United States v. Saenz

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).

Cited by

19 cases in this archive cite this case.

• United States v. Michael H. Boulware, United States of America v. Michael H. Boulware
  Ninth Circuit· 2004-09-14· cited 151×
• United States v. Jay R. Bishop, United States of America v. Gene R. Cardenaz
  Ninth Circuit· 2002-05-30· cited 89×
• United States v. James Allen Gregg
  Eighth Circuit· 2006-06-29· cited 82×
• Strong v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2020-06-29· cited 51×
• United States v. Denny Johnson, Sr.
  Eighth Circuit· 2017-06-29· cited 41×
• United States v. Dobson
  Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces· 2006-03-20· cited 36×
• United States v. Sheehan
  D.C. Circuit· 2008-01-11· cited 26×
• United States v. Eric Christian
  Ninth Circuit· 2014-04-17· cited 21×
• Christopher v. People
  Supreme Court of The Virgin Islands· 2012-09-28· cited 20×
• United States v. Rudy Garcia
  Ninth Circuit· 2013-07-19· cited 17×
• United States v. Ballou
  D. New Mexico· 2014-10-16· cited 15×
• United States v. Armajo
  Tenth Circuit· 2022-06-23· cited 12×
• Copeland v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2023-05-31· cited 10×
• State v. E. Gomez
  Montana Supreme Court· 2020-03-31· cited 4×
• State v. Fisk
  Ohio Court of Appeals· 2021-06-11· cited 4×
• United States v. Montiel-Sanchez
  Ninth Circuit· 2006-03-17· cited 2×
• United States v. Branum
  Ninth Circuit· 2001-11-15· cited 1×
• United States v. Rudy Garcia
  Ninth Circuit· 2013-08-13
• De Los Reyes v. De Mesa Linayao
  Ninth Circuit· 2004-11-10

Cites

4 cases in this archive are cited by this case.

• United States v. Ronald Keiser, Jr.
  Ninth Circuit· 1995-06-16· cited 92×
• United States v. John Edward Spencer
  Ninth Circuit· 1993-07-07· cited 52×
• UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ernestine Audry JAMES, A/K/A Ernestine James, Defendant-Appellant
  Ninth Circuit· 1999-03-09· cited 35×
• United States v. Thomas
  Ninth Circuit· 1998-01-22· cited 16×