Self Defense Considering Victim’s Physical Condition
Under California law, a defendant claiming self-defense must prove he subjectively believed in the need to defend and that such belief was objectively reasonable. As to what is objectively reasonable under the circumstances, may a jury consider defendant’s physical limitations in determining whether defendant’s belief was reasonable?
The U.S. Supreme Court held, in Smith v. United States (1896) 161 U.S. 85, 88, that in considering self-defense, a jury is allowed to consider “any evidence, which, according to the common experience of mankind, tends to show that the defendant had reasonable cause to apprehend great bodily harm from the conduct of the deceased.” About ten years later, the California Supreme Court also ruled that the physical condition of defendant is a relevant factor in determining whether his belief in the need for self defense was reasonable. People v. Smith (1907) 151 Cal. 619, 625-629.
The reasonableness issue depends upon how the circumstances appeared to defendant and how a reasonable person would have reacted under similar circumstances.
Why This Article Matters: While we do not condone what defendant did in this case, we believe the Fourth Appellate District’s ruling is wrong on multiple levels, for the reasons we state toward the end of the article.
In the following case, defendant Jack Horn made a stabbing motion toward Eugene Di Luigi, following a dispute over Luigi's dogs. Both Horn and Luigi had gone for walks on the morning of October 3, 2016 on the hiking trails of the Yorba Linda Lakebed Park. Horn, age 73, was with his wife. Di Luigi, age 64, was with his three dogs.
According to Di Luigi, Horn was livid about Di Liugi’s three dogs not being on a leash. Horn had a walking stick and made a stabbing motion toward one of the dogs. Then, while Di Luigi was bending down toward one of the dogs, Horn made a “baseball” style swing at him with the stick. Di Luigi was able to block the blow slightly with his hand, but the stick still hit him hard on the side of his head.
Horn then began punching Di Luigi and they began struggling over the walking stick, which Di Luigi eventually got and threw into the bushes. As Di Luigi then was walking away, Horn then passed him up on the walking trail, stopped, turned around and pulled out a gun.
Di Luigi told Horn to put away the gun and Horn’s wife also told him the same thing, but Horn fired a shot into Di Luigi’s chest. Di Luigi then called 911 and help arrived. He was airlifted into a local hospital.
The Orange County District Attorney’s office filed charges of attempted murder against Horn, but the jury acquitted him of that charge and instead convicted him of the lesser include offense of attempted voluntary manslaughter. The trial court judge, Edward Rogan, then sentenced Horn to nine years in state prison, where he very well may pass away.
Fourth Appellate District CA Court of Appeal Santa AnaOn appeal to the Fourth Appellate District in Santa Ana, Horn only made one argument. He alleged that the district attorney misstated the law on self-defense in closing argument. While admitting that Horn’s spinal problems were relevant in determining whether he had an honest subjective belief in the need for self-defense, the prosecutor told the jury that defendant’s spinal problems had no bearing on whether any such belief was objectively reasonable, which is one of the requirements for self-defense.
The Fourth Appellate District agreed with Horn that this argument to the jury was improper, however, it found that the trial court judge’s curative jury instruction on this issue was “sufficient to disabuse the jury of the incorrect impression left by the prosecutor’s statements.”
The Fourth Appellate District’s further explanation was, we think, remarkable. It described how the trial court, in prefacing its recitation of jury instructions, told the jury that it was “not uncommon for attorneys to inadvertently misstate the law during their closing remarks.” However, the trial court told the jury that he (the judge) was the final arbiter on all legal issues, “so if the attorneys said anything that conflicted with the court’s instructions on the law, the jurors must disregard their attorneys’ statements and follow the court’s instructions.”
While we understand this attempt by a trial court judge to explain the significance of jury instructions, we think the Fourth Appellate District went too far in downplaying the significance of the prosecutor’s arguments.
We think jurors regard the prosecution with greater trust and respect, generally, than defense counsel, so the arguments of the prosecution are far more persuasive and accepted by the jury. When the judge is introducing jury instructions, most jurors have already made up their mind.
Instead, we think this appellate opinion puts the issue on a slippery slope. In the next case, will the judge also be able to cure the prosecution’s misstatement of the law? Why then have any rules on closing arguments? Just rely upon the judge to fix it in his presentation of jury instructions. This is not, we believe, how trials should proceed. Instead, both defense counsel and the prosecution must be held to the highest ethical standards and that includes stating the law correctly. The stakes are too high to proceed in any other casual way.
The citation for the Fourth Appellate District Court ruling discussed above is People v. Junior Horn (4th App. Dist., 2021) 63 Cal. App. 5th 672, 277 Cal. Rptr. 3d 901.
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