Sikes v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 28 March 1947 |
| Citation | 304 Ky. 429 |
| Parties | Sikes v. Commonwealth. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky |
2. Assault and Battery; Homicide. — When an assault is made upon one of any degree between simple assault and homicidal assault, the measure of force which the one assaulted may use to protect himself is the force which in the exercise of a reasonable judgment under the circumstances is required to avert the danger, and such force is not required to be measured with absolute exactness.
3. Homicide. — One who kills another intentionally and with premeditation is guilty of murder.
4. Homicide. — One who kills another intentionally but under sudden impulse and without premeditation is guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
5. Homicide. — In prosecution for murder or manslaughter, where there is a rational basis for it, court must give a reciprocal or countervailing instruction that jury should not find defendant guilty if they conclude that defendant believed, and had reasonable ground to believe, that he was then in danger of being killed or of suffering great bodily harm.
6. Homicide. — The phrase "great bodily harm," as used in approved instruction on self-defense, is designed to eliminate from such defense a fear of trivial or minor injury as an excuse for the exercise of great force in repelling an attack.
7. Homicide. — No one has right to kill another for violence directed at himself that is, or seems to be, less than a felony, such as to prevent a mere trespass on his body or a simple assault.
8. Homicide. — "Involuntary manslaughter," punishable as a common-law misdemeanor, embraces the killing of another person in doing some unlawful act, not amounting to a felony nor of a character of itself likely to endanger life, without malice or an intention to kill, and also the killing of another while doing a lawful act in an unlawful manner.
9. Homicide. — Voluntary manslaughter essentially differs from involuntary manslaughter in that in the former intention and impulsion to kill are present, while in the latter intent is absent and the impulse to do the act may or may not be sudden.
10. Homicide. — Where jury could have found from evidence that defendant struck deceased a blow with his fist without any intent of killing deceased, an instruction on involuntary manslaughter was required.
11. Assault and Battery. — Where deceased was advancing on defendant as though deceased were going to strike defendant, defendant, although he had no reason to be in fear of his life or of great bodily harm at hands of decedent, was authorized to stand his ground and meet the force offered by decedent with force to the degree that it honestly seemed to him to be reasonably necessary to protect himself from the trespass or assault upon his body.
12. Homicide. — The normal self-defense instruction, which predicates rights of defendant on a reasonable belief that he was in danger of death or great bodily harm, is not sufficient to cover a situation where defendant was exerting reasonable force to overcome a simple assault and decedent's death was unexpected.
13. Criminal Law. — An accused is entitled to have his defense submitted to jury.
14. Homicide. — An instruction on involuntary manslaughter covers question of guilt where, but for attributable death, the accused would be guilty of a simple assault without an offensive or deadly weapon.
15. Homicide. — Where evidence, although it required an instruction on involuntary manslaughter, disclosed that bare fists were only weapons used and evidence was conflicting as to who was aggressor, defendant was entitled to an instruction that if defendant had reasonable grounds to believe that he was about to be assaulted by or was in danger of bodily harm from deceased, and defendant used reasonable force only to repel assault, he was not guilty, but that, if defendant was aggressor or brought on difficulty by first assaulting deceased, he should not be acquitted under plea of self-defense.
Appeal from McCracken Circuit Court.
Fisher & Reed for appellant.
Eldon S. Dummit, Attorney General, and Guy H. Herdman, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Before Joe L. Price, Judge.
Reversing.
A novel question in the law of homicide is presented; one that undoubtedly has been lurking in many cases. It concerns the appropriate instruction on self-defense as the counterpart of an instruction on involuntary manslaughter where the defendant struck the deceased with his fist to meet an assault being made upon him in the same way.
At a Fourth of July picnic in Paducah, the appellant, Elmer Sikes, under the influence of liquor, picked a quarrel and fight with William Hogan. After they had been separated, Bernice Wheatley remonstrated with Sikes for cursing in the hearing of ladies. Whereupon Sikes struck him with his fist on the jaw. Wheatley soon died from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by the blow. Sikes' companion, Mullins, had struck Wheatley just before he did. That is the evidence for the Commonwealth. According to the defendant, Hogan had precipitated their quarrel, and Wheatley, who seems to have been a stranger to all the parties, said something Sikes did not understand and then struck at Mullins who hit him in the neck. He stepped back and came towards Sikes, "acting like he was going to strike me." He struck Wheatley in the body in defense of himself. Rebuttal evidence was that Wheatley made no attack on either Sikes or Mullins, and that Sikes had struck a hard blow after Mullins had hit Wheatley.
Approved instructions on murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter were given. Smith v. Com., 228 Ky. 710, 15 S.W. 2d 458; Instructions to Juries, Stanley, Sec. 876. The defendant was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and his punishment fixed at four years' imprisonment in the penitentiary.
The instruction on self-defense was that the jury should acquit the defendant if they found that when he struck the deceased, if he did so, "he believed and had reasonable grounds to believe that he was then and there in danger of death or the infliction of some great bodily harm at the hands of Wheatley and that it was necessary, or believed by the defendant in the exercise of a reasonable judgment, to be necessary to strike the deceased in order to avert that danger, real or to the defendant apparent." This follows the conventional pattern. The point is made that the defendant, of course, did not have reasonable grounds to believe that he was in imminent danger of either death or great bodily harm at the hands of Wheatley when he was attempting to strike him only with his fist; that he had the right to stand his ground and repel the force of Wheatley's attack with such force as seemed reasonably necessary to protect himself from any injury, whether it would be trivial or serious, that he believed or could reasonably apprehend might result. It is submitted that he was entitled to have the jury so instructed.
Man-made law is not blind to human nature; at least self preservation. So one is not held accountable for taking the life of another in resistance of an attack which from its nature creates a reasonable apprehension of imminent danger of losing one's own life or of suffering great bodily harm. Naturally, lesser correlative degrees of attack and defense receive the same sanction of the law. Generally speaking, the reciprocal standard or measure of force and violence is the same. It is essential that the defensive act not be excessive or disproportionate to the force involved in the attack. But the person under attack is not required to measure the force necessary to protect himself "with as much exactness as an apothecary would drugs on his scales." The measure is what in the exercise of a reasonable judgment under the circumstances is required to avert the danger. That is all the law demands. Carroll v. Commonwealth, 83 S.W. 552, 26 Ky. Law Rep. 1083; Commonwealth v. Beverly, 237 Ky. 35, 34 S.W. 2d 941; Warren on Homicide, Sec. 149. This rule is exemplified by the familiar instruction on self-defense.
When the court informs the jury as to the range and measure of their power, he instructs them in substance that if they believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused slew another person intentionally and with premeditation, they should find him guilty of murder and direct that his own life be forfeited or his liberty be taken away so long as he shall live. If they find that he killed the other person intentionally, but did so under a sudden impulse and without premeditation, they should find him guilty of voluntary manslaughter and direct his imprisonment for any time between two and twenty-one years. But always where there is a rational basis for it the court must give a reciprocal or countervailing instruction that the jury should not find him guilty if they reach the conclusion that the defendant believed and had reasonable grounds to believe that he, himself, was then in danger of being killed or of suffering great bodily harm. The phrase "great bodily harm" has been used as the criterion from the earliest period of the law. Short v. Commonwealth, 4 S.W. 810, 9 Ky. Law Rep. 255. This eliminates fear of trivial or minor injury as a defense. It is to say in effect that when a person is confronted with an apparently fatal situation, he may use the same degree of force and violence as his assailant. If he does that and no more in preventing the victim from committing a felony on him, he is excused from the legal effect of...
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