Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

81 Ala. 38

Baker v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided December 15, 1886

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1886-12-15

Tried before the Hon. James E. Cobb. Frank Baker, the appellant, and John Baker, his brother, were jointly indicted for murder in the first degree, alleged to have been committed, in the killing of Solomon, alias Solly Lowe.

Relies on Storey v. State · DeArman v. State · Ford v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1886-12-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently March 1973

10 state decisions

501886189019001910192019301940195019601970decided

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 →

CLOPTON, J.

¶1— By repeated decisions of this court, it is settled beyond further controversy, that a defendant can not invoke the doctrine of self-defense, if he provoked or brought on the difficulty, or is not reasonably free from fault. He is precluded to avail himself of a necessity arising from a present impending peril of great bodily harm brought on himself by bis own wrongful act. There is evidence from which the jury could have legally inferred, not only that the defendant was not free from fault, but that lie sought the difficulty. In such case, a charge, which ignores the elementary principle, may be properly refused. Both the charges asked by the defendant assume, that a present impending necessity is sufficient, without reference to the question, whether the defeudant provoked or encouraged the difficulty, or was free from fault m bringing it on. Neither of them, under the evidence, states a hypothesis sufficient to bring the case within the operation of tiie doctrine of self-defense. The instructions, taken in connection with the evidence, could not have been given, without misleading the jury. — Ford v. The State, 71 Ala. 385; Jackson v. The State, 77 Ala. 18; Tesney v. The State, 77 Ala. 33; Storey v. The State, 71 Ala. 329; De Arman v. The State, 71 Ala. 351.

¶2The record raises no other question.

¶3Affirmed,

/81/ala/38 · .json · Public domain