Grace v. State, 51496
| Decision Date | 03 October 1979 |
| Docket Number | No. 51496,51496 |
| Citation | 375 So.2d 419 |
| Parties | Dewey GRACE v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Wilbourn & Rogers, Richard E. Wilbourn, Don O. Rogers, Meridian, for appellant.
A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Catherine Walker Underwood, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
Before SMITH, LEE and BOWLING, JJ.
Dewey Grace was charged by indictment with aggravated assault upon Harold Clark, a police officer. He was tried on that charge in the Circuit Court of Lauderdale County, convicted, and sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment.
On appeal here, Grace assigns as error the action of the trial court in declining to instruct the jury that, upon the evidence, it might convict Grace of the lesser offense of simple assault.
The case for the State may be summarized as follows:
At about 2:00 o'clock in the morning, Clark, a police officer, was on duty at his desk near the front door of the police station in the City of Meridian. Immediately outside the double front glass doors of the building were parking spaces which were visible to Clark from his position at the desk through the front doors and flanking glass panels of door size. A car pulled up and parked in the first space, which was the space nearest the doors, and just outside. Clark heard a woman's scream, followed by a shot. He went outside immediately and saw that there was a woman seated at the wheel of the car but that next to her and very close to her was a man. As Clark started to approach the car, this man leaned across and shot him with a pistol. It was afterward determined that the woman had been shot in her right side. The shot which struck Clark shattered the bone in his arm. At once, following this shot, the man, afterward identified as Grace, from the passenger side of the bench type front seat began backing the car rapidly, knocking Clark, who had tried to dodge behind the car, to the ground to the left rear of the car. Grace then reversed and ran forward over Clark, breaking his collarbone and several ribs. Grace continued across the street, wrecking the car against a telephone pole.
By this time, another officer had emerged from the station and this officer started across the street toward the wrecked car, but as he approached it, Grace, who had gotten out, was standing beside the car with a pistol aimed at the officer, saying to the officer "Come on you m f ." The officer retreated and, observing Clark who had been grievously injured and required attention, went to him. Grace disappeared from the scene and was not seen again by the officers that night.
The defense offered by Grace was to the effect that he had been drinking over a period of several hours and had gotten drunk. He said that he had "found the pistol" under the car seat and had never seen it before. Grace said that he tried to unload it and it went off (this was the shot that struck the woman in the side), and that the car had then struck the curb with such force that the pistol went off again, this being the shot that hit Clark. After knocking Clark down with the automobile as Grace drove it backwards from the passenger side of the bench type front seat, Grace reversed direction and ran over Clark. These acts Grace attributes to the fact that he was intoxicated.
The court granted instructions, at Grace's request, among others, which told the jury:
(U)nless the Jury believes beyond every reasonable doubt from the evidence produced by the State in this case that the defendant, Dewey Grace, committed the acts complained of purposely, knowingly and with the intent to cause serious bodily injury to Harold Clark, then it is your sworn duty to find the defendant, Dewey Grace, not guilty.
(T)he term "wilfully" used in these instructions means that the defendant knowingly and intentionally committed the acts, and that he did them with a corrupt design or purpose.
(T)he terms "purposely and knowingly" as used in these instructions means that the defendant did the act intentionally and with an awareness and consciousness of what he was doing and not by mistake, inadvertence or accident.
(W)ilfulness (sic) and purposely and knowing (sic) causing the injury...
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Walker v. State
...offense is an invitation to the jury to disregard the law. Presley v. State, 321 So.2d 309, 310 (Miss.1975); see also Grace v. State, 375 So.2d 419, 420 (Miss.1979). Furthermore, "`[l]esser-included offense instructions should be given if there is an evidentiary basis in the record that wou......
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Howell v. State
...should refuse to do so. Unwarranted submission of a lesser offense is an invitation to the jury to disregard the law. See Grace v. State, 375 So.2d 419, 420 (Miss.1979). ¶ 140. We find that this assignment of error is without XV. Instruction D-3, Weight of Evidence ¶ 141. Howell argues that......
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Scott v. State
...should refuse to do so. Unwarranted submission of a lesser offense is an invitation to the jury to disregard the law. See Grace v. State, 375 So.2d 419, 420 (Miss.1979). ¶ 88. The Court further stated [L]esser-included offense instructions should be given if there is an evidentiary basis in......
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Carter v. State, 2000-KA-00758-SCT.
...should refuse to do so. Unwarranted submission of a lesser offense is an invitation to the jury to disregard the law. See Grace v. State, 375 So.2d 419, 420 (Miss.1979). ¶ 35. Pierce requested that a manslaughter instruction be given to the jury. However, Pierce did not submit a jury instru......