Cessna v. Com.
| Decision Date | 26 March 1971 |
| Citation | 465 S.W.2d 283 |
| Parties | Hugh Carrol CESSNA, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Kentucky, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
Kenneth N. Ragland, Calhoun, John D. Miller, Owensboro, for appellant.
John B. Breckinridge, Atty. Gen., Douglas E. Johnson, Asst. Atty. Gen., Frankfort, for appellee.
Hugh Carrol Cessna was indicted for murder in the slaying of B. C. Lynn. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and his punishment fixed at two years in the penitentiary. Cessna appeals. We reverse.
Appellant Cessna, aged 25, was married to Shirley Cessna, aged 22. They had two children. The decedent, B. C. Lynn, was older, married, and had four children. Lynn and Shirley had been closer than friends before the incident occurred which resulted in the fatal shooting. They had been dating for over a year. Cessna had objected rather strenuously to this extramarital relationship. On one occasion Cessna and Lynn had a fist fight, precipitated by Shirley's and the decedent's being together.
On the day the decedent was slain, the appellant had been searching for his wife for several hours. He found her about dark in a pickup truck with decedent in a secluded spot near Sebree, Kentucky. The appellant stopped his motor vehicle, and as he walked toward the truck he fired his pistol, the bullet striking the truck's windshield. The appellant went to the driver's side of the truck. It is not clear whether the appellant or the decedent opened the door. Appellant fired two shots at Lynn, who later expired in a hospital. The medical testimony disclosed that the decedent had three distinct wounds: one a superficial wound on his chest; one in his shoulder; and one in his throat.
The appellant stated that when the truck door was opened the decedent grabbed the appellant's clothing and threatened to kill him. He testified it was at this point that he fired his pistol twice, one of the bullets penetrating the throat of the deceased. Appellant claimed self-defense.
The trial court refused to permit the appellant to testify concerning previous threats made toward him by the decedent. This was prejudicial error, for the evidence should not have been excluded where self-defense was claimed. Under the circumstances in this case, with the wife involved, the evidence of prior threats was related to the events leading up to the fatal shooting. They were not too remote in time. It was competent to prove the statements that were made a reasonable time before the alleged crime, as certainly the threats made by the decedent to take the life of appellant tended to affect appellant's mental state at the time of the shooting and justify his alleged fear. On another trial if this testimony is offered, it should be admitted. Carnes v. Commonwealth, Ky., 453 S.W.2d 595.
After the appellant had been arrested and given the Miranda warnings (Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 448, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694), the arresting officer requested appellant's wife to tell him what had happened. This was in the presence of the accused. The wife detailed the events as they occurred after the appellant arrived on the scene. The appellant remained silent, making to effort to refute the incriminating statements of his wife. The officer reduced these revelations to writing, and the court permitted this detailed, chronological statement to be read to the jury over the appellant's objection.
Appellants' wife had invoked the provisions of KRS 421.210 and refused to testify against her husband. The reading of her statement at the trial was, in essence, her testimony of the events that took place on that fatal late afternoon. Her statements strongly incriminated her husband.
The general rule is that such admissions or accusations are admissible if made in the presence of the accused when the accused had opportunity, or was reasonably called upon, to deny them, unless the circumstances were such that he was not free to contradict or...
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...R. Lawson, The Kentucky Evidence Law Handbook § 2.15, at 70-71 (3d ed. Michie 1993) (citing as examples, Cessna v. Commonwealth, Ky., 465 S.W.2d 283, 284-85 (1971); Carnes v. Commonwealth, Ky., 453 S.W.2d 595, 598 (1970); Fannon v. Commonwealth, 295 Ky. 817, 175 S.W.2d 531, 533-34 (1943); W......
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