State v. Rye

651 S.E.2d 321, 375 S.C. 119, 2007 S.C. LEXIS 335

• Court: Supreme Court of South Carolina
• Decided: September 10, 2007
• Docket: 26379
• Status: Published

Opinions

Chief Justice TOAL:

This is a direct appeal in a criminal case. A jury convicted Appellant Grover Rye (“Appellant”) of murder, and we certified the case for review from the court of appeals. Because we find that the jury was not properly charged regarding a defense Appellant asserted at trial, we reverse.

Factual/Procedural Background

The events which culminated in the incident that is the subject of this appeal are both disturbing and bizarre. According to the record, Appellant owned a parcel of property on which he stored tools and equipment he used in his business. Although this property was not Appellant’s primary residence, he occasionally slept in a house located on the property. Appellant visited the property every day, and sometimes more than once a day, to maintain the property and to feed several pet cats Appellant kept there.

Between March and August 2004, Appellant experienced continuous problems with trespassers on his property. According to the record, these trespassers not only entered Appellant’s property, damaged the premises, and stole Appellant’s equipment, the trespassers also made a sport of shooting (and killing) Appellant’s pet cats. According to Appellant, he phoned the police on several separate occasions after discovering that trespassers had been on his property, but he was told that the police “did not need to respond to cat-killing reports.”

According to the record, one of the primary trespassers was Appellant’s neighbor. On the day of the incident which is the subject of the instant case, the neighbor, a friend, and the deceased (an off-duty county police deputy), took firearms onto Appellant’s property and engaged in more of the violent activity we have described. After shooting for some time, the three trespassers returned to the neighbor’s residence to reload. After accomplishing this, the neighbor and the deceased ventured back onto Appellant’s property.

According to Appellant, he went onto his property at some point during this time period, saw a dead cat by the front steps of his house, and observed footprints around the house. Appellant alleges that he went to his cousin’s house, phoned the police, and went back to his driveway to await the police’s arrival. Appellant alleges that he then heard a gunshot on his property. At that point, Appellant grabbed his rifle from his vehicle and ran towards his house.

Appellant and the neighbor gave conflicting testimony at trial regarding the circumstances surrounding the shooting of the deceased. According to Appellant, he approached the house, heard additional gunshots around him, and then saw the deceased charging at him in a slouching position with his rifle. Appellant asserted that no words passed between the men, but that the men immediately exchanged gunfire. Appellant testified that after firing four shots at the deceased, Appellant ran from his property.

According to the neighbor, when he and the deceased returned from reloading their weapons, Appellant came around a corner on the property with his weapon raised. The neighbor testified that Appellant confronted the deceased, and that upon being confronted, the deceased held his gun by the handle to put the gun on the ground, requested that Appellant not shoot, and raised one of his arms. The neighbor testified that as the deceased kneeled to put down the gun, Appellant shot the deceased multiple times.

A jury convicted Appellant of murder, and this appeal followed. We certified the case for review from the court of appeals pursuant to Rule 204(b), SCACR, and Appellant purports to present a total of eight issues for our review. Exercising our prerogative to decide only those questions that are necessary to the resolution of a case, we find that only one issue requires discussion:

Did the trial court err in refusing to charge Appellant’s proposed charge on the defense of habitation?

Standard of Review

A trial court’s decision regarding jury charges will not be reversed where the charges, as a whole, properly charged the law to be applied. State v. Burkhart, 350 S.C. 252, 263, 565 S.E.2d 298, 304 (2002). Conversely, where a defendant requests a charge on a defense that is supported by the evidence presented at trial, the trial court is required to charge the jury on that defense, and the failure to do so is reversible error. State v. Day, 341 S.C. 410, 416-17, 535 S.E.2d 431, 434 (2000).

Law/Analysis

Appellant argues that the trial court erred by incorrectly charging the jury as to the defense of habitation. We agree.

At trial, Appellant sought to make use of two defenses: self-defense and the defense of habitation. While charging the jury on the law of habitation, the trial court properly stated that the law recognizes the right of every person to defend his or her premises, but differentiated habitation from self-defense with the sole caveat that “[a] person defending his or her home or premises ... has no duty to retreat.” Though this was most of the picture, it was not the complete picture.

In this case, it was important for the jury to fully understand exactly what “defending one’s home or premises” meant. As the defense of habitation provides, defending one’s home or premises means ending an unwarranted intrusion through the use of reasonably necessary means of ejection. State v. Bradley, 126 S.C. 528, 533, 120 S.E. 240, 242 (1923). By instructing that “[tjhe same elements required by law to establish self-defense apply to the defense of habitation, with the exception of the duty to retreat,” the charges in the instant case incorrectly implied that habitation requires a defendant to establish that his person or property was in some danger of injury or harm.¹

For the defense of habitation to apply, a defendant need only establish that a trespass has occurred and that his chosen means of ejectment were reasonable under the circumstances. Bradley, 126 S.C. at 533, 120 S.E. at 242. Stated differently, unlike the defense of self-defense, the defense of habitation does not require that a defendant reasonably believe that he (or his property) was in imminent danger sustaining serious injury or damage. Instead, the defense of habitation provides that where one attempts to force himself into another’s dwelling, the law permits an owner to use reasonable force to expel the trespasser. Although our precedents properly recognize that self-defense and habitation are analogous, see, e.g., State v. Sullivan, 345 S.C. 169, 173, 547 S.E.2d 183, 185 (2001), the defenses are not identical.

In Bradley, this Court outlined four scenarios involving the law of habitation: (1) When the occupant is the slayer and stands upon habitation apart from self-defense; (2) When the occupant is the slayer, stands upon the right of self-defense, but claims immunity from his duty to retreat; (3) When the occupant is the slain and the homicide occurred while he sought to protect his habitation; and (4) When the occupant is the slain and the homicide occurred while he was attempting to eject a trespasser but was outside of his habitation. Id. at 233-37, 120 S.E. at 242-243. Although scenarios (3) and (4) clearly- have no application here, a review of the record reveals that Appellant sought to avail himself not only of self-defense as described in scenario (2), but also of the defense of habitation described in scenario (1). By differentiating habitation from self-defense solely on the element of a duty to retreat, the trial court’s charge addressed the second scenario, but it did not address the first.

In the instant case, the trial court’s charge on the defense of habitation was incomplete. For that reason, we must reverse.

Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse Appellant’s conviction and remand the case for a new trial.

PLEICONES, J„ and Acting Justice ALEXANDER S. MACAULAY, concur. MOORE, J. dissenting in a separate opinion in which Acting Justice E.C. BURNETT, III, concurs.

1 . This implication arises from one of the elements of the defense of self-defense. As our precedent recognizes, self-defense requires that a defendant show that (1) he was without fault in bringing on the difficulty; (2) he was in actual imminent danger of losing his life or sustaining serious bodily injury, or he must have actually believed he was in imminent danger of losing his life or sustaining serious bodily injury; (3) a reasonably prudent person of ordinary firmness and courage would have entertained the same belief; and (4) he had no other probable means of avoiding the danger. State v. Bryant, 336 S.C. 340, 344-45, 520 S.E.2d 319, 321-22 (1999).