Norman was regularly beaten by
her husband. He did some pretty horrible things to her. One night, while
he was sleeping, she shot him three times in the back of the head, killing
him dead.
Norman claimed that the
shooting was in self-defense.
Norman's husband had beaten
her earlier in the day, but at the time she shot him he was sleeping
peacefully. Her life was not in immediate danger.
She had gone to the police
that day, but was too scared to file charges. She also could have left
while he was sleeping.
The Trial Court found Norman
guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
She appealed.
The jury was not given an
instruction about self-defense.
The Appellate Court overturned
the conviction and remanded for a new trial. The prosecutor appealed.
The Appellate Court found
that a jury could have reasonably found that Norman could have killed her
husband in self-defense even
though he was asleep at the time, and self-defense is only applicable when the defendant believes
there is a threat of imminent harm.
The Court suggested
expanding the term "imminent" to include the near future.
The North Carolina Supreme
Court reversed and upheld the conviction.
The North Carolina Supreme
Court reviewed the evidence and found that, at best, Norman may have
believed that it was necessary to kill her husband to save herself from
imminent harm.
That would be a subjective
standard.
However, under North
Carolina law, in order to prevail on a self-defense claim, the belief must be reasonable.
That's an objective
standard.
The Court found that a
reasonable person would not have felt that shooting a sleeping person was
the only way to save themselves from imminent harm. Therefore, the self-defense claim fails.
However, the Court noted
that there is an imperfect right of self-defense. That's when a person unreasonably believes that self-defense is justified.
Imperfect self-defense doesn't remove all culpability, it simply
reduces the charge from murder to voluntary manslaughter because the defendant is acting negligently, not intentionally and therefore lacks malice.
The Court found the lack of
a jury instruction about imperfect self-defense was harmless error, because they only
convicted Norman of voluntary manslaughter anyway.
Under Model Penal Code
§3.04(1), the standard for 'imminent'
has been relaxed a bit. In order to qualify for self-defense,
a defendant just needs to show that the use of defensive force was
"immediately necessary."
