November 22, 2017
The Tennessee Supreme Court has issued a new opinion on the issue of when and under what circumstances the statutory "right" of self-defense is available. The opinion is State of Tennessee v. Antoine Perrier , W2015-01642-SC-R11-CD and was released on November 21, 2017.
As summarized by the Court, these are the issues:
We granted the defendant’s application for permission
to appeal in this case with direction to the parties to particularly
address the following issues: (1) the meaning of the phrase “not engaged
in unlawful activity” in the self-defense statute, Tennessee Code
Annotated section 39-11-611, and (2) whether the trial court or the jury
decides whether the defendant was engaged in unlawful activity. We hold
that the legislature intended the phrase “not engaged in unlawful
activity” in the self-defense statute to be a condition of the statutory
privilege not to retreat when confronted with unlawful force and that
the trial court should make the threshold determination of whether the
defendant was engaged in unlawful activity when he used force in an
alleged self-defense situation. We further conclude that the defendant’s
conduct in this case constituted unlawful activity for the purposes of
this statute. * * * * We affirm the judgments of the trial court and
the Court of Criminal Appeals, albeit on separate grounds.
The key holding of this case may be that the Court concluded that a
person who is not engaged in “unlawful activity” has no duty to retreat
(assuming all other factors are satisfied) before resorting to deadly
force in self-defense but that a person engaged in “unlawful activity”
is in a different circumstance and that such person has an affirmative
duty to retreat before resorting to deadly force in self-defense,
For more information and analysis, see the post commentary on the Tennessee Firearms Association's news feed.
This is a decision which points out the problems in current Tennessee statutory law and the need for change to this area that TFA has advocated for years.
Yours
John Harris
Executive Director
Tennessee Firearms Association
P.S. If
you want to wage in on the battle to elect someone to the office of
governor (there is only one who supports Constitutional Carry), the
State Senate and the State House in 2018 - candidates who put the
constitution first and who are true public stewards of your rights,
please take a moment and go to the TFA's PAC website and make a donation so that we can raise the funds to restore our rights.
TFA Website: www.tennesseefirearms.com
TFA PAC: www.tfalac.org
Facebook TFA Page: www.facebook.com/Tennfirearms/
Facebook TFA Group: www.facebook.com/groups/TennesseeFirearms/
Twitter: @Tennfirearms
|
