Patterson v. State

• Decision Date: 09 May 1898
• Citation: 23 So. 647,75 Miss. 670
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: W. T. PATTERSON v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

23 So. 647

75 Miss. 670

W. T. PATTERSON v. STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Supreme Court of Mississippi

May 9, 1898

March 1898

FROM the circuit court of Simpson county HON. A. G. MAYERS, Judge.

The opinion sufficiently states the nature of the evidence. The instructions referred to therein are as follows:

"3. The law will not permit a man to defend his life from a danger he has himself unlawfully provoked or invited; and to purposely kill in defense of life from a danger he has so invited or provoked, is murder, and not manslaughter.

"4. This killing of Brinson by Patterson, for which you are now trying Patterson, if excused or justified by the law at all is solely justified or excused on the ground of self-defense and it certainly is not excused or justified on that ground if you shall believe from the evidence, beyond all reasonable doubt, that, with hatred toward Brinson and the purpose to kill him in his heart, Patterson, with his loaded gun, went out and halted him, and there raised a row with him, or began the difficulty in which he killed him, it is your duty under your oath to convict him of murder.

"5. If you believe from the evidence, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Patterson was mad with Brinson, and had formed the purpose of killing him, and that, on seeing Brinson, with that purpose still harbored in his heart, he went out to him with his loaded shotgun, and there provoked a difficulty, or was the aggressor in a difficulty, in which he shot and killed him in pursuance of such purpose, such killing was without any sort of excuse or justification whatever, in law and was murder, and you should say so by your verdict, even though you should believe that his killing Brinson was necessary to save his own life, and that Brinson was riding on a private road through Patterson's place.

"7. Even if you believe from the evidence that Brinson rode his mule through Patterson's inclosure after being ordered not to do so, still, if you further believe from the evidence, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Patterson had formed the purpose to kill Brinson, and when he saw him there he went out with the purpose to raise a row with him, in order to get a chance to kill him, and not for the purpose of putting him off of his land as a trespasser, and that he did go out with his loaded gun in pursuance of his purpose to kill him, and provoked the difficulty in which he killed Brinson, than Paterson is guilty of murder, and you should so find even though you should believe that such killing was done to save his own life."

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

Robert Lowry, for the appellant.

The court below erred in granting the third, fourth, fifth, and seventh instructions for the state. There was no evidence of provocation on the part of the accused, and there was evidence tending to show that the difficulty was precipitated by the conduct of the deceased. With these facts in view, it would be idle to cite authority against the instructions above mentioned.

Wiley N. Nash, attorney-general, for the state.

The reporter finds no brief of the attorney-general in the record.

R. N. Miller and J. L. McCaskill, on the same side.

The third charge for the state is a correct statement of the rule of law, as old as the law itself, that "no man can invoke the doctrine of self-defense from a danger that he has himself unlawfully provoked or invited, " etc. It will be noted that the word "unlawfully" in this instruction means and stands for the other element, to wit, that the man arms himself with a deadly weapon, which he intends to use in overcoming his adversary, and that he intentionally provokes or invites the danger, intending at the outset to kill. These elements, it will be seen, are implied in the word "unlawfully, " and we repeat that the third instruction, in stating the abstract proposition of law, states it correctly, and as it will be found stated in nearly all the elementary authors on the subject, and is almost precisely in the language of this honorable court in the case of Allen v. State, 66 Miss. 385, where the rule is broadly stated, thus: "Having invited the danger in which he stood, it was murder to kill his adversary, even if his own life was in peril." In trying criminal cases it is elementary practice, in stating the law to the jury, to give definitions in general terms, as, for instance, in defining murder, manslaughter, and then to state those general rules in detail when it comes to presenting the facts hypothetically. It is, we affirm, an elementary proposition of practice, which has been approved from the earliest history of this court down to the present time, that all the instructions on the same subject must be considered together, if they are not in conflict with each other, and if, as a whole, they announce the law correctly, none of them are held to be reversible errors. See Thompson on Trials, sec. 2407; Lipscomb v. State, ante, p. 559.

The fourth and fifth charges,...