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State v. Beck7/26/2005
that.
In requiring the defendant to have a reasonable belief concerning the use or imminent use of unlawful force by the victim to rely on self-defense, section 563.031.1 does not require proof that the victim's acts of force were actually unlawful, but only proof that the defendant "reasonably believed" that they were unlawful. Likewise, in requiring the defendant to have a reasonable belief concerning the necessity of his actions to defend against the unlawful force of the victim to avoid harm or injury, section 563.031 does not require proof that the defendant's actions were actually necessary, but only that he reasonably believed that they were necessary. A "reasonable belief" is required to be defined in every self-defense instruction as follows:
As used in this instruction, the term 'reasonable belief' means a belief based on reasonable grounds, that is, grounds that could lead a reasonable person in the same situation to the same belief. This depends upon how the facts reasonably appeared. It does not depend on whether the belief turned out to be true or false.
MAI-CR 3d 306.06, Note on Use 4(d). Instruction No. 11 included this definition. The State contends from this that:
The instruction talks about a reasonable person in the 'same situation.' Use of the word 'situation' connotes something more than the mere actions of the victim. Under this definition the jury was not restricted to consider only the victim's actions, but was permitted to consider the actions of all persons and the totality of the circumstances in determining whether Appellant had a reasonable belief of imminent danger.
We would agree with the State's contention that the inclusion of the mandatory definition of "reasonable belief" in Instruction No. 11 would seem to instruct the jury that it could consider the "situation" or the totality of the circumstances in determining whether the appellant, in stabbing the victim, acted out of necessity in defending himself from harm or injury, which circumstances would include the acts of the victim's friends. The problem with the State's contention, however, is that Instruction No. 11 states, in pertinent part: "If the defendant was not the initial aggressor in the encounter with [the victim], and the [appellant] reasonably believed he was in imminent danger of harm from the acts of [the victim] and the [appellant] used only such force as reasonably appeared to be necessary to defend himself, then he acted in lawful self-defense." It is reasonable to conclude from this that the jury believed that in considering whether the appellant acted in lawful self-defense in stabbing the victim, it could only consider the acts of the victim.
Some argument could be made for the fact the "acts of [the victim]" language of the instruction only applied to the jury's determination of the issue of "imminent danger of harm," which as we discussed, supra, was substituted for the "unlawful force" determination, required by section 563.031.1, and not to its determination of the appellant's belief as to the necessity of his response to the victim's alleged unlawful acts to avoid harm or injury. This then would leave room to argue, as the State does, that Instruction No. 11 instructed the jury that in determining the reasonableness of the appellant's belief as to the necessity for stabbing the victim, in order to avoid harm or injury, it could consider the totality of the circumstances, which would include the acts of the victim's friends. It is unreasonable, however, to suggest that the jury could have made this fine of a distinction, especially given the State's closing argument, which the appellant challenges in Point I, as being contrary to th
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