Duncan v. People

Citations

• 134 Ill. 110
• 24 N.E. 765
• 1890 Ill. LEXIS 947

Syllabus

<p>1. ' Instructions—construed—on prosecution for manslaughter—self-defense—declining further combat, etc. On the trial of one for manslaughter, the court, for the prosecution, instructed the jury as follows: “In case of voluntary manslaughter there must bé a serious and highly provoking injury inflicted upon the person killing, sufficient to excite an irresistible passion in a reasonable person, or an attempt by the person killed to commit a serious personal injury to the person killing:” Held, that the instruction was not calculated to mislead, as being likely to eliminate from the consideration of the jury the theory that the defendant, although the first aggressor, subsequently declined further quarrel, and that his subsequent acts were done in self-defense.</p> <p>2. Same—cured by a further instruction—so as to allow the theory of self-defense. If an instruction for the People in such case is calculated to withdraw the consideration of the jury from his theory of self-defense, the giving of another instruction for the People which clearly recognizes the rule that the defendant, though the assailant in the first instance, might have retreated from that position by really and in good faith declining further combat, so as to be able to plead self-defense if the combat was afterward persisted in, will obviate all danger of misconception as to prior instructions.</p> <p>3. Same—instruction presenting one theory—should be supplemented by the opposing theory. Ordinarily it is not error to give an instruction embodying a correct proposition of law applicable to any tenable theory of the case, and the giving of such instruction will not usually require a reversal. If there is another theory to which this rule thus announced does not apply, it is usually the duty of the party relying upon such theory to ask the court to give such instruction as will properly present it.</p> <p>4. Same—whether assuming the fact—as, in manslaughter—that there was a homicide—and that the ac