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346 So. 2d 912

Docket No. 49737.

Cooley v. State

Odell COOLEY v. STATE of Mississippi.

Mississippi Supreme Court

Decided June 1, 1977.

Mississippi Supreme Court · decided 1977-06-01

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“By statute murder requires a "deliberate design to effect the death of the person killed." As defined by dictionaries the word "deliberate" always indicates full awareness of what one is doing, and generally implies careful and unhurried consideration of the consequences. "Design" means to calculate, plan, contemplate. These are general and accepted meanings of these words. While it is no doubt true that a deliberate design to kill a person may be formed very quickly, and perhaps only moments before the act of consummating the intent, it is a contradiction in terms to state that a "deliberate design" can be formed at the very moment of the fatal act.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 847 So. 2d 806 - Shipp v. State

“Deliberate design, as used in these Instructions, means intent to kill without authority of law and not being legally justifiable, legally excusable, or under circumstances that would reduce the act to a lesser crime. A deliberate design cannot be formed at the very moment of the fatal act, however, the deliberate design need not exist in the mind of the Defendant for any definite time, not for hours, days or even minutes, but if there is deliberate design, and it exists in the mind of the Defendant but for an instant before the fatal act, this is sufficient deliberate design to constitute the offense of Murder.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 847 So. 2d 806 - Shipp v. State

Relies on 308 So. 2d 71 - Newell v. State · 297 So. 2d 888 - Pittman v. State · Butler v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1977-06-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 2003

6 state decisions

201977198019902000decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Buckley & Ford, Carl D. Ford, Laurel, for appellant.

¶2A.F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by Catherine W. Underwood, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.

¶3Before GILLESPIE, C.J., ROBERTSON and LEE, JJ., and PIGOTT, Commissioner.

¶4*913 JOE N. PIGOTT, Commissioner for the Court:[1]

¶5This is an appeal from a conviction of murder and life sentence. The facts are not set out herein as the case must be reversed and remanded for a new trial.

¶6The testimony of the appellant and his witnesses made an issue of fact as to self-defense. Over timely objection of the defendant, the court granted Instruction No. 4 requested by the State, which is as follows:

The Court instructs the jury that while malice aforethought is a necessary ingredient to the crime of murder, still "malice aforethought" means the same as killing a human being with the deliberate design to effect the death of the person killed; and that this malice aforethought and deliberate design does not necessarily mean hatred or ill will, and need not exist in the mind of the Defendant for any definite time, nor for days or hours or even minutes, but if the deliberate design to kill exist at the time of the killing, this [sic] sufficient premeditation and deliberation to constitute the offense.

¶7*914 In Pittman v. State, 297 So.2d 888 (Miss., 1974), the Court considered this same instruction and held it to be reversible error in that form, stating on page 893:

The vice of the instruction is that it requires the jury to convict the defendant of murder if it finds that premeditation or deliberate design to kill the deceased existed at the time the killing occurred. The instruction fails to inform the jury that there are instances in which a deliberate design to kill may exist at the moment the fatal blow was struck and yet the homicide may be justifiable or excusable . ..
This instruction pared away the rights of the defendant and required the jury to find him guilty of murder even though the killing might have been justifiable by reason of self-defense. One may have a deliberate design to kill and yet not be guilty of murder.

¶8See also Newell v. State, 308 So.2d 71 (Miss., 1975).

¶9It is argued that the instruction is not erroneous when read with the other instructions. This argument was also made and answered in Pittman, supra, at page 893, wherein the Court said:

The instruction under consideration is in irreconcilable conflict with other instructions. The defendant's self-defense instructions did not cure the error because they are in hopeless conflict with the last clause of this instruction. Hudson v. State, 295 So.2d 766 (Miss., 1974); Butler v. State, 177 Miss. 91, 170 So. 148 (1936).

¶10The error in Instruction No. 4 is not cured by Instruction No. 8 for the State which, in itself, is erroneous as an abstract statement. Instruction No. 8 follows:

Deliberate design to kill is all that is required by Mississippi Law to make a homicide a murder. Deliberate design means intent to kill, without authority of Law and not being legally justifiable, legally excusable or under circumstances that would reduct [sic] the act to a lesser crime.

¶11We find no merit in the other assignments of error.

¶12REVERSED AND REMANDED FOR A NEW TRIAL.

¶13GILLESPIE, C.J., PATTERSON and INZER, P. JJ., and SMITH, ROBERTSON, SUGG, WALKER, BROOM and LEE, JJ., concur.

NOTES

¶14[1] pursuant to Chapter 430, Laws of 1976. The above opinion is adopted as the opinion of the Court.

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