Billy Russell v. State of Indiana

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• explaining that “a claim of self-defense must be evaluated . . . by considering the objective reasonableness of the defendant’s belief that he was in imminent harm”
• a trial court’s discretion regarding bifurcation of trial is subject to an abuse of discretion standard on appeal
• in first stage of trial, jury heard evidence of murder and unlawful possession of gun, and second stage, jury heard evidence of whether defendant was SVF
• when the jury has no knowledge of prior offenses, the defendant is not prejudiced
• “Had the trial court fully bifurcated the trial on the SVF charge from the trial on the murder charge, the trial court would have avoided instructing the jury on the non-existing offense of ‘unlawfully’ possessing a firearm.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).