Hall v. State

168 S.W. 1122, 113 Ark. 454, 1914 Ark. LEXIS 550
Supreme Court of Arkansas·Decided June 22, 1914·Published·Cited by 15 cases

Opinion

Hart, J.',

(after stating the facts). The court gave the following instruction at the request of the defendant:

“No. 5. You are instructed that if defendant had reason to believe he or any one at his house would probably be attacked, then as a matter of law he had a perfect right to arm himself and prepare not only for his own defense, but that of his home and all persons being • therein at the time; and if deceased, either alone or with others acting with him, advanced upon defendant’s home for the purpose of renewing a difficulty with or attacking any person therein, defendant would not be required to retreat, but may stand his ground and meet force with force, and if necessary to prevent either himself or any person in his home from receiving great bodily injury at the hands of the deceased, or him and those with him and acting with him, either or all of them, or if situated as he was, viewing the facts and circumstances as they appeared to him, and from his standpoint he had reason to believe and did believe he or any person at his house was in imminent and immediate danger of losing his life or receiving some great bodily injury at the hands of the deceased or him and those acting with him, any or either of them, and in good faith, without fault or negligence on his part, he shot and killed the deceased, then such killing would in law be justified, and' you should acquit the defendant, although you may believe such killing unnecessary or that such danger did not exist.”

Counsel for defendant also asked the court to give additional instructions with reference to the defense of his habitation, and error is assigned because the court refused to give them. Counsel contends that instruction No. 5, above set out, limited the right of defendant to shoot the deceased to the defense of his own person or some inmate of his house, but omitted to charge the jury with reference to the right of the defendant to defend his home.

We do not think this instruction restricted or limited the defendant to a defense of his own person or some inmate of his house. It went further, and, -in plain and express terms, also submitted to the jury the law of justifiable homicide in the defense of the defendant’s home. In addition to instruction No. 5, the court, at the request of the defendant, read to the jury sections 1795 and 1796 of Kirby’s Digest, which are as follows:

“Section 1795. Every man’s house or place of residence shall be deemed and adjudged, in law, his castle.” “Section 1796. A manifest attempt and endeavor, in a violent, riotous, or tumultuous manner to enter the habitation of another for the purpose of assaulting or offering personal violence to any person dwelling or being therein shall be a justification of homicide.”

It is next insisted that the court erred in refusing to give instruction No. 3, at the request of the defendant. The instruction is as follows:

“You are further instructed that the right given a man to defend his home against invasion and violence extends to and includes the immediate premises surrounding and environing the house, whether the same is fenced as a yard or not. If you believe from the evidence in this case that deceased, either on his own initiative or with others acting with him, entered the yard or immediate territory surrounding defendant’s house and in close proximity to the house and a part of the house premises, in a violent, riotous or tumultuous manner with intent to offer personal violence to any person in or about the house, or thought to be there, and defendant situated as he was, and viewing the facts and circumstances from his standpoint, acting as a reasonable person, believed it necessary to slay the deceased to prevent such invasion and violence, and so believing he shot and killed the deceased, then in law such killing would be justified, and you should acquit the defendant.”

We do not think the court erred in refusing to give this instruction. The first sentence of the instruction, in effect, told the jury, as a matter of law, that the rights given a man to defend Ms home extended to the premises surrounding it, regardless of the fact of whether the person intended to enter the dwelling house or not. At the common law an assault upon a man’s house was an assault upon himself, and he could therefore repel such an assault by the force necessary to defeat it. In discussing sections 1795 and 1796 of Kirby’s Digest, in the case of Brown v. State, 55 Ark. 593, Mr. Justice Mansfield, speaking for the court, said:

“Following the doctrine of the common law, the statute regards the violent attempt to enter the house as equivalent to an assault upon the person to be injured; and when it is obviously about to be made, he may at once put himself in an attitude to repel the aggressor. It was not practicable to give a rule applicable to all cases for determining what acts or conduct will constitute the actual attempt to enter a house. But it must be a ‘manifest’ attempt; and'we take this to mean one so plainly made that no reasonable doubt will exist as to the purpose of the aggressor. At what point the effort to enter the house was begun, and how far it may be permitted to proceed with safety to the life or person of the individual assailed, must be determined by the circumstances of each case. And these are questions more of fact than of law.”

In the case of the State v. Patterson, 45 Vt. 308, 12 Am. Rep. 200, the court said:

“The idea that is embodied in the expression that a man’s house is his castle, is not that it is his property, and, as such, he has the right to defend and protect it by .other and more extreme means than he might lawfully use to defend and protect his shop, his offices, or his barn. The sense in which the house has a peculiar immunity is, that it is sacred for the protection of his person and of Ms family. An assault on the house can be regarded as an assault on the person, only in case the purpose of such assault be injury to the person of the occupant or members of his family, and, in order to accomplish tMs, the assailant attacks the castle in order to reach the inmates. In this view, it is said and settled that, in such case, the inmate need not flee from his house in order to escape from being injured by the assailant, but he may meet him at the threshold, and prevent him from breaking in by means rendered necessary by the exigency; and upon the same ground and reason as one may defend himself from peril of life, or great bodily harm, by means fatal to the assailant, if rendered necessary by the exigency of the assault.”

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Hall v. State, 168 S.W. 1122, 113 Ark. 454, 1914 Ark. LEXIS 550 (Ark. 1914).

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