State of Tennessee v. Ledarren S. Hawkins

How courts have described this case

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

• holding that tossing a shotgun over a short metal fence while running from police or the scene of the crime constitutes abandonment, not tampering with evidence
• concluding that “[t]he alpha and omega of [the defendant’s] defense was his own testimony that he shot [the victim] in a moment of fear to protect himself”
• noting that, when the evidence did not fairly raise the possibility that the defendant shot the victim because it was “immediately necessary” in defense of another, the instruction should not be given
• noting that self-defense is a general defense which does not require pretrial notice
• “The evidence was not altered or destroyed, and its discovery was delayed minimally, if at all.”
• “To prevail on a theory of self-defense, a defendant must show that he or she was ‘not engaged in unlawful activity’ and was ‘in a place where the person has a right to be.’”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).