State v. Minnis
| Decision Date | 25 September 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,No. 55465,55465,2 |
| Citation | 486 S.W.2d 280 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri, Respondent, v. Ronald Claude MINNIS, Appellant |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
John C. Danforth, Atty. Gen., G. Michael O'Neal, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.
Raymond F. McNally, Jr., St. Louis, for appellant.
A jury found Ronald Claude Minnis guilty of murder in the second degree and thereby rejected his justification of self-defense. Defendant was sentenced to a term of twenty years in the penitentiary. On this appeal he claims error in the self- defense submission and in refusing proffered Instruction A.
We relate only that evidence necessary to properly define and determine the issues presented. For that purpose, we are relegated essentially to defendant's evidence, for there was no proof of self-defense in the state's case.
In the early morning of July 6. 1969, defendant and his father-in-law, and co-indictee, Mattie Harper Frasher, were walking northerly along Broadway in the City of St. Louis. They had just left a tavern in the vicinity of defendant's home where Frasher had drunk heavily. The defendant himself was keeping a watchful eye on Frasher and for that reason had at most two beers to drink. The defendant's jaw, for which he had a protective concern, was broken and wired as a result of an industrial accident. This condition made it difficult to use. The defendant and Frasher had reached a parking lot on the southeast corner of Curtois and Broadway. About this time, the decedent, Robert Grab, was driving his car along Broadway. A beer bottle had been thrown at his car and, for some reason, he believed it had come from the direction of the defendant and Frasher. Grab drove his car into the parking lot and began to secuffle with Frasher, striking him in the face and knocking him down. The defendant was going to ask Grab 'what was going on', but Grab seemed so angry that defendant decided to take off running to his home nearby. Since the front door was kept locked, he went through the gangway which adjoined his building, around to the back yard and into the kitchen. He slammed the door shut. The kitchen door did not have a lock on it.
He stood there panting, his jaw in pain. A beer bottle came through the side kitchen window. Then the door burst open and Grab appeared. Defendant entreated: 'Hey, mister, please get out of this house.' Grab replied: 'I am going to beat hell out of you.' Grab then came at the defendant, he had nothing in his hands. The defendant retreated around the kitchen table, but Grab kept coming on. The defendant picked up a kitchen knife, took a swipe at him, and said again: 'Mister, please get out of the house.' Grab answered: 'You're going to pay for this', and came at defendant 'real fast'. The defendant lunged at him, but was knocked down to the floor 'at the same time with his weight', and then Grab, as though stunned, ran out the back door. Defendant got up, not knowing if he had hurt Grab. He then heard a commotion outside the house. He knew his father-in-law was still out there, so he picked up another knife from the table and ran onto the gangway, flailing the knives. Several of the state's witnesses were attracted to the gangway by the sound of groaning. They saw Grab lying there, bleeding from the stomach, with Frasher kneeling on him and defendant standing over him with two butcher knives. When Frasher released Grab, he got up and joined the witnesses in running towards their cars with the defendant in pursuit. Grab collapsed near one of those cars. The police were called and arrived shortly thereafter.
At the time of this episode, defendant was six feet one inch tall, weighed about 170 pounds and was 25 years old. Frasher was five feet seven inches in height, weighed about 140 pounds and was about 48 years old. Grab was five feet nine inches in height, weighed about 185 pounds and was about 43 years old.
The trial court, by Instruction No. 6, undertook to instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence accorded defendant and on the state's burden of proving defendant's guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The court also undertook to submit the issue of lawful self-defense as justification for the homicide by this Instruction No. 4 of which defendant complains:
'The Court instructs the Jury that if you find and believe from the evidence in this case, beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant stabbed the deceased, ROBERT GRAB, and that at that time the Defendant had reasonable cause to believe and did believe there was a design upon the part of the deceased to do Defendant some great personal injury or great bodily harm and that there was a reasonable cause for Defendant to believe there was immediate danger of such design being accomplished; and that to avert such apprehended danger Defendant stabbed deceased and that at the time Defendant did so Defendant had reasonable cause to believe and did believe it necessary to use said knife in the way Defendant did to protect himself from such apprehended danger, then and in that event the stabbing was not felonious but was justifiable and you should find the Defendant not guilty upon the ground of necessary self defense.
'It is not necessary to this defense that the danger should be actual or real or that the danger should have been impending or immediately about to fall. All that is necessary is that Defendant had reasonable cause to believe and did believe these facts.
'But before you find the Defendant not guilty on the ground of self defense you ought to find and believe from all the evidence in this case that the fear of the Defendant for his life or personal safety was reasonable. Whether the facts constituting such reasonable cause existed at the time, you are to determine from all the evidence in this case, and unless the facts constituting such reasonable cause are found by you from all the evidence in this case, you should not find the Defendant not guilty on the ground of self defense even though you may find and believe from all the evidence that Defendant though he was in danger.
'Therefore, the Court instructs you that if you find and believe from all the evidence in this case, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the Defendant, RONALD CLAUDE MINNIS, stabbed and killed the deceased when the Defendant did not have reasonable cause to believe that deceased intended to do Defendant some great personal injury or great bodily harm, then there is no self defense in the case and you should not find the Defendant not guilty on that ground.' (Emphasis supplied.)
It is the defendant's contention that the underscored wording of the instruction required, in order to acquit on the theory of self-defense, not only that defendant had reasonable cause to believe it necessary to use the knife but that the facts constituting such reasonable cause actually existed at the time. Thus, appellant contends, Instruction No. 4 denied him the complete benefit of the doctrine of self-defense because it did not include a statement that he was entitled to act on appearances. The appearances doctrine operates to justify a person to act in self-defense although it later proves the appearances were false. State v. Sloan, 47 Mo. 604, 612; State v. Greaves, 243 Mo. 540, 147 S.W. 973, 975(4, 5); State v. Darling, 202 Mo. 150, 100 S.W. 631, 635. Actually in legal effect, the second paragraph of Instruction No. 4 authorized a finding of self-defense on the basis of appearances, that the reasonable cause and necessity for the killing be viewed as the circumstances appeared to the defendant. That paragraph is a virtual rescript of the language construed in State v. Miller, 346 Mo. 846, 143 S.W.2d 241, 243(3) and held to be equivalent to a declaration justifying a defendant to act in self-defense on appearances. And, the court concluded, 'in the absence of a more specific request (such a self-defense instruction) is sufficient.' See, also, State v. Traylor, 339 Mo. 943, 98 S.W.2d 628, 631(2). Later, in State v. Demaree, Mo., 362 S.W.2d 500, l.c. 502(1--3), it was held that 'a defendant charged with murder is entitled in self-defense to act on appearances, and, if the evidence justifies it, he is also entitled, if he requests it, to an instruction embodying that right in some form in a modifying instruction.' (Emphasis supplied.)
In his tendered Instruction A, the defendant does not hypothesize any evidence establishing any appearance which could justify his belief that grave bodily harm was impending, nor was there any other than the incipient physical assault defendant described in his testimony and which is the implicit basis for the self-defense submission in Instruction No. 4. There was no other circumstance for the defendant to act upon, no other source of imminent danger. The deceased undertook to do what he declared he would do, 'beat the hell out of (defendant).' There was no feigned conduct, no dissembled weapon, nor any other circumstance creating an appearance of impending danger of great bodily harm when none existed. The deceased came at defendant with empty hands and the only danger defendant feared was the physical assault threatened by the deceased. The right to act upon appearances was not proved and Instruction A was properly refused. State v. Demaree, Mo., 362 S.W.2d 500, 503(3).
Appellant's other contention of error is that Instruction No. 4 submitting self-defense is inherently contradictory in that it requires the jury to find the elements of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt, thus casting that burden upon the defendant, and at the same time casts on the state the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant did not act in self-defense. The confusion is compounded, appellant argues, when the submissions of Instruction No. 4 are considered together with Instruction No. 6 which declares...
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