When trial courts go stupid on self defense law (aka, know the law)

I recently came across a 2011 self defense case in which the prosecution, the defense, and the judge all got the law completely backwards on the reading of a brief and rather straightforward self defense statute.

The result was that the defendant, who might well have been acquitted on the basis of self defense without this error, was instead convicted of second degree manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Somehow, every expertly trained legal professional in the court room managed to make a mistake I wouldn’t have expected from a first year law student. And, of course, it was the defendant who paid the price.

Although this particular case is out of Kentucky, trust me, mistakes like this happen in every state, and far too often. All the more reason why it is essential that all armed citizens have at least a basic working competence in the self defense laws of their jurisdiction (or anywhere they might go). Just because you're paying your defense lawyer a lot of money doesn't mean he's not going to make a stupid mistake--and if he does, it's you who pays the price. Know the law.

If you're interested in more details on how something like this occurs, the case citation is Barker v. Commonwealth, 341 S.W.3d 112 (KY Supreme Court 2011). Alternatively, you can read my analysis/narrative about the case on my blog page at: http://bit.ly/WIjqLk .

Andrew

Bubba613 writes: "Um, what difference does it make if the citizen knows the law? I mean, that's important and all but not germane to your post."

As you note, the verdict was eventually reversed.

But wouldn't it have been more convenient for all involved if the defendant could have given his lawyer a gentle elbow to the ribs, right there in the trial court room, and whispered, "Hey, dummy, the judge is proposing to give an incorrect instruction of the law--object, NOW."

Andrew

If, as you say, the defendant should be expected to be entirely ignorant of the law, how would he possibly be able to assess whether the attorney he is hiring is competent?

And if you think my advice to "know the law" was intended to benefit punks who slash tires, you're simply mistaken. It's intended to benefit law-abiding armed citizens who might well unintentionally run afoul of the law if they don't know what the law is.

As for whether the defendant has any responsibility for knowing self defense law--I believe in personal responsibility. If my doctor were to recommend a potentially life-threatening medical procedure, you can be darned sure I'd educate myself about the procedure and the illness it was intended to treat. We should all be informed patients.

Similarly, if a decade or two of my life is hanging on a statute, I suggest it would be the foolish armed citizen, indeed, who didn't even take the time to bother reading the statute, and simply placed himself in the gentle care of a criminal defense attorney with whom he almost certainly has no prior personal or professional experience.

Better yet is to know enough of the law beforehand so you can avoid ending up at trial in the first place. To extend the health analogy, it's a lot better to quit smoking than to treat the lung cancer (typed with my formerly nicotine-stained fingers ).

But that's just me.

Well, in this case the defendant's 10-year manslaughter conviction was based on one mis-applied statute.

If that were me, I'd might be wondering later if it would not have been prudent to take a gander at the one statute myself. :banghead:

Not memorize the entirety of the criminal code and criminal case law. Not go to law school and open a criminal defense practice. Not become a Supreme Court justice.

Just read one simple statute.

Just one guy's opinion.

Andrew

Arkansas Paul said:

That doesn't necessarily mean that the judge would have changed his instructions. Many times objections are made with the full knowledge they will be overruled. Objections preserve the record. If you don't object to something in the trial phase, you can't appeal on that issue. A successful appeal was made here, so perhaps an objection was made.

Click to expand...

Normally, that would be true, where there was merely some reasonable disagreement in the interpretation or application of the statute. There's two reasonable arguments, and the judge has to pick one, and he is going to stick to his decision even if one of the parties is disappointed (as one of them must be).

But this is not the normal case. In this case there was NO room for reasonable differences in interpretation. The statute explicitly references the intent of the the person PROVOKING the events, and the judge instead instructed the jury to consider the intent of the person RESPONDING to the provocation. Unless it's "opposite day", the judge got the law backwards, and every other legal expert in the room either failed to notice or decided to let it slide--and if the latter, they had to know that the error all but mandated a conviction.

This was not a reasonable difference in interpretation or application of the law, it was a simple, stupid error.

If the obvious error had been pointed out, might the judge have doubled-down and still insisted on giving the obviously wrong instruction? I woud like to think that most judges wouldn't deliberately and knowingly give an incorrect instruction.

But I guess anything's possible.

Andrew

Bubba613 said:

In retrospect of course we know which statute that was. At the time there were many and numerous statutes, laws, ordinances and precedents to consider. Which one of those was going to be the key to the case?

Click to expand...

Maybe focus then just on the provocation charge? You know, the one that, if screwed up, would destroy his ability to argue self defense and put him on the hook for (at minimum) manslaughter and perhaps even murder (it was only by the grace of the jury that his conviction was for merely manslaughter).

Surely he must have understood that the killing of another person was a much more serious legal matter than the slashing of some tires, right?

I can understand running out of time and not being able to cover ALL the jury instructions and statutes and so forth, but wouldn't you at least take the time to understand the single most serious of the jury instructions? To invest, what, the minute or two it would take to read the provocation instruction, the one on which the jury would decide how you spend the next 10 or 20 years of your life--as a free man, or servicing Bubba?

But, hey, we can agree to disagree on this. If you feel that taking the time to understand even the single most critical of the jury instructions would have been an overwhelming task, that's OK with me.

It's just not how I would have handled it.

Andrew

Captains1911 is correct.

I suppose the original link to the blog post with the details might have been buried by now, but you can just go to the top of the thread and find it. Or click on my username and follow that trail to find it. Or just drop me a PM.

Either way.

Andrew