Morales, Jose Manuel

How courts have described this case

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

• noting that a defendant is entitled to rely upon a-defense-of-a-third-person justification vjhere he reasonably believes force is immediately necessary regardless of whether that belief is actually correct
• explaining that focus is upon actor’s reasonable belief “concerning the situation of the third person”
• noting that, “[b]efore 2007, the self-defense statute also imposed a requirement that ‘a reasonable person in the actor’s situation would not have retreated’”
• holding “the trial court erred in submitting the italicized portions of the jury charge set out above because those instructions were not authorized by statute and they constituted comments on the weight of the evidence”
• describing the 2007 statutory amendment which abrogated the general “duty to retreat” instruction, and holding that “the inclusion of a ‘general duty to retreat’” instruction is erroneous
• “We also point out that the focus of the defense-of-third-persons defense is upon what the actor reasonably believes concerning the situation of the third person.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).