Law v. State
| Decision Date | 21 July 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 674S119,674S119 |
| Citation | 406 N.E.2d 1185,273 Ind. 624 |
| Parties | Richard L. LAW, Appellant (Defendant below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff below). |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
Barrie C. Tremper, Public Defender, Fort Wayne, for appellant.
Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Wesley T. Wilson, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
The defendant, Richard L. Law, was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder, Ind.Code § 35-1-54-1 (Burns 1975), and sentenced to a term of fifteen to twenty-five years. 1 He now appeals raising the issue of the alleged reversible error of the trial court in giving one of the state's instructions over his timely objection.
The facts from the record most favorable to the state show that defendant and a friend were drinking in a tavern in Indianapolis on October 3, 1972, when the victim, Louis Hildreth, came into the tavern and approached the two men. Hildreth said that he was from Detroit and was lost. He asked the men to show him how to get back to College Avenue and said he would then drive them back to the tavern. The three men got into Hildreth's car, with Hildreth driving.
After going some distance towards College Avenue, Hildreth pulled into a filling station. He told defendant and his friend to get out and said he was not going to take them back because he was black and the tavern was in a white neighborhood. An argument ensued which resulted in Hildreth being beaten and put in the trunk of the car. Defendant's friend took three dollars out of Hildreth's pocket and walked away. Defendant deliberately set fire to the front seat of the car and when he saw the car in flames, ran to a friend's home. Hildreth was found to have died from carbon monoxide intoxication. Defendant entered a plea of not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. Two court-appointed psychiatrists testified that in their opinion he was sane at the time of the crime.
The trial court gave four of defendant's requested instructions on insanity and one of the state's requested instructions covering the definition of a "mental defect." It is well settled that instructions must be considered as a whole and with reference to each other, and error in a particular instruction will not justify a reversal unless the error is of such a nature that the whole charge of which it forms a part misleads the jury as to the law of the case. Porter v. State, (1979) Ind., 391 N.E.2d 801; Washington v. State, (1979) Ind., 390 N.E.2d 983; Ferrier v. State, (1977) 266 Ind. 117, 361 N.E.2d 150.
In this case, the court gave defendant's Instruction Number One as follows:
This is an accurate statement of the present rule on insanity. Hill v. State, (1969) 252 Ind. 601, 251 N.E.2d 429. The court also gave defendant's Instruction Number Seven which adequately covered the issue of the state's burden of proof on insanity. The court further gave two more of defendant's instructions which dealt with temporary insanity.
The allegedly erroneous instruction was the state's Instruction Number Seven which was given as follows:
"The Court instructs you that the definition of the word 'defect' as used in the definition of insanity is as follows: A defect is a condition which is not considered capable of either improving or deteriorating and which may be either congenital, or the result of injury, or the residual effect of a physical or mental disease."
Defendant argues that this instruction was incomplete because it did not...
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