Ruffin v. State
| Decision Date | 13 June 1956 |
| Citation | 50 Del. 83,123 A.2d 461,11 Terry 83 |
| Parties | , 50 Del. 83 Chanie RUFFIN, Appellant, v. The STATE of Delaware, Appellee. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Delaware |
Henry A. Wise, Jr., Wilmington, for appellant.
Richard J. Baker and Frank O'Donnell, Deputy Attys. Gen., for the State.
The appellant, Chanie Ruffin, was indicted and tried for murder of the first degree of one Clarence B. Tilden. The jury found appellant guilty of murder of the second degree. Appellant appealed.
The substantial facts, which come largely from the statement and testimony of appellant herself, are not in dispute. They are as follows:
On the morning of the 20th day of February, 1954, appellant appeared at a firehouse in the City of Wilmington, in a highly excited and somewhat hysterical condition. She informed a fireman stationed there that she had just shot a man. The police were immediately notified and appellant was promptly taken into custody.
Appellant lived by herself in a rented room in the City of Wilmington. For several years she had received visits from deceased, with whom she was intimate. In the early morning of the day in question deceased came to the room of appellant with another man. Deceased, by threatening appellant with a gun, compelled her to have sexual intercourse with the other man. He later (apparently after the other man had left) compelled her to submit to unnatural sexual relations and indignities with him. Deceased then lay down on the bed to rest. Appellant left the room to empty a slop bucket. She returned and dressed. Deceased told appellant that he was not asleep, that if she left the room he would kill her. Appellant took a pistol lying in the bureau drawer and shot deceased, who was still lying on the bed. Deceased jumped up and reached for appellant, telling her 'I am going to get you for this'. Appellant then shot deceased four more times. One of the bullets entered the brain of deceased and in the opinion of the examining physician caused instant death.
The numerous errors alleged by appellant relate principally to the statement given by appellant to police; admissibility of evidence showing the reputation of deceased for violence; and alleged errors in the charge of the court below.
The State's case against the defendant in chief was based on statements, admittedly voluntary, made by defendant to police officers. Defendant claims that these statements were not incriminating but exculpatory and completely rebutted any presumption of unlawful homicide.
It is true that appellant appeared to contend, from some of the statements made, that her act was committed in self-defense. She claimed that she was in great fear of deceased. She had been compelled by deceased to have sexual intercourse with another man and unnatural and inhuman relations with deceased prior to the shooting. According to her statement, she had also been subjected to other indignities by deceased in the past. She knew of acts of cruelty committed by deceased upon others. No evidence was offered specifically contradicting appellant's exculpatory statements.
But the facts stated by appellant do not necessarily make out a case of self-defense. Indeed, it is at least questionable whether the appellant under the facts of this case was entitled to have the issue of self-defense given to the jury. While the acts of deceased were of the most repulsive and sadistic nature, this treatment had ceased for some time prior to the shooting. Appellant had even left the room with the slop bucket. She returned and dressed. At the time deceased was lying on the bed 'dozing'. Unquestionably, she had an opportunity when she first went out of the room and, perhaps, after she had returned and dressed, to remove herself from the presence of the deceased and the possibility of his carrying out any further acts of violence upon her.
The homicide was committed by appellant by the use of a deadly weapon. In the absence of circumstances justifying such action this alone would make appellant guilty of the crime of second degree murder. The burden was upon her to justify her act. Brown v. State, 9 Terry 427, 105 A.2d 646; State v. Stevenson, 8 W.W.Harr. 105, 188 A. 750. The lower court saw fit to submit the question of self-defense to the jury under a proper charge and the jury found appellant guilty of murder of the second degree. On the basis of the statement the verdict was justified.
Appellant objects to the charge of the court below relating to implied malice. The language of which appellant complains is as follows:
Appellant's objection goes to the statement in this portion of the charge to the effect that no deliberation is necessary in murder of the second degree. She contends that the use of this language was tantamount to an instruction to the jury to the effect that appellant could be found guilty of murder in the second degree without proof that the murder was committed with a sedate and deliberate mind and formed design to kill or do great bodily harm. Appellant asserts that this is not a correct statement of the law.
The instruction was correct. Implied malice does not require a sedate and deliberate mind and formed design to kill or to do great bodily harm. This has been so often held by our courts that any discussion seems superfluous. Appellant's argument is based on the discussion of express and implied malice in the case of Bantum v. State, 7 Terry 487, 85 A.2d 741, 750, in which we said:
As will appear from an examination of the cited cases, the division of murder into degrees by our statute in no way blurred the distinction between express and implied malice. Appellant, apparently, seeks to suggest that the Bantum case had the effect of changing the law and requiring proof of deliberate mind and formed design to constitute implied malice. This is wholly erroneous. The charge as given was correct.
Appellant objects to the refusal of the court below to charge the jury upon temporary insanity. In the statement of appellant introduced in evidence by the State, appellant stated that as a result of the inhuman and barbarous treatment of her by deceased, she had reached 'the blowing point and she couldn't stand it any more * * *'. There was also evidence that after the shooting appellant was excited and perhaps hysterical. However, there was no evidence of any kind indicating mental derangement.
It has been shown by the State that appellant killed deceased with a deadly weapon. There is a presumption that appellant knew the consequences of her act and that she was sane at the time of its commission. The burden was therefore upon her to prove the contrary. State v. Pratt, Houst.Cr.Cas. 249; State v. Reidell, 9 Houst. 470, 14 A. 550; State v. Lee, 1 Boyce 18, 74 A. 4; State v. Hand, 1 Marv. 545, 41 A. 192; State v. Jack, 4 Penn. 470, 58 A. 833; State v. Cole, 2 Penn. 344, 45 A. 391; State v. West, 1 Houst.Cr.Cas. 371, 399. No testimony was offered by appellant or on her behalf tending to show insanity on her part at the time of the homicide.
The most that can be said for appellant's contention is that the treatment which she had received at the hands of deceased had caused her to go into an emotional frenzy. It is true that a few hours before the commission of the homicide appellant had been raped, had been forced to permit unnatural intercourse with deceased, and had been threatened with a revolver. Unquestionably, such inhuman acts were sufficient to cause her to become highly excitable and hysterical. But a frenzy introduced by mere passion or other overwhelming emotion not growing out of a mental disease does not, of itself, constitute insanity. State v. Reidell, supra; Guetig v. State, 66 Ind. 94, 32 Am.Rep. 99. See 14 Am.Jur., 'Criminal Law', Sec. 35, p. 793; 40 C.J.S., Homicide, § 4, note 96, p. 829. The court below was correct in its refusal of appellant's request for a charge on insanity.
Appellant objected to the inclusion in the charge of the court below of certain examples of express malice, such as lying in wait, ill will, spite or jealousy, as to some of which appellant contends there was no evidence in the record.
It was clearly stated in the charge that these illustrations were purely examples. The language used has been followed in this state since the passage of the Act of 1852 defining murder as of two degrees. Our courts originally lifted this language almost bodily from Blackstone's Commentaries on English Common Law. However, since the portion of the charge objected to related to murder of the first degree and since appellant was acquitted of that charge, any error committed by the court below, if it can be said that there was an error, in this portion of the charge was cured by the acquittal. Powell v. State, 7 Terry 551, 86 A.2d 371; Brown v. State, supra.
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