Supreme Court of California

The trial court properly denied defendant's request for an instruction on unreasonable self-defense, where: 1) the doctrine of unreasonable self-defense is not available when belief in the need to defend oneself is entirely delusional; 2) defendants who mistakenly believed that actual circumstances required their defensive act may argue they are guilty only of voluntary manslaughter, even if their reaction was distorted by mental illness, but defendants who contend they killed in self-defense because of a purely delusional perception of threat must make that claim at a sanity trial; and 3) here, defendant's claim of unreasonable self-defense was based entirely on a delusional mental state that amounted to legal insanity.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/02/2014
• Published 06/02/2014

Judges

• CORRIGAN

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel