Indiana Defendants Get "Benefit of Hindsight When It Reveals Their Conduct Was Necessary in Self-Defense," …

A brief excerpt from Wednesday’s 11,000-word Indiana Supreme Court decision in Turner v. State, written by Justice Derek Molter:

This is a case about a good guy with a gun shooting a bad guy with a gun when the only choices were to shoot or be shot.

Antonio Turner was one of three students studying organic chemistry at a classmate’s home, tucked away in a quiet neighborhood just outside of Indianapolis. While they were studying, the classmate’s jealous love interest, Dequan Briscoe, repeatedly called her. And when he learned Turner was at her home, Briscoe twice threatened to “pull up” on Turner—to attack him—which Turner heard over the speakerphone.

Shortly after hearing the threat, Turner walked outside to his car, and moments later, he sensed that the unfamiliar car screeching towards him down the sleepy street was an ambush. Since he didn’t have time to reach the house and had nowhere to hide, he turned while running and fired four shots into the car, wounding Briscoe. Turner fired based on his intuition—he didn’t recognize the car, couldn’t see through its darkly tinted windows, and wouldn’t have recognized Briscoe if he saw him. But that intuition proved prescient. It turns out Briscoe was aiming a handgun to shoot Turner just before Turner began firing.

Because Turner shot Briscoe before Briscoe shot Turner, Turner is the defendant rather than the victim in this case; the State charged Turner with battery by means of a deadly weapon, a Level 5 felony. And following a bench trial, the magistrate judge convicted him. Yet the judge agreed with Turner that, in hindsight, it was necessary for Turner to fire at Briscoe to avoid being shot.

But the judge rejected Turner’s self-defense justification because, without the benefit of hindsight, it was objectively unreasonable for Turner to fire at a car into which he couldn’t see. Turner made the best choice, the judge explained, and it was unfortunate that his only choices were a felony or funeral. But that paradox followed from the objective reasonableness standard governing Indiana’s self-defense law, and the law gave the judge no choice but to convict, he believed.

Fortunately for Turner, that isn’t how Indiana’s self-defense law functions. To be sure, the judge was correct that the self-defense statute justifies using force when the defendant’s actions are objectively reasonable in the circumstances. And many cases explain we don’t use hindsight to second-guess the reasonableness of the defendant’s decisions in the heat of the moment.

But this case presents a question of first impression in Indiana: Do we deprive defendants of the benefit of hindsight when it reveals their conduct was necessary in self-defense, even though that necessity wasn’t fully apparent in the moment? The answer is that we do not, and we base that answer on a sentence in the self-defense statute that our Indiana appellate courts have never interpreted before, which says: “No person, employer, or estate of a person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.”

This, of course, is just a short excerpt; read the full opinion for more. And here’s an excerpt from Judge Christopher Goff’s concurrence in the judgment:

Should the merits of a self-defense claim depend on the defendant having acted with knowledge of the justifying circumstances, even if his conduct is objectively justified in hindsight? Facing this very question well over a century ago [in 1892], this Court held that a defendant who acted out of no apparent necessity to preserve life or limb may not “interpose the defense of self-defense” simply because it “subsequently appears that there was actual danger, of which he was at the time ignorant.”

The Court today reaches the opposite conclusion, holding sua sponte that, under an obscure and otherwise dormant provision of our self-defense statute, “Turner’s use of force was justified not because his belief that he was about to be shot was reasonable but because that belief was correct, and force really was necessary to protect himself.” Defendants like Turner, the Court opines, enjoy “the benefit of hindsight” when the evidence “reveals their conduct was necessary in self-defense, even though that necessity wasn’t fully apparent in the moment.”

In my view, the statutory provision on which the Court relies is less than clear. And its novel interpretation, I fear, will create uncertainty in the law, leading to potentially harmful consequences. What’s more, even if I were to agree with the Court’s interpretation, its holding rests on a flawed premise—there’s simply nothing in the record to support the conclusion that “Turner avoided being shot by Briscoe only by shooting Briscoe first.” For these reasons, and because I believe the Court’s novel statutory interpretation is entirely unnecessary to give Turner relief, I concur only in the Court’s judgment….

Finally, the Court’s novel interpretation of the statute, in my view, is entirely unnecessary to give Turner relief….

Indiana’s self-defense statute establishes “both an objective and subjective standard” to evaluate the reasonableness of a defendant’s belief that force was necessary to protect against the imminent use of unlawful force. Under the subjective standard, the defendant must have “actually believed” force was necessary. And under the objective standard, the defendant’s belief must be one that a “reasonable person” would form given the circumstances.

Applying these standards, the circumstances here, in my view, clearly justify Turner’s actions: he knew that Briscoe owned a gun; he overheard Briscoe make angry, profanity-laced remarks to Nyah (his study partner) over the phone; Briscoe threatened to “pull up on” Turner, which Turner understood to mean that he’d be “coming to harm” him; and, not long after that tense exchange, a vehicle sped up to Turner—its engine revving and tires squealing—just as Turner had walked away from his own car parked in the cul-de-sac of a suburban, residential neighborhood.

Though Turner couldn’t definitively say whether it was Briscoe in the car or whether Briscoe was pointing a gun at him, as the trial court stressed, the law didn’t require him to. The touchstone of self-defense is reasonable belief, not absolute certainty. And Turner testified that, given the circumstances, he believed it “had to be” Briscoe “pulling up,” that there was “[no] way it wasn’t.” In short, Turner wasn’t acting based on “threats alone,” as the trial court found, but, rather, on the circumstances before him at the time, which he reasonably believed placed him in grave danger….

Bryan L. Cook represents defendant.

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