A Sheridan, Wyoming, man accused of killing a local hockey coach with a hard punch last July won’t have his manslaughter charge dismissed early, but he can still argue to a jury that he acted in self-defense, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Cody McCalla, who turns 35 this year, could face up to 20 years if convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the July 13 death of Patrick Mudd.
McCalla is accused of engaging Mudd, 48, in a July 12 fight over a parking spot outside the Sheridan WYO rodeo, and, after a lull in the fight, walking up to Mudd and punching him so hard that he died the next day.
McCalla is set for a March 3 jury trial in Sheridan District Court.
On Nov. 6 he asked Sheridan District Court Judge Benjamin Kirven to dismiss his manslaughter case, based on a Wyoming law that says a person “shall not” be prosecuted if he acted in self-defense.
The law says a person who is lawfully present when attacked doesn’t have a duty to retreat, and that he can react to a threat with reasonable force of his own. In a case where someone used lethal force, he’s only justified if he reasonably perceived a threat of death or serious injury to himself or another person.
McCalla argued that the circumstances met those criteria.
Sheridan County Attorney Dianna Bennet countered Nov. 18, saying McCalla’s argument cherry-picked from the narrative and overlooked his own aggression in the serious fight of that evening.
Bennett and her deputy prosecutor, Christopher LaRosa, proved during a hearing late last month that Mudd wasn’t the “initial aggressor” in the final and reportedly fatal segment of the fight, Kirven ruled Tuesday.
The ruling doesn’t convict McCalla, it just says the judge will let the case go to trial rather than dismissing it early on McCalla’s self-defense claim.
What Happened
Kirven wrote a rough narrative of the events of that night, acknowledging both undisputed and disputed testimonies in their relative contexts.
McCalla and his friend Dustin Wheeler drove to the rodeo that night.
Mudd’s partner Jennifer Gage was trying to park on West 5th Street, and there was a misunderstanding over whether she or Wheeler would get that parking spot.
As to whether the two vehicles actually collided, “testimony differed,” wrote the judge.
Mudd got out of Gage’s vehicle and verbally confronted Wheeler and McCalla, insulting them both and demanding they move their vehicle so Gage could park.
McCalla did so.
McCalla and Wheeler both testified at the January hearing that they felt threatened by Mudd, says Kirven’s order.
McCalla parked elsewhere, about 100 feet to the west. But then Wheeler and McCalla approached Mudd on foot, according to Gage’s testimony.
McCalla outpaced Wheeler, walked “aggressively” and verbally confronted Mudd, saying things like “Do you want to go, (expletive)?” and “Who are you calling (expletive),” the order relates from Gage’s and Wheeler’s separate testimonies.
A “very serious physical fight” followed, during which Mudd knocked McCalla down multiple times, the order says
Citing McCalla and Wheeler’s testimonies, Kirven wrote that Mudd landed many punches to McCalla’s face.
Gage testified that McCalla landed several punches to Mudd’s belly area.
The fight reached a lull, and Mudd walked toward Gage, on the sidewalk.
It Ain’t Over
Wheeler testified that he thought the fight was over just then, and he urged McCalla to leave the scene, says the judge’s order.
But McCalla re-approached Mudd and engaged him verbally, witnesses testified.
“You did this to my face because of a parking spot?” asked McCalla, according to Wheeler’s testimony.
Then McCalla punched Mudd “in a blur,” after which Mudd died several hours later, the order says.
Our Judicial Ancestors
When reaching an area not covered by Wyoming’s self-defense laws, courts can defer to “common law,” or past findings by courts.
One such tenet says that the “aggressor who provokes the conflict” doesn’t enjoy self-defense immunity, unless at some point that aggressor withdrew from the fight in good faith and told his foe that he wanted to stop fighting.
“Despite the aggressive demeanor of Mr. Mudd immediately following the parking dispute, the confrontation ended upon Mr. Wheeler and the defendant driving up the road to find a different parking spot,” wrote Kirven.
The couple only stayed near their vehicle because Gage was worried the two men would hurt the vehicle in some way, the order adds.
McCalla “proceeded down the sidewalk in an aggressive manner and in a way that can only be described as looking for a fight with the man who had recently berated him and his friend,” Kirven wrote. Yet, berating someone doesn’t make a person the aggressor, he noted, drawing from a 2013 self-defense case.
“The case should not be dismissed,” Kirven’s order concludes. But, the judge wrote, nothing in his order should prevent McCalla from arguing to a jury that he acted in self-defense.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
