State v. Baker
Decision Date | 25 July 1980 |
Docket Number | No. 78-383-C,78-383-C |
Citation | 417 A.2d 906 |
Parties | STATE v. Harvey H. BAKER. A. |
Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
The defendant, Harvey Baker, was tried before a justice of the Superior Court for Providence County sitting with a jury on an indictment for murder, in violation of G.L. 1956 (1969 Reenactment) § 11-23-1, P.L. 1974, ch. 118, § 5. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of manslaughter of William Jackson, Jr. The trial justice denied defendant's motion for a new trial and sentenced Baker to a term of twenty years' imprisonment, with ten years suspended. The defendant is now before us on appeal from the judgment of conviction.
On the morning of April 12, 1977, using William Jackson's truck, Baker and Jackson moved a piece of furniture into Baker's grandmother's house. Both men consumed some beer, and Jackson then drove defendant to Friendship Street in Providence. From there defendant returned to his home where he had an epileptic seizure. After the seizure defendant fell asleep.
Later, defendant's mother awakened him to answer a phone call from his grandmother who told him that she believed that Jackson had returned to her house and had stolen money and food stamps while she lay sleeping. Baker told his grandmother that he would retrieve her property.
With that, he set out to find Jackson, and while walking on Friendship Street, he espied Jackson in an automobile. The defendant called to Jackson, who walked over to where defendant was standing in front of a liquor store. Baker asked Jackson if he had returned to Baker's grandmother's house. Jackson replied that he had. Baker then demanded of Jackson the stolen money and food stamps.
According to Baker, who testified at trial, in response to this accusation Jackson began waving his arms and speaking in a loud voice. Baker recalled that Jackson called him a liar and moved backwards off the sidewalk curb. Simultaneously, Jackson reached for the back of his pants.
At this, according to his testimony, Baker became frightened because he remembered that Jackson, who was taller and heavier than defendant, had held him at gunpoint once before, in 1976. Baker reached into his front pocket and removed a pocket knife. In quick succession, Baker slapped the knife across his thigh, whereupon the knife blade that was propped partially open with a Popsicle stick extended fully. Baker then thrust the knife forward at Jackson, thereby wounding him in the chest.
William Jackson, Jr., later succumed to the effects of his wound. Providence police arrested Baker later that day and charged him with the homicide of Jackson. While in custody defendant made a statement to police which he later introduced in evidence at trial. He admitted that he had stabbed William Jackson, Jr., but claimed that he had done so out of fear of an imminent assault on his safety.
On appeal defendant raises two issues in which he claims that the trial justice committed error (1) by not specifically instructing the jury that the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant did not act in self-defense and (2) by refusing to permit the defense to introduce into evidence the decedent's record of convictions for violent crimes to establish the victim's reputation for violence.
With respect to the first issue defendant alleges that because the trial justice did not specifically instruct the jury that the state must prove the absence of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt, the instructions were inadequate and, therefore, in violation of his due-process rights. At trial Baker requested the following instruction based upon his reading of Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975), and Hankerson v. North Carolina, 432 U.S. 233, 97 S.Ct. 2339, 53 L.Ed.2d 306 (1977): 1
"Once the defendant has fairly raised the defense of self defense the burden is upon the state to prove that the killing of William Jackson, Jr. was unlawful, to wit: that the defendant did not act in self defense."
Instead, the trial justice instructed the jury on the assignment of the burden of proof and on the issue of self-defense in the following manner:
In substance defendant contends that in telling the jurors that they must "find" self-defense to return a not-guilty verdict instead of expressly placing the burden of proof of this issue on the state, the trial justice misled the jury by implying either that the defense must bear some burden of proof on this issue or that the state need not disprove the defense in satisfaction of the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard but by some lesser standard.
It is well understood that "the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged." In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1073, 25 L.Ed.2d 368, 375 (1970). Applying this principle according to the analysis that the Supreme Court employed in Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U.S. 684, 95 S.Ct. 1881, 44 L.Ed.2d 508 (1975), we held in In re John Doe, R.I., 390 A.2d 920, 926 (1978), that in a homicide case, "once the defendant introduces some evidence of self-defense, the burden of persuasion is on the prosecution to negate that defense beyond a reasonable doubt." Moreover, the Supreme Court in Hankerson v. North Carolina, 432 U.S. 233, 97 S.Ct. 2339, 53 L.Ed.2d 306 (1977), declared that Mullaney v. Wilbur must be given complete retroactive effect; we have...
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