Tunstill v. State

568 N.E.2d 539, 1991 Ind. LEXIS 44, 1991 WL 38174
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 21, 1991
Docket49S00-8810-CR-884
StatusPublished
Cited by69 cases

This text of 568 N.E.2d 539 (Tunstill v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tunstill v. State, 568 N.E.2d 539, 1991 Ind. LEXIS 44, 1991 WL 38174 (Ind. 1991).

Opinions

[541]*541DeBRULER, Justice.

Appellant was tried to a jury on a charge of murder and was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, a Class B felony, I.C. 35-42-1-8.1 He received an executed sentence of twenty years. In this direct appeal, appellant challenges both the validity of his conviction and the propriety of his sentence.

Appellant first argues that the evidence is insufficient to support a conviction for manslaughter. Specifically, appellant claims that the evidence at trial established that he acted in self-defense. Where the issue of self-defense is asserted by a defendant and finds support in the evidence, the State then has the burden of negating the presence of one or more of the necessary elements of the defense: that the defendant acted without fault, that he was in a place where he had a right to be, and that he acted in reasonable fear or apprehension of death or serious bodily injury. Ashford v. State (1984), Ind., 464 N.E.2d 1298; Johnson v. State (1971), 256 Ind. 579, 271 N.E.2d 123. The standard of review for sufficiency claims where the issue of self-defense is raised is the same as in any other context. This Court will neither reweigh the evidence nor fudge the credibility of the witnesses, but will affirm the convietion if the evidence most favorable to the verdict and the reasonable inferences to be drawn therefrom provide probative evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could infer guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Ashford, 464 N.E.2d 1298.

The evidence produced at trial most favorable to the verdict shows that the victim, Jerry Wayne Haggard, died of a single stab wound inflicted by appellant during a scuffle which occurred at a little after 2:00 a.m. on July 19, 1987, in the parking lot of B & B Liquors in Indianapolis. Appellant and Haggard had been acquainted for six or seven years and often socialized and drank together and, in fact, Haggard had stopped by appellant's house twice on the day before the incident. Haggard was drinking during both visits and used cocaine during the second visit, which was at about 6:00 in the evening. Appellant did not see Haggard again until their encounter in the parking lot in the early hours of the next morning.

At approximately 1:45 a.m. on July 19, appellant walked from his house to B & B Liquors to buy some wine before closing time. The employees had already locked the door, and several people were congregated in the parking lot. Keith Allen, a clerk at B & B, let appellant in because it was not quite 2:00 and because he knew appellant to be a regular customer. Short of the cash necessary to make his purchase and unable to obtain a loan or credit from any of the employees present, appellant backed out of the store, still talking to Allen. As he took a step backward, appellant brushed into Haggard. Appellant turned and said to Haggard, "Hey, what's happening?", whereupon Haggard kicked appellant in the groin. Appellant backed away, repeating, "Hey, man, what's going on? What's wrong with you?" and Haggard kicked him again. Haggard kicked appellant a third time, this time in the shins, and appellant pushed Haggard backward. Haggard stumbled, and appellant pulled out a knife and, still backing up but swinging the knife from side to side in front of him, said, "What's wrong with you? You must want to die. Do you want to die, nigger?" Haggard continued advancing, the two "clenched," according to one witness, then Haggard staggered back with his hands pressed against his body and fell onto a parked car. He died shortly thereafter. Appellant ran from the scene and surrendered to police at his home without incident later that day.

Appellant argues that the State failed in its burden to negate beyond a reasonable doubt that his act of stabbing Haggard was committed in response to a reasonable fear or apprehension of death or serious bodily injury. In support of this argument, he cites to testimony by scene witnesses that Haggard kicked him repeatedly and struck blows with a hand as well as his [542]*542feet, that Haggard was the larger of the two, and that Haggard appeared to be the aggressor throughout the incident and appeared to be under the influence of alcohol and cocaine.

Appellant's own testimony, however, was that Haggard kicked him only three times and never used his hands at all. Appellant also testified that, other than a pocketknife, he had never known Haggard to carry a weapon of any sort. Scene witnesses testified that Haggard did not appear to be armed that night, and police witnesses testified that no weapon was found on Haggard's person, in a paper bag he was carrying, or anywhere in the vicinity of the altercation. All of the scene witnesses testified further that appellant did not appear to be bloodied or bruised in the scuffle and that he did not even limp as he fled the parking lot. Every witness who saw Haggard that night, including appellant, testified that he was visibly "high," and the testimony of a forensic pathologist indicated that the victim was extremely intoxicated at the time of his death. Tests conducted as part of the autopsy showed that, even after his blood had been diluted by blood transfusions given during emergency medical treatment, the victim registered .21 blood alcohol content, which is over twice the level required to establish drunken driving, and had a blood cocaine level of .11 milligrams per deciliter, which the pathologist noted was very high.

In his own trial testimony, appellant flatly denied that he meant to stab Haggard at all, and, in fact, stated that he would not describe his actions as self-defense. He testified rather that Haggard charged him and ran onto the knife as he held it in front of himself, attempting to warn Haggard off. In response to a hypothetical positing such a situation, the pathologist testified that a great deal of pressure would have to be exerted to cause a wound of the length and depth of Haggard's wound and that he thought it unlikely that Haggard's death could have been caused by his running onto the knife because that scenario would "require that the knife be held very firmly in a stationary position while the body was impaled upon the knife with considerable force."

Even where a homicide victim initiates an attack on the defendant, "the trier of fact may find that the use of deadly force is not justified if a reasonable person in the same cireumstances would not have been placed in reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm." Ashford, 464 N.E.2d at 1800-01. The witnesses here testified uniformly that Haggard initiated the conflict and that he seemed intent on continuing it. The jury could have found nonetheless that, given the cireumstances in which appellant found himself, his use of deadly force was not justified by a reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury based on the evidence that the two men knew each other well, that Haggard was extremely intoxicated, that Haggard was not armed and appellant knew that he did not typically carry a weapon, that Haggard struck only three blows with his feet to the lower part of appellant's body and none with his hands, and that the blows caused no discernible injuries to appellant. This was sufficient evidence to negate appellant's claim of self-defense. Id.

Appellant was charged with murder, and the jury returned a conviction for voluntary manslaughter.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
568 N.E.2d 539, 1991 Ind. LEXIS 44, 1991 WL 38174, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tunstill-v-state-ind-1991.