Williams v. State, 6 Div. 489

• Citation: 406 So.2d 1053
• Decision Date: 04 August 1981
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 489
• Parties: Sanders B. WILLIAMS v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 1053

406 So.2d 1053

Sanders B. WILLIAMS v. STATE.

6 Div. 489.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

Aug. 4, 1981.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 6, 1981.

Bill Fite, Hamilton, for appellant.

Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and J. Anthony McLain and James F. Hampton, Sp. Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.

DeCARLO, Judge.

Manslaughter; ten years imprisonment.

This is the second trial of this case, the first being reversed by this court. Williams v. State, Ala.Cr.App., 387 So.2d 295 (1980).

During the early morning hours of November 6, 1978, appellant and his wife began to fight over, inter alia, the presence of several guests of appellant at their house. Both appellant and his wife had been drinking heavily for several hours. During the course of their struggle, appellant stated that his wife said that, "She was going to get a gun and shoot me." Appellant prevented his wife from executing her threat by continuing to fight with her.

Shortly thereafter, he entered the bedroom where his guns were located, closed and barricaded the door, and fell asleep. Around 3:40 A.M., he found his wife lying on the floor of a hallway and called for help. It was determined that his wife had died from complications associated with the numerous blows she sustained to her head.

A more complete rendition of the facts and a determination of their sufficiency is unnecessary because an issue concerning the refusal of the trial court to give a written requested charge is dispositive of this cause.

I

Appellant contends that the trial court erred in refusing to give all of his one hundred and forty-four written requested charges. Requested charge eighty-eight is quoted below:

"I charge you members of the jury, that while threats alone will not serve as a justification for homicide, if the jury believes from the evidence that the deceased, at the time of the homicide was manifesting an intention to carry such threats into execution, by a positive act then done, or, that from the acts of the deceased at the time of the homicide, it would have appeared to a reasonable mind, under the circumstances, that the deceased was attempting to execute the threats against the defendant, you may then consider the threats made by the deceased in justification of the homicide."

Although the trial court fully and fairly instructed the jury concerning the defense of self-defense and properly removed the element of retreat from its consideration, it did not cover the situation expressed in appellant's requested charge.

Quoting from Wiggins v. State, Ala.Cr.App., 398 So.2d 780, cert. denied, Ala., 398 So.2d 783 (1981), which...