Wallace v. United States (162 U.S. 466)/Opinion of the Court

by Melville Fuller

United States Supreme Court

162 U.S. 466

Wallace  v.  United States

If Jerry Wallace believed, and had reasonable ground for the belief, that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm from Zane, at the moment he fired, and would not have fired but for such belief, and if that belief, founded on reasonable ground, might, in any view the jury could properly take of the circumstances surrounding the killing, have excused his act, or reduced the crime from murder to manslaughter, then the evidence in respect of Zane's threats was relevant, and it was error to exclude it; and it was also error to refuse to allow the question to be put to Wallace as to his belief based on the demonstration on Zane's part to which he testified.

Where a difficulty is intentionally brought on for the purpose of killing the deceased, the fact of imminent danger to the accused constitutes no defense; but where the accused embarks in a quarrel with no felonious intent or malice, or premeditated purpose of doing bodily harm or killing, and, under reasonable belief of imminent danger he inflicts a fatal wound, it is not murder. Whart. Hom. § 197; 2 Bish. Cr. Law, §§ 702, 715; 4 Am. & Eng. Enc. Law, 675; State v. Partlow, 90 Mo. 608, 4 S. W. 14; Adams v. People, 47 Ill. 376; State v. Hayes, 23 Mo. 287; State v. McDonell, 32 Vt. 491; Reed v. State, 11 Tex. App. 509.

In Adams v. People it was ruled by the supreme court of Illinois, speaking through Mr. Chief Justice Breese, that where the accused sought a difficulty with the deceased for the purpose of killing him, and in the fight did kill him, in pursuance of his malicious intention, he would be guilty of murder, but if the jury found that the accused voluntarily got into the difficulty or fight with the deceased, not intending to kill at the time, but not declining further fighting before the mortal blow was struck by him, and finally drew his knife, and with it killed the deceased, the accused would be guilty of manslaughter, although the cutting and killing were done in order to prevent an assault upon him by the deceased, or to prevent the deceased from getting the advantage in the fight.

In Reed v. State the court of appeals of Texas, in treating of the subject of self-defense, said: 'It may be divided into two general classes, to wit, perfect and imperfect right of self-defense. A perfect right of self-defense can only obtain and avail where the party pleading it acted from necessity, and was wholly free from wrong or blame in occasioning or producing the necessity which required his action. If, however, he was in the wrong,-if he was himself violating, or in the act of violating, the law,-and, on account of his own wrong, was placed in a situation wherein it became necessary for him to defend himself against an attack made upon himself, which was superinduced or created by his own wrong, then the law justly limits his right of self-defense, and regulates it according to the magnitude of his own wrong. Such a state of case may be said to illustrate and determine what in law would be denominated the 'imperfect right of self-defense.' Whenever a party, by his own wrongful act, produces a condition of things wherein it becomes necessary for his own safety that he should take life, or do serious bodily harm, then, indeed, the law wisely imputes to him his own wrong, and its consequences, to the extent that they may and should be considered in determining the grade of offense, which but for such acts would never have been occasioned. * * * How far, and to what extent, he will be excused or excusable, in law, must depend upon the nature and character of the act he was committing, and which produced the necessity that he should defend himself. When his own original act was in violation of law, then the law takes that fact into consideration, in limiting his right of defense and resistance whilst in the perpetration of such unlawful act. If he was engaged in the commission of a felony, and, to prevent its commission, the party seeing it, or about to be injured thereby, makes a violent assult upon him, calculated to produce death or serious bodily harm, and in resisting such attack he slays his assailant, the law would impute the original wrong to the homicide, and make it murder. But if the original wrong was, or would have been, a misdemeanor, then the homicide growing out of or occasioned by it, though in self-defense from any assault made upon him, would be manslaughter, under the law.'

After quoting from these and other cases, Sherwood, J., delivering the opinion of the supreme court of Missouri in State v. Partlow, remarked: 'Indeed, the assertion of the doctrine that one who begins a quarrel or brings on a difficulty with the felonious purpose to kill the person assaulted, and accomplishing such purpose, is guilty of murder, and cannot avail himself of the doctrine of self-defense, carries with it, in its very bosom, the inevitable corollary that, if the quarrel be begun without a felonious purpose, then the homicidal act will not be murder. To deny this obvious deduction is equivalent to the anomalous assertion that there can be a felony without a felonious intent; that the act done characterizes the intent, and not the intent the act.'

In this case it is evident that Wallace was bent, as far as practicable, on defending his possession against what he regarded, and the evidence on his behalf tended to show, was an unwarrantable invasion. But a person cannot repel a mere trespass on his land by the taking of life, or proceed beyond what necessity requires. When he uses in the defense of such property a weapon which is not deadly, and death accidentally ensues, the killing will not exceed manslaughter; but when a deadly weapon is employed it may be murder or manslaughter, according to the circumstances. 1 Hale, P. C. 473; 1 Hawk. P. C. c. 31, § 34 et seq.; Fost. Crown Law, 291; Davison v. People, 90 Ill. 221; People v. Payne, 8 Cal. 341; Carroll v. State, 23 Ala. 28; 1 Whart. Cr. Law, § 462, and cases cited.

Whether the killing with a deadly weapon may be reduced in any case to manslaughter, when it is the result of passion excited by a trespass with force to property, we need not consider, as the question, perhaps in view of the interval of time during which Wallace was seeking his gun, does not seem to have been raised. Conceding-though without intimating any opinion on the facts disclosed-that Jerry Wallace committed a crime, still the inquiry arose as to the grade of the offense; and, in respect of that, the threats offered to be proven had an important, and, it might be, decisive, bearing. Nor was the mere fact that Wallace procured the gun as stated, in itself, sufficient ground for their exclusion.

In Gourko v. U.S., 153 U.S. 183, 14 Sup. Ct. 806, this court held that it was error to instruct a jury that preparation by arming, although for self-defense only, could not be followed in any case by manslaughter, if the killing after such arming was not in fact necessarily in self-defense, and that if, under the circumstances on the occasion of the killing, the crime were that of manslaughter, it was not converted into murder by reason of the accused having previously armed himself.

In Beard v. U.S., 158 U.S. 550, 563, 15 Sup. Ct. 962, it was said: 'In our opinion, the court below erred in holding that the accused, while on his premises, outside of his dwelling house, was under a legal duty to get out of the way, if he could, of his assailant, who, according to one view of the evidence, had threatened to kill the defendant, in execution of that purpose had armed himself with a deadly weapon, with that weapon concealed upon his person went to the defendant's premises, despite the warning of the latter to keep away, and by word and act indicated his purpose to attack the accused. The defendant was where he had a right to be when the deceased advanced upon him in a threatening manner, and with a deadly weapon; and if the accused did not provoke the assault, nd had at the time reasonable grounds to believe, and in good faith believed, that the deceased intended to take his life, or to do him great bodily harm, he was not obliged to retreat, nor to consider whether he could safely retreat, but was entitled to stand his ground, and meet any attack made upon him with a deadly weapon in such way, and with such force as, under all the circumstances, he at the moment honestly believed, and had reasonable grounds to believe, was necessary to save his own life, or to protect himself from great bodily injury.'

In Allison v. U.S., 160 U.S. 203, 16 Sup. Ct. 252, it was held that in charging the jury, on a capital trial, in respect of the possession of a deadly weapon by the accused, it was error to ignore evidence indicating that such possession was for an innocent purpose. The subject of threats was there somewhat considered, and authorities cited.

Necessarily, it must frequently happen that particular circumstances qualify the character of the offense; and it is thoroughly settled that it is for the jury to determine what effect shall be given to circumstances having that tendency, whenever made to appear in the evidence.

In Stevenson v. U.S., 162 U.S. 313, 16 Sup. Ct. 839, we said:

'The evidence as to manslaughter need not be uncontradicted, or in any way conclusive upon the question. So long as there is some evidence upon the subject, the proper weight to be given it is for the jury to determine. If there were any evidence which tended to show such a state of facts as might bring the crime within the grade of manslaughter, it then became a proper question for the jury to say whether the evidence were true, and whether it showed that the crime was manslaughter, instead of murder. * * * The evidence might appear to the court to be simply overwhelming to show that the killing was in fact murder, and not manslaughter, or an act performed in self-defense; and yet, so long as there was some evidence relevant to the issue of manslaughter, the credibility and force of such evidence must be for the jury, and cannot be matter of law, for the decision of the court.

'By section 1035 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, it is enacted that 'in all criminal causes the defendant may be found guilty of any offense, the commission of which is necessarily included in that with which he is charged in the indictment, or may be found guilty of an attempt to commit the offense so charged: provided, that each attempt be itself a separate offense.' Under this statute a defendant charged in the indictment with the crime of murder may be found guilty of a lower grade of crime, viz. manslaughter. There must, of course, be some evidence which tends to bear upon that issue. The jury would not be justified in finding a verdict of manslaughter if there were no evidence upon which to base such a finding, and in that event the court would have the right to instruct the jury to that effect. Sparf v. U.S., 156 U.S. 51, 15 Sup. Ct. 273. * * * 'Manslaughter,' at common law, was defined to be the unlawful and felonious killing of another without any malice, either express or implied. Whart. Am. Cr. Law (8th Ed.) § 304. Whether there be what is termed 'express malice,' or only implied malice, the proof to show either is of the same nature, viz. the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the killing. The definition of the crime given by section 5341 of the Revised Statutes of the United States is substantially the same. The proof of homicide, as necessarily involving malice, must show the facts under which the killing was effected, and from the whole facts and circumstances surrounding the killing the jury infers malice, or its absence. Malice, in connection with the crime of killing, is but another name for a certain condition of a man's heart or mind; and, as no one can look into the heart or mind of another, the only way to decide upon its condition at the time of a killing is to infer it from the surrounding facts, and that inference is one of fact for a jury The presence or absence of this malice or mental condition marks the boundary which separates the two crimes of murder and manslaughter.'

Treating the excluded evidence as admitted, and assuming that Wallace would have testified that he believed from Zane's demonstration that Zane intended to kill him, the evidence on defendant's behalf tended to establish bad feeling between Zane and Wallace in reference to the line between Mrs. Wallace's land and that of Julia Zane; an attempt on Zane's part to include a part of Mrs. Wallace's land in the Zane parcel; declarations by Zane, the day before the homicide, that he was going the next day to run a fence across what Wallace claimed to be his land, and threats that, if Wallace interfered with him in so doing, Zane would kill him, all communicated to Wallace before the homicide; previous threats, also communicated, that he would kill Wallace; forcible entrance by Zane, accompanied by several others, into the field claimed by Wallace, in which he was plowing, and fencing off part of it commenced; boisterous and disorderly manifestations on their part, and refusals by Zane to leave when ordered to go; such demonstrations by Zane at the moment as induced Wallace to believe that he was in imminent danger, and action based on that belief. Granting that hte jury would have been justified in finding that Wallace's intention, in going for the gun and returning with it as he did, was to inflict bodily harm on Zane if he did not leave, still the presumption was not an irrebuttable one, and it was for the jury to say whether Wallace's statement that he procured the gun only for self-protection was or was not true. And if they believed from the evidence that this was true, and that the killing was under reasonable apprehension of imminent peril, then it was for the jury to determine, under all the facts and circumstances, whether Wallace had committed the offense of manslaughter, rather than that of murder, if he could not be excused altogether.

We think that the threats were admissible in evidence, and, this being so, that the question as to Wallace's belief should not have been excluded. It has been often decided that, where the intent is a material question, the accused may testify in his own behalf as to what his intent was in doing the act. People v. Baker, 96 N. Y. 340; Thurston v. Cornell, 38 N. Y. 281; Over v. Schiffling, 102 Ind. 191, 26 N. E. 91; People v. Quick, 51 Mich. 547, 18 N. W. 375; State v. Banks, 73 Mo. 592; Fenwick v. Maryland, 63 Md. 239. In the latter case it was held that a person on trial for an assault with intent to commit murder is competent to testify as to the purpose for which he procured the instrument with which he committed the assault.

This rule is not controverted, but it is contended that Wallace's belief was immaterial. For the reasons given, we cannot concur in that view, and are of opinion that the witness should have been allowed to answer.

It is unnecessary to pass upon any of the other points raised on behalf of plaintiff in error.

Judgment reversed, and cause remanded, with a direction to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial.

Notes