Court Opinion

ID: 9860878
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:35:07.936364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:50.029156
License: Public Domain

Robert W. Hansen, J.
(dissenting). Defense counsel argues that if there was evidence from which a jury could conclude that defendant had a reasonable belief he had to shoot the victim, it follows there must have been evidence to show that the defendant had an unreasonable belief he was justified in shooting the victim, which would require submission of manslaughter unnecessarily in the exercise of self-defense. (Sec. 940.05 (2), Stats.) This is to argue that, whenever murder and self-defense are submitted to a jury, manslaughter unnecessarily in the exercise of self-defense must also be submitted. Not always so, and not so in this particular case. Depending on their view of the evidence, and the weight and credibility they attached to the testimony of the various witnesses, if the jury believed the state’s witnesses, the defendant walked over to an unarmed man in a tavern, shot and killed him. That would be murder, first or second degree. If they believed the defendant and de*174fense witnesses, when the defendant was within five feet of the victim, the victim spun on his bar stool, “slapped the pistol” in defendant’s face, and the defendant heard a click. At that, the defendant drew his pistol and shot the victim. Defendant stated five or six seconds elapsed between the click of the victim’s gun and a second click that defendant heard when he cocked his gun. That version has the defendant acting in self-defense. Under neither version of what happened does unnecessary force in the exercise of self-defense enter the picture. The strongest argument for defendant’s position comes from this statement in the attorney general’s written brief, to wit: “If five or six seconds elapsed . . . the defendant would have had sufficient time to take other evasive or less drastic means of protecting himself.” If it is true that the defendant might and should have tried to reach for the victim’s gun or urged him not to pull the trigger, then manslaughter by unnecessary force would be required to be submitted to the jury. The writer would suggest that the assistant attorney general who made the above observation never faced a loaded pistol in unfriendly hands or had five or six seconds to decide how to prevent his own immediate demise. If the victim had a gun and pointed it at the defendant, who was five feet away, with or without a click indicating that the gun had been cocked or had misfired, the writer would hold that the defendant was entitled to shoot the gun-pointing assailant. Five or six intervening seconds created no obligation or opportunity to do otherwise. This was an either-or situation. The defendant placed all of his eggs in the basket of having acted in self-defense in response to a loaded gun being pointed at him. When the jury, as trier of fact, rejected defendant’s claim that the victim had carried and pointed a gun at defendant, no different but reasonable view of the evidence remained, except that the defendant walked over to an unarmed man on a barstool in a tavern and *175shot him twice and killed him. That would and could only be murder, first or second degree. Not being self-defense at all, it could not be manslaughter by use of unnecessary force in the exercise of self-defense. The writer would affirm.