| Court: | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
| Facts: | Mrs. Head shoots and kills Mr. Head. She asserts self-defense, but wanted to introduce evidence about other bad stuff he had done in the past. Denied: it wasn't sufficient to support a self-defense theory. So she didn't meet the threshold of showing that she had a reasonable belief she was preventing harm to herself, and therefore didn't get an instruction on self-defense. |
| Posture: | Guilty at trial, affirmed by court of appeals. |
| Issue: | What are the standards for admitting evidence in support of self-defense in first-degree intentional homicide? Can past bad acts be admitted? |
| Holding: | Reversed and remanded for new trial. |
| Rule: | For perfect self-defense, the defendant must satisfy an objective threshold that the belief of the need for force was reasonable. For imperfect self defense, the belief needs to be actual, but not necessarily reasonable. Evidence of prior bad acts can be the foundation of that actual belief. When imperfect self-defense is an issue, the state must prove that the defendant had no actual belief in immanent bodily harm, or no actual belief that the amount of force used was necessary. |
| Reasoning: | Harold's prior bad acts would have been a basis for an actual belief
in immanent danger, so they should have been allowed in establishing
the case on imperfect self defense.
Extremely lengthy reasoning. McMorris evidence seems to be the term for statements about a homicide victim's prior violent acts. Camacho was the prior rule (overturned here) stating that an objective threshold had to be met. |
| Dicta: | |