Opinion ID: 2632308
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury instruction on the defense of necessity

Text: The trial court instructed the jury: It is not a defense under the law of necessity that the homicide was committed to prevent the victim from committing future wrongdoing against the defendant or another. The court erred in giving this instruction. No defense of necessity was presented, and no evidence was presented to support such a defense. The prosecutor offered the instruction out of concern that the jurors would on their own come up with such a defense and apply it in this case. But the jury was correctly instructed on the law of homicide and the defenses, and those instructions plainly excluded any defense of necessity. Instructions should not be unnecessarily complicated by telling the jury that a defense unclaimed by the defendant and excluded by the other instructions is inapplicable. The trial court's error in instructing on the defense of necessity was harmless, however, because defendant did not assert this defense. Defendant here argues that the instruction precluded the jury from considering evidence of the murder victim's abuse of her daughter Christina, defendant's girlfriend. The instruction, however, was limited to the defense of necessity, a defense that could, if present, lead to complete exoneration. It did not prevent the jury from considering the evidence of abuse in connection with defendant's argument that he killed in the heat of passion, or that he did not act with the motivation required for some of the special circumstancesthe main focus of the guilt trialor as mitigating evidence in the penalty phase.