Opinion ID: 1302067
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: State v. Bennett

Text: Daun Bennett stabbed his former girlfriend, JoLayne Boston, 14 times and then shot her with her own gun. State v. Bennett, 87 Wash.App. 73, 75-76, 940 P.2d 299 (1997), review granted by State v. Studd, 134 Wash.2d 1010, 954 P.2d 276 (1998). Boston survived the attack. Bennett was thereafter charged in Snohomish County Superior Court with first degree attempted murder while armed with a deadly weapon. Bennett contended that he had acted in self-defense in an altercation with Boston during which he had tried to take Boston's gun away from her. As in Studd and Cook, Bennett requested instructions identical to WPIC 16.02 and 16.07 and the trial court acceded to his request. Bennett was convicted as charged and appealed. The Court of Appeals, Division One, affirmed, holding that the invited error doctrine did not preclude the defendant from raising the instructional error claim, because Bennett raised it under the guise of ineffective assistance of counsel due to his trial counsel having proposed an erroneous self-defense instruction. It held, however, that Bennett had received effective counsel because the instructions, read as a whole, accurately stated the law on self-defense. Bennett sought review, and we granted it.