Limbershaft Sales Corp. v. A. G. Spalding & Bros.

How courts have described this case

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

• holding that “a defendant claiming self defense may show his own state of mind by testifying that he knew of the victim’s prior acts of violence” and by presenting “extrinsic corroborating evidence of the victim’s [known] acts of violence”
• explaining that prohibition on victim-prior-acts evidence “does not apply when a defendant seeks to introduce evidence that he knew of a victim’s other acts to show the defendant’s state of mind”
• holding Rule 404(b) does not prohibit a defendant from presenting evidence of his knowledge of a victim’s prior violent behavior or bad acts which caused defendant to have a subjective fear of imminent grave injury
• holding Rule 404(b) does not exclude evidence related to specific instances of a victim’s prior violent conduct when the defendant knew of the victim’s prior conduct at the time of the alleged offense to show the defendant’s state of mind
• “[E]xtrinsic evidence concerning a victim’s past acts is admissible under Rule 404(b) to show defendant’s state of mind.”
• “One of the elements of self defense is the defendant’s reasonable belief that his use of force was necessary. To support the rea sonableness of his belief, Saenz sought to introduce evidence that he knew (1

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).