Self-defense claims common in murder, assault cases

By: SCOTT MARSHALL - Staff Writer | Sunday, June 17, 2007 8:28 PM PDT ∞

NORTH COUNTY ---- Is it self-defense to shoot a man who is beating you with his fists?

How about if he's standing more than 25 feet away from you, wielding a baseball bat during an argument?

What if someone pulls a gun on you? Is it legal to shoot him first?

These are all questions that juries could tackle in three separate North County cases this year. The cases, all involving murder charges, have one thing in common: Each of the defendants claims he killed in self-defense.

Attorneys say self-defense is a relatively common defense in murder trials, but a jury's response to the tactic can be difficult to predict.

"It's all very subjective and boils down to what those 12 reasonable jurors are going to think," said Deputy Public Defender Larry Beyersdorf, the supervisor of the public defender's North County office in Vista.

Several factors can affect a jury's decision about whether a defendant's actions were justified because he was protecting himself or someone else from an immediate threat, some attorneys said.

But a key question for jurors is whether a reasonable person in the same situation would have acted the same way, Beyersdorf said.

Deputy District Attorney David Greenberg, who supervises the district attorney's office in Vista, said a third of the 15 murder cases pending in the North County ---- excluding gang and domestic violence cases, which are prosecuted by specialized units in the district attorney's office ---- involve self-defense issues, Greenberg said.

The success of self-defense arguments for murder defendants is unclear because juries often reduce the charges rather than issuing acquittals. Depending on the facts and law presented to juries in murder cases, jurors can decide whether a defendant is guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter, or not guilty of all charges.

"Acquittals aren't very often," Greenberg said. "Hopefully, we've ferreted those out so they didn't get tried."

The district attorney's office generally does not specify publicly the reasons for choosing not to pursue charges. But in the last several years, there have been cases in which charges were not filed because the office felt the accused were acting in self-defense, Greenberg said.

"The reality is, yes, there are cases we do not file because of self-defense," Greenberg said.

Three assert self-defense

Jason Lee Gillespie, Samuel Palava Santillan, Michael Ray Estrada are among those who are awaiting trial on murder charges and have asserted they were defending themselves.

At a preliminary hearing in March, a judge ruled that Gillespie, 29, should stand trial on a murder charge in connection with the Oct. 4, 2006, shooting death of Hieu Van Tran, 31, in Pauma Valley. Gillespie's attorney argued that a witness said Tran had a gun and was ready to shoot Gillespie, but a prosecutor countered that Tran had reached for a gun to defend himself after Gillespie first smacked him with the butt of a shotgun.

Just two months after Gillespie's hearing, Santillan, 20, was ordered May 29 to face trial in connection with the Dec. 19, 2006, shooting death of Mark Figueroa, 19, at Wildwood Park in Vista. Santillan's attorney argued that his client shot Figueroa after Figueroa used his fists to attack Santillan without provocation, but a prosecutor cited a legal precedent in California that says "a simple assault does not justify a homicide."

Judge Marguerite Wagner said at the conclusion of Santillan's hearing: "You can't shoot people in response to being hit."

In a different Vista courtroom just one day after Santillan's hearing, Estrada's self-defense argument also came up short as he was ordered to stand trial in connection with the Jan. 7, 2007, shooting death of Victor Hugo Arreola-Pablo, 32, at a Fallbrook apartment complex. Estrada's attorney argued the 26-year-old killed the baseball-bat wielding Arreola-Pablo in self-defense after the men exchanged words, but a prosecutor contended that it was not a justified killing because Arreola-Pablo was 28 feet away from Estrada.

'Reasonable' force required

A key question in the law of self-defense in murder cases is whether a defendant's actions were reasonable under the circumstances involved.

The legal instructions judges read to juries in California explain that a killing or an attempt to kill is justified if someone was defending himself or others. The law requires that a defendant in killing a person "reasonably believed" that he or someone else "was in imminent danger of being killed or suffering great bodily injury."

The law also requires that a person to believe he needs to use deadly force immediately to defend himself or someone else, and that the amount of force used was no more than necessary.

A person is allowed only to use "that amount of force that a reasonable person would believe is necessary in the same situation." Using more force than was reasonable makes a killing unjustified, the instruction states.

Juries take murder cases very seriously and assess self-defense claims case by case, Greenberg said.

"A lot of it comes down to the background and character of the victim and the background and character of the defendant," Greenberg said.

Mark Chambers, a criminal defense attorney based in Escondido, said the circumstances surrounding where the alleged crime occurred, the amount or repetition of the force used, the relationship between the people involved, and the actions of an accused person immediately after the alleged crime are factors that can affect whether a jury believes someone acted in self-defense.

Even if a jury decides that a defendant's use of force was unreasonable, it still may decide to convict that person of a less serious charge, Chambers said.

Legal instructions available for judges to provide to juries include a statement regarding a legal doctrine known as "imperfect self-defense," which was established in a state Supreme Court decision almost 30 years ago.

According to jury rules, a murder charge can be knocked down to voluntary manslaughter ---- which carries a lesser sentence --- if a defendant believed he was in life-threatening danger, even if that belief was unreasonable.

Deputy Alternate Public Defender Mary Ellen Attridge from the alternate public defender's Vista office said cases of imperfect self-defense come up more often and that in her career, she has never had a case with a "perfect self-defense" argument.

Standard similar for police

Whether the actions at issue were reasonable also is a key element in deciding whether law enforcement officials used deadly force appropriately.

Law enforcement officers have the same self-defense rights as others, but the law also allows them to use deadly force in some additional situations that average citizens don't encounter, such as during the arrest of a suspect who is resisting.

However, legal precedent from a federal appeals court also requires that the use of deadly force be "objectively reasonable under the circumstances," said Deputy District Attorney Richard Monroy, the chief of the district attorney's special operations unit, which reviews officer-involved shootings in the county.

"Law enforcement is trying to accomplish their duties and protect the rest of us, and the law is structured to allow them to carry out those duties," Monroy said, adding that the district attorney's office only decides whether criminal charges should be filed against an officer and does not weigh in on whether training or law enforcement agency policies are good or bad.

Bill Flores, a former assistant sheriff, now is spokesman for an organization of Latino rights groups known as El Grupo, which has raised questions about officer-involved shootings in Vista and elsewhere. Flores said while the law gives police and deputies more authority to use deadly force, that does not mean that use of deadly force is necessary in some cases in which it is used.

"You have to look at each situation and the totality of the circumstances to decide if they are justified," Flores said. "But John Q. Public doesn't have as much authority as law enforcement to use deadly force."

Contact staff writer Scott Marshall at (760) 631-6623 or smarshall@nctimes.com. Comment at nctimes.com.

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