, not actual, nevertheless, so far as the defendant’s honest belief is concerned, it must be actual and imminent. Dolan v. State, supra. An honest belief that the peril is merely apparent has no place in the law of self-defense, and herein lies one of the vices of the charge in question. By the use of the terms “real or apparent” in juxtaposition in the sentence, “provided the defendant Honestly entertain the belief that he was in real or apparent peril to his life,” the charge undertakes to inculcate the idea that if the circumstances surrounding the defendant were such as to impress a reasonable man with the belief that the defendant was in impending peril, and the defendant honestly believed that his peril was merely apparent, not actual, and there was in fact no real necessity to strike, yet he would be justified.
The charge was subject to the further vice of using the term “real or apparent” in the sentence:
“And the appearances were such at the'time •to impress upon the mind of a reasonably prudent parson that there was such real or apparent imminent danger.”
These vices justified the refusal of the charge, and the application is overruled.
Application' overruled.