Mayes v. State

• Decision Date: 13 March 2001
• Docket Number: No. 49S00-0002-CR-92.,49S00-0002-CR-92.
• Parties: Kenneth MAYES, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

744 N.E.2d 390

Kenneth MAYES, Appellant-Defendant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee-Plaintiff.

No. 49S00-0002-CR-92.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

March 13, 2001.

Paul T. Fulkerson, Skiles & Cook, Indianapolis, IN, Attorney for Appellant.

Karen M. Freeman-Wilson, Attorney General of Indiana, Grant H. Carlton, Deputy Attorney General, Indianapolis, IN, Attorneys for Appellee.

RUCKER, Justice.

Indiana's self-defense statute essentially provides that the defense is not available to a person who is committing a crime. We interpret the statute to mean there must be an immediate causal connection between the crime and the confrontation. In this case, there was sufficient evidence before the jury to conclude that the crime of unlawful possession of a handgun was causally connected to the murder. Therefore, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

Facts

Kenneth Mayes, his girlfriend Mary Dew ("Mary"), and her sister Joyce Dew ("Joyce") were spending time at Mayes' home in Indianapolis. According to Mayes, he discovered money missing from the pockets of his clothing that he had left in a bedroom while taking a shower. Mayes accused Mary of taking the money, and they began to argue heatedly. Mary and Joyce left the house, and Mayes followed them to the driveway where the couple continued arguing loudly. After awhile, Mary and Joyce began to walk away. Mayes returned to the house and grabbed his jacket which contained a handgun in one of the pockets. He then pursued Mary and Joyce, confronting them on the street. The couple stood approximately five feet from each other and resumed their heated verbal exchange. Mayes testified that Mary reached for her purse—a fact that Joyce disputed. In any event, Mayes contended he feared Mary was reaching for a handgun and thus he drew his own weapon and fired. Mary died as a result of five gunshot wounds to her chest, shoulder, arm, and back.

The State charged Mayes with murder and carrying a handgun without a license as a Class A misdemeanor. The State also sought enhancement to a Class C felony because he had been convicted of a felony within fifteen years of the present offense.¹ Mayes' sole defense at trial was that he shot Mary in self-defense. After the jury returned a verdict of guilty as charged, Mayes pleaded guilty to the enhanced gun charge. Thereafter, the trial court sentenced him to concurrent terms of sixty years for murder and eight years for carrying a handgun without a license. This appeal followed. Additional facts are set forth below where relevant.

Discussion

I.

Mayes sought a self-defense instruction at trial, but over his objection the trial court instructed the jury as follows:

The defense of self-defense is defined by law as follows:

A person is justified in using reasonable force against another person to protect himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in using deadly force only if he reasonably believes that that force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to himself or a third person or the commission of a forcible felony. No person in this State shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting himself or his family by reasonable means necessary.

A person is not justified in using force if:

1. He is committing, or is escaping after the commission[ ] of[,] a crime;

2. He has entered into combat with another person or is the initial aggressor, unless he withdraws from the encounter and communicates to the other person his intent to do so and the other person nevertheless continues or threatens to continue unlawful action.

The State has the burden of disproving this defense beyond a reasonable doubt.

R. at 81. Mayes acknowledges that the instruction tracks the language of the self-defense statute nearly verbatim. See I.C. § 35-41-3-2. His complaint however is with the declaration "[a] person is not justified in using force if . . . he is committing. . . a crime." Mayes concedes that he possessed an unlicensed handgun when he shot his girlfriend and tacitly admits that doing so was a crime. He contends however that this is not the type of offense that should negate a claim of self-defense. We agree that in some instances a contemporaneous crime may not negate a claim of self-defense. In this case however Mayes' argument fails.

A valid claim of self-defense is legal justification for an otherwise criminal act. Wallace v. State, 725 N.E.2d 837, 840 (Ind.2000). This is a long-standing tenet of the law in this jurisdiction that predates statutory codification. See, e.g., Bryant v. State, 106 Ind. 549, 7 N.E. 217, 219-20 (1886) (noting that principle of justifiable and excusable homicide on the ground of self-defense has been fully endorsed, approved, and acted upon in many recent decisions of this Court, well before the defense was codified in 1905). Indeed, the self-defense statute itself endorses the proposition that one is entitled to defend oneself under circumstances where it reasonably appears that a person is in danger of bodily harm: "[n]o person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting himself or his family by reasonable means necessary." I.C. § 35-41-3-2(a). The goal of statutory construction is to determine, give effect to, and implement the intent of the legislature. Sales v. State, 723 N.E.2d 416, 420 (Ind.2000). The legislature is presumed to have intended the language used in the statute to be applied logically and not to bring about an unjust or absurd result. Id. Although penal statutes are not to be read so narrowly that they exclude cases they fairly cover, nonetheless, we conventionally construe penal statutes strictly against the State. Id.

A literal application of the contemporaneous crime exception would nullify claims for self-defense in a variety of circumstances and produce absurd results in the process. A similar view was expressed by our Court of Appeals in a case very similar to the one before us. In Harvey v. State, 652 N.E.2d 876 (Ind.Ct.App.1995), the defendant shot the victim with an unlicensed firearm and claimed self-defense in the fatal shooting. The trial court instructed the jury, "A person who is not in his home or fixed place of business and is carrying a handgun without a license cannot by law claim the protection of the law of self defense." Id. at 876. The Court of Appeals found the jury instruction was erroneous because it ignored any nexus between the crime and the shooting. Id. at 877. Writing for the court, Judge Garrard observed:

If subsection (d)(1) [of Indiana Code § 35-41-3-2] is to be taken literally, then no person may claim self defense if that person at the time he acts is coincidentally committing some criminal offense. For example, possession of a marijuana cigarette or the failure to have filed one's income tax returns could deny one the defense no matter how egregious, or unrelated, the circumstances that prompted the action. Read as a whole, the statute refutes such a construction.

Id. at 877. We agree and note this view has been shared by other jurisdictions that have considered the matter. See, e.g., Oregon v. Doris, 51 Or. 136, 94 P. 44, 53 (1908) ("[T]o hold that the mere fact that a person accused of a homicide was armed at the time, and that because of the misdemeanor resulting therefrom [possession of a concealed weapon] he shall be deprived of any right of self-defense, would lead to the absurd and unjust consequence in practically all cases of depriving the accused of any defense. . . ."); South Carolina v. Leaks, 114 S.C. 257, 103 S.E. 549, 551 (1920) (In a prosecution for homicide "[t]he causal connection between the unlawful act of gambling and the encounter arising during the progress of the game between the participants is too remote to destroy the right of self-defense."); West Virginia v. Foley, 128 W.Va. 166, 35 S.E.2d 854, 861 (1945) ("Whether [defendant] had a license to carry a pistol on the occasion he was armed is not relevant in the least to the common law right to arm for self-defense.").

We also observe that as applied to the facts of this case, if Mayes had previously obtained a valid license but it had expired one minute before he shot his girlfriend, then, if the statute is to be read literally, a self-defense claim would be unavailable. The legislature could not have intended that a defense so engrained in the jurisprudence of this State be dependent upon the happenstance of such timing.

We conclude that because a defendant is committing a crime at the time he is allegedly defending himself is not sufficient standing alone to deprive the defendant of the defense of self-defense. Rather, there must be an immediate causal connection between the crime and the confrontation. Stated differently, the evidence must show that but for the defendant committing a crime, the confrontation resulting in injury to the victim would not have occurred. Cf. Roche v. State, 690 N.E.2d 1115, 1124 (Ind.1997)

("A person who kills while committing or attempting to commit a robbery is a person who kills while committing a crime and so the defense of self-defense is not available."). Having reached this conclusion however does not mean we agree that Mayes is entitled to reversal and a new trial.

The manner of instructing a jury lies largely within the discretion of the trial court, and we will reverse only for abuse of discretion. Benefiel v. State, 716 N.E.2d 906, 914 (Ind.1999), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 121 S.Ct. 83, 148 L.Ed.2d 45 (2000). To constitute an abuse of discretion, the instruction given must be erroneous, and the instruction taken as a whole must misstate the law or otherwise mislead the jury. Id. When determining whether a trial court erroneously gave or refused to give a tendered instruction, we consider the following: (1) whether the tendered instruction correctly states the law; (2) whether...