Court Opinion

ID: 9704678
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:42:49.990757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:04.387182
License: Public Domain

Grant, J.,
dissenting in part.
I agree with the holding of the court that defendant’s act of killing was not justifiable as' self-defense. I dissent from the holding of the court affirming the trial court’s determination that defendant’s act constituted second degree murder.
This court has stated that “ ‘malice and intent may be inferred from the evidence relating to the circumstances of the criminal act.’ ” State v. Rowe, 214 Neb. 685, 690, 335 N.W.2d 309, 313 (1983). The malice sufficient to support a finding of guilt in the second degree murder in the Rowe case was shown by the victim’s fractured skull, a potentially lethal injury, which, however, did not cause death because the victim (Rowe’s wife) bled to death from a large incision from below the breastbone to the pubic area and the partial amputation of the victim’s left breast.
In State v. Partee, 199 Neb. 305, 258 N.W.2d 634 (1977), cited in State v. Rowe, supra, a conviction of murder in the *205second degree also was affirmed. In Partee the finding of defendant’s malice was based on the fact that the victim (the wife of Partee) was “brutally and relentlessly beaten, and part of her scalp was torn away.” 199 Neb. at 312, 258 N.W.2d at 639.
In this case the relationship of defendant and decedent as friends disintegrated, after 5 or 6 hours of drinking, into a drunken brawl resulting in this senseless killing. In my opinion, as a matter of law, the 62-year-old debilitated defendant displayed no more “malice” toward the 31-year-old robust decedent than that displayed by any participant in such an unevenly matched brawl or “sudden quarrel.” Defendant did not display malice which would warrant a conviction of second degree murder.
In my opinion defendant was guilty of the crime of manslaughter and should have been sentenced accordingly.