Guthrie v. Warden, Maryland Penitentiary

• Decision Date: 06 July 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-6783,81-6783
• Citation: 683 F.2d 820
• Parties: Walter A. GUTHRIE, # 117801, Appellant, v. WARDEN, MARYLAND PENITENTIARY, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 820

683 F.2d 820

Walter A. GUTHRIE, # 117801, Appellant, v. WARDEN, MARYLAND PENITENTIARY, Appellee.

No. 81-6783.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued Feb. 4, 1982.

Decided July 6, 1982.

Benson Everett Legg, Baltimore, Md. (Venable, Baetjer & Howard, Baltimore, Md., on brief), for appellant.

Stephen Rosenbaum, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Md. (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, Md., on brief), for appellee.

Before WINTER, Chief Judge, HALL, Circuit Judge, and MICHAEL, ^* District Judge.

WINTER, Chief Judge:

Walter H. Guthrie, who was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, appeals from the district court's order denying him a writ of habeas corpus. He attacks the validity of his conviction on the grounds that the jury was unconstitutionally instructed with respect to the elements of the offense and his defenses of intoxication, heat of passion, and self-defense.

Because we think that, read in context, the charge to the jury with respect to the defense of self-defense was constitutionally inadequate, we reverse the order of the district court and direct it to issue the writ unless Guthrie is tried anew within such reasonable period as the district court may fix.

I.

An extensive recitation of the facts is unnecessary, but we begin with a succinct statement of the background of the case.

On October 13, 1970, petitioner, Walter H. Guthrie, hitchhiked a ride with Merle Aul. Guthrie and Aul proceeded to stop at two taverns where they drank beer and whiskey, apparently to excess. As their journey continued, Aul (according to Guthrie) made homosexual advances which Guthrie rebuffed. Guthrie then formed a plan to escape. He persuaded Aul to stop the car and got out, but when Guthrie sought to remove his luggage, Aul threatened to shoot him if he left. Aul pulled a gun (later proved to be a harmless starter's pistol), left the car and advanced on Guthrie. Guthrie, who could not identify the type of gun deployed by Aul, pulled a knife from his pocket and blocked the gun with one hand, as Aul fired two shots. With the other hand, Guthrie, who testified that he was "scared" and "thought the man was going to kill me," stabbed and killed Aul.

Guthrie pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and also entered a general plea of not guilty under which he asserted the defenses of intoxication, heat of passion, and self-defense. The state has conceded that Guthrie's version of the incident was sufficient to generate the issue of self-defense. ¹

The jury instructions which Guthrie attacks will be addressed in the sections of the opinion discussing their validity.

II.

The jury was charged with respect to the law of homicide and told that it could return a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter or not guilty. The jury was then told that "murder is ... the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought," that "(m)alice is ... the intentional doing of a wrongful act to another without legal excuse or justification," and that "(t)he law presumes all unlawful and felonious homicides to be committed with malice aforethought and to constitute murder."

Having laid down a "presumption" that an intentional killing is malicious and therefore constitutes at least second-degree murder, the trial court went on to explain how that presumption could give way to a conviction for first-degree murder or for manslaughter. The court instructed that "to elevate the presumption of second-degree murder to first-degree murder, (the jury) must find that the State has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the murder was willful, deliberate and premeditated or committed in the perpetration of or attempt to perpetrate a robbery." Conversely, the court charged that "the burden is on the accused to reduce the presumption of second-degree murder to manslaughter." (emphasis added).

In charging as to manslaughter, the trial court told the jury that, "(i)n order for the accused to reduce the presumption of second-degree murder to manslaughter, (the accused must show) to the satisfaction of the jury, that the killing was done in the heat of passion which had temporarily dethroned him of his reason, and which was induced by adequate provocation," and that "the burden of showing that he lost control of his reason because of sufficient provocation ... is upon the accused." Further, the jury was told that "a person who uses a deadly weapon such as a knife directed at the vital parts of the body of another person is presumed in law to intend the natural and probable consequences of that act."

Finally, with respect to intoxication, the jury was instructed that while voluntary drunkenness is not a defense to crime, the fact of intoxication may be considered by the jury in determining whether the defendant had the particular motive, purpose or intent which is a necessary element of the crime with which he is charged. In this regard, the jury was further instructed that the accused "must persuade ... the jury, that ... he was so intoxicated as to be incapable of entertaining the specific intent or of possessing the mental state which is an essential element of the crime for which he is being prosecuted."

These instructions need not concern us long because they were found by the district court to violate Guthrie's constitutional rights, and that conclusion is beyond dispute. ² Their invalidity plainly appears from a review of Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975), and Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979). Mullaney held that it violates due process for a state to impose on one accused of homicide the burden of reducing the charge to manslaughter by proving that he acted in the heat of passion upon sudden provocation. See 421 U.S. at 703, 95 S.Ct. at 1892. Under Sandstrom, a jury instruction that " 'the law presumes that a person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts,' " 442 U.S. at 512, 99 S.Ct. at 2453, is unconstitutional whether interpreted as laying down a conclusive presumption or merely a burden-shifting presumption. Id. at 524, 99 S.Ct. at 2459. Both Mullaney and Sandstrom rest on the requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment that the state prove every element of a criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt. See In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970). ³

The instructions in the present case included a literal violation of the Sandstrom rule, for they informed the jury that one who wields a deadly weapon is "presumed in law" to intend the probable consequences unless he presents sufficient evidence to the contrary. Similarly, the instructions were deficient under Mullaney because they imposed on the defendant the burden of negating criminal intent by proving that he acted under the heat of passion or in a state of extreme intoxication. ⁴

Although the district court found that these instructions violated Guthrie's constitutional rights, it held on the authority of Wilkins v. Maryland, 402 F.Supp. 76 (D.Md.1975), aff'd mem., 538 F.2d 327 (4 Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1044, 97 S.Ct. 747, 50 L.Ed.2d 757 (1977), that the errors were cured by the jury's verdict of first-degree murder. We agree. The jury was adequately charged as to the elements of that crime and, "in proving the elements of first degree murder beyond any reasonable doubt in the jurors' minds, the state necessarily disproved manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt." 402 F.Supp. at 80. As the district court stated:

Judge Hamill (the trial judge), after explaining to the jury the elements of second degree murder, adequately stated how the State could elevate the presumption of second degree murder to first degree. In so doing, he instructed the jury that first degree murder requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of premeditation and that premeditation exists if "the killing is not the instant effect of impulse, and if there is hesitation or doubt to be overcome, and a choice to be made as a result of thought, however, short * * *." In other words, he instructed the jurors that premeditation requires some, albeit brief, thought before the act. While Judge Hamill's instructions did not specifically distinguish between premeditation and malice aforethought, and did not define malice aforethought with maximum clarity, his instructions made it sufficiently clear that premeditation and malice aforethought are not synonymous.

The instructions concerning intoxication and heat of passion went only to the distinction between manslaughter and second-degree murder. They did not touch on first-degree murder, the offense of which Guthrie was convicted. We therefore conclude that the erroneous intoxication and heat of passion instructions, standing alone, were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

III.

We are thus brought to the remaining instruction-that relating to self-defense-the constitutional validity of which Guthrie also challenges. His principal contention is that this charge unconstitutionally placed on him the burden of proving self-defense when, under Mullaney, the burden was on the state to disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt. ⁵

The charge given was:

If you find that the defendant in this case had reasonable ground to believe, and did in fact believe, that he was in imminent danger of suffering serious injury, or death, at the hands of the deceased at the time he killed him; and if you further find that any reasonable and prudent person similarly situated, with all the attending circumstances, would have believed that he was in imminent danger of suffering serious bodily injury, or death, at the hands of the deceased, then the defendant would be entitled to be acquitted.

The district court did not rule on the validity of this charge. It expressed the view that the instruction "could perhaps have conveyed to the jury that Guthrie had the burden of proving self...