Stalnaker v. State

2014 Ark. App. 412, 437 S.W.3d 700, 2014 Ark. App. LEXIS 529
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arkansas
DecidedJune 18, 2014
DocketNo. CR-13-1103
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 2014 Ark. App. 412 (Stalnaker v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stalnaker v. State, 2014 Ark. App. 412, 437 S.W.3d 700, 2014 Ark. App. LEXIS 529 (Ark. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

KENNETH S. HIXSON, Judge.

11 This appeal involves the application of an appropriate self-defense jury instruction in a murder trial. Appellant Danny Stalnaker was charged with the first-degree murder of Chris Patterson, but a Saline County jury ultimately convicted him of second-degree murder.1 Patterson died after appellant grabbed an unloaded .410 shotgun by the barrel and swung it at Patterson, striking him in the head with the gunstock and causing blunt-force trauma to the brain. Appellant claimed that he was justified in defending himself from what he believed was Patterson’s threat of physical force. Appellant requested that the jury be instructed on .the justifiable use of “physical force” in defense of a person, as found in Arkansas Model Jury Instruction-Criminal 704 (AMCI 704). The trial court refused AMCI 704 and instead offered to give AMCI 705, entitled “Justification — Deadly Physical Force.” Appellant 12rejected the trial court’s offer to give the “deadly physical force” instruction, asserting that the evidence would not support the required elements of that defense, and withdrew his request that the jury be instructed on a justification defense at all. Appellant proffered AMCI 704.

The issue on appeal is whether the trial judge abused his discretion in refusing appellant’s proffered justification-defense jury instruction, warranting a reversal and remand for a new trial on the murder charge. We disagree that an abuse of discretion has been shown, and we affirm.

We review a trial court’s decision regarding jury instructions under an abuse-of-discretion standard. Hickman v. State, 372 Ark. 438, 277 S.W.3d 217 (2008); Taylor v. State, 2013 Ark. App. 146, 2013 WL 765229. There is no error in refusing to give a jury instruction where there is no basis in the evidence to support the giving of the instruction. Purifoy v. State, 307 Ark. 482, 822 S.W.2d 374 (1991). A party is entitled to a jury instruction on a defense if there is sufficient evidence to raise a question of fact or if there is any supporting evidence for the instruction. Humphrey v. State, 332 Ark. 398, 966 S.W.2d 213 (1998). It is the trial court’s responsibility to give wholly correct instructions. Elmore v. State, 13 Ark.App. 221, 682 S.W.2d 758 (1985). In determining whether the trial court erred in refusing an instruction in a criminal trial, the test is whether the omission infects the entire trial such that the resulting conviction violates due process. Henderson v. State, 349 Ark. 701, 80 S.W.3d 374 (2002).

|sHere, the applicable statutes and model jury instructions demonstrated that only the “deadly physical force” model jury instruction was appropriate, if any. Thus, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing AMCI 704.

We review the evidence in greater detail for purposes of deciding the appropriate self-defense instruction and whether there was an abuse of discretion. Appellant and several others were spending the day at a camping area along the Saline River on June 16, 2012. Appellant, a retired iron-worker in his mid-sixties, had known thirty-five-year-old Chris Patterson for about ten years. Appellant acted as an unofficial caretaker for the camping area, which became known as “Danno’s Camp,” and considered himself a friend to most of the people who were there that day, including Patterson. There was a .410 shotgun that belonged to the campsite, and it was used by people visiting the campsite, including Patterson, to shoot snakes. On this particular day, the shotgun was loaded and propped up against a nearby tree.

Patterson had been drinking whiskey all day and was very intoxicated.2 He was a large man — 6'2" tall and 255 pounds — and had been intermittently threatening over the course of the day to “kick” or “whoop” various people’s “ass.” As people left the campsite, appellant asked them to take Patterson with them, but they declined. As the day wore on, Patterson became progressively more annoying, verbally abusive, obnoxious, and offensive to everyone.

At around 8:30-9:00 p.m., appellant approached Patterson, who was sitting at the picnic table, and asked him to leave. As appellant picked up the campsite’s shotgun to remove |4the shell, Patterson asked appellant, “What are you gonna do? Kill me?” Appellant said that he told Patterson that he did not want to kill him but just wanted him to leave. Appellant testified that Patterson replied, ‘You SOB, I will kill you” and stood up, taking a more aggressive approach, and “came at” appellant, acting like he was going to hit him. Patterson was unarmed. This was when appellant took the shotgun by the barrel and swung it like a bat at Patterson, hitting him in the head.

In contrast, a woman who was sitting at the picnic table testified that appellant told Patterson that he did not want to kill him, but he would show Patterson what he was going to do and struck Patterson while he remained sitting at the picnic table.

The stock of the shotgun made contact with Patterson’s head on the upper-left side. Witnesses heard the loud sound of the gun striking Patterson’s head. Appellant said that he reacted out of fear, but he did not intend to kill Patterson or think that Patterson would die from hitting him in the head. Appellant said that he did not realize that he hit Patterson so hard, although he acknowledged that the gun was heavy and that he (appellant) was strong. Photographs of the shotgun were submitted as evidence, and the jury was urged to view and hold the actual shotgun during deliberations.

Patterson fell to the ground by the picnic table, moaning and bleeding from his head. He was initially conscious and complained that his head hurt really badly, but he wanted to stay on the ground until his wife came to the campsite. Although appellant and a couple other people stayed to help wash off Patterson’s head wound, they left the camp and left Patterson there, expecting his wife to pick him up when her work shift ended. No one called 1 f¡911 for emergency assistance. Photographs of the blood on the ground next to the picnic table were entered into evidence.

When Patterson’s wife arrived later that night, she found him on the ground by the picnic table and called 911 for emergency assistance. Patterson was transported to Saline Memorial Hospital and then to UAMS due to the severity of his injuries, but he died the following night as a result of the blunt-foree trauma to his head.

The medical examiner described this as a significant, life-threatening injury, noting that Patterson was hit hard enough for his brain to impact the interior right side of his skull, the opposite side of where he had been struck. The medical examiner classified this as a homicide. Patterson sustained an approximately two-inch laceration, abrasions, and a fractured skull. This blunt-force trauma caused bleeding, swelling, and necrosis in his brain. The medical examiner found no evidence of defensive wounds. Autopsy photographs showing close-up views of Patterson’s head wounds were submitted into evidence for the jury to consider.

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Related

Keraig House v. State of Arkansas (537)
2020 Ark. App. 240 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2020)
Cogburn v. State
2016 Ark. App. 543 (Court of Appeals of Arkansas, 2016)
Stalnaker v. State
2015 Ark. 250 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 2015)

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Bluebook (online)
2014 Ark. App. 412, 437 S.W.3d 700, 2014 Ark. App. LEXIS 529, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stalnaker-v-state-arkctapp-2014.