and G. W. Hendricks, « Moots Forum

and G. W. Hendricks,
for the State.RIDDICK, J. The defendant, W. H. Hoard, was indicted by the grand Jury of Ouachita county for murder in the first degree for killing Ely Ford by shooting him with a pistol. On a trial he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and his punishment assessed at two years in the penitentiary. From this judgment he appealed.The defendant and Ford were negro barbers working in the same shop. Some altercation having arisen between them, Ford, who was the larger man of the two, started towards the defendant with a stick in his hand, and defendant shot him twice with a pistol. At the time the shots were fired Ford was some 17 or 18 feet away, with two of the chairs of the shop between him and defendant. The first shot missed Ford, and the witnesses say that he stopped, and seemed to be trying to get behind a chair, when the second shot was fired. This shot entered his head and produced almost Instant death. The defendant asked the court to instruct the jury that if "it appeared to defendant without fault on his part that he was in danger of losing his life or receiving great bodily harm, then in that event he was not required to wait until the deceased got In reach of him with the stick before defending himself." The court modified this instruction by inserting therein the words "acting as a reasonable person." The law as thus declared was that the defendant had a right to defend himself if itappeared to him "acting as a reasonable person, without fault on his part, that he was in danger of losing his life or receiving great bodily harm." Counsel for defendant contends that the trial court erred in modifying the instruction In that way. But if it appeared to defendant without fault on his part that he was in danger, that is to say, if defendant acted with caution in coming to the conclusion that he was in danger, he then acted as a reasonable person in coming to such conclusion. So it seems to us that the words added to the instruction did not change the sense of it, the phrase added being only a repetition in other words of what was said before. The only error committed by the court on adding these words was the rhetorical one of tautology, which in itself is not prejudicial, for the meaning of the instruction is not thereby altered.If it had been shown that the defendant was a weak-minded person bordering on idiocy, then such a reference to a reasonable person might have been prejudicial, for the law is not so unreasonable as to require that one bordering on idiocy should, in defending himself, act as a reasonable person. Bnt when nothing Is shown to the contrary, the law presumes the defendant to be a person of ordinary reason and holds him accountable as such. In such cases our statute, as well as the decisions of this court, show that the trial court did not err in telling the jury that the defendant must act as a reasonable person. In other words he must not only believe bnt he must have reasonable cause to believe that he is in immediate danger of loss of life, or of receiving great bodily harm before he can lawfully slay his assailant Kirby's Dig. �� 1797; Palmore v. State, 29 <st1:State w:st="on">Ark.</st1:State> 248; Brown v. State, 55 <st1:State w:st="on">Ark.</st1:State> 593,18 S. W. 1051; Velvin v. State Ark.90 S. W. 851; Allen v. <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region>, 164 <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">U. S.</st1:country-region></st1:place> 498, 17 Sup. Ct 154, 41 L. Ed. 528. This is the law in most of the states and Is thus stated in a recent work. To justify taking life in self-defense "it should appear that the circumstances In which the slayer was placed were such as would have produced the fear of death or great bodily harm in the mind of a reasonable manone reasonably prudent courageous, and self-possessed. To Justify the taking of human life the law makes no discrimination in favor of a coward or a drunkard or any particular Individual, but <o:p></o:p>
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and G. W. Hendricks,

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