Opinion ID: 2572660
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pineda's proposed self-defense instructions

Text: Pineda argues that the district court erred by not adopting his proposed jury instructions concerning self-defense. The State contends that Pineda failed to object to the instructions ultimately adopted by the district court and, therefore, is entitled only to assert plain error on appeal. [22] Although the district court did not settle jury instructions on the record, Pineda proposed alternate instructions and the minutes reflect that he objected to the instructions ultimately adopted by the court concerning (1) burden of proof, (2) duty to retreat, and (3) self-defense. We conclude that Pineda raised a sufficient objection to preserve these issues for appeal. Pineda's argument primarily centers on the district court's jury instruction 24, which provided in part: The defendant has offered evidence of having acted in self-defense when Julio Jimenez was killed. Self-defense exists when the killing is committed in the lawful defense of the slayer when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design on the part of the person slain to do some great personal injury to the slayer, and there is imminent danger of such design being accomplished. A bare fear of such a threat shall not be sufficient to justify the killing. It must appear that the circumstances were sufficient to excite the fears of a reasonable person, and that the party killing really acted under the influence of those fears and not in a spirit of revenge. (Emphasis added.) The instruction quoted above is similar to that rejected in Culverson v. State, [23] in which we concluded that a reasonably perceived apparent danger as well as actual danger entitles a defendant to an instruction on self-defense. We stated in Culverson that [s]elf-defense may justify a homicide if a person reasonably believes that he is in danger of being seriously injured or killed by his assailant. [24] Like the discredited instruction in Culverson, the language in instruction 24, that [s]elf-defense exists when ... there is reasonable ground to apprehend [danger]... and there is imminent danger, may have tended to confuse the jury on the point of whether actual danger as opposed to apparent danger of death or great bodily harm was required for a valid assertion of self-defense to murder. At trial, the district court refused Pineda's self-defense instruction under Culverson that [s]elf-defense is a defense although the danger to life or personal security may not have been real, if a person in the circumstances and from the viewpoint of the defendant would reasonably have believed that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. We conclude that Pineda's proposed instruction correctly stated the law concerning real versus apparent danger in cases where a defendant seeks to assert self-defense. We also note that the proposed instruction is consistent with the sample instruction approved by this court in Runion v. State, [25] a decision rendered after the trial in this case. Under Culverson, the failure in the instruction process below mandates reversal. [26]