Ruling on a legal issue at play in cases across the state, an appellate court ruled Sept. 5 that a new law on self defense applied retroactively to pending cases in which alleged crimes had already been committed.
Overturning a ruling by a Pima County Superior Court judge, a three-judge Tucson panel of the Arizona Court of Appeals said a murder defendant awaiting trial in a 2004 homicide can cite the new law in his trial.
The issue is already pending before the state Supreme Court because of an appeal filed in a Maricopa County case. The same issue is also being appealed in a Coconino County case.
The new law, which took effect immediately upon Governor Napolitano’s signature on April 24, is more favorable to defendants than a now-replaced statute.
Instead of making a defendant prove he or she acted in self defense by the relatively low standard of proof of more likely than not, the new law requires that prosecutors prove by the stiffer standard of beyond a reasonable doubt that a self-defense claim was unfounded.
In the ruling issued Sept. 5, the Court of Appeals said it appeared from legislative records that lawmakers intended it to be retroactive and that nothing in state law prevents that from being the case with the new self-defense statute.
The Supreme Court plans Sept. 26 to consider an appeal in the Maricopa County case.
The trial judge in that case ruled that the law applied retroactively to a pending case while the trial judges in the cases in Coconino County and Pima County said it did not.
In the Tucson case, David Garcia is charged with first-degree murder in the 2004 killing of Alexis Samaniego in an early morning shooting in an apartment.
The Coconino County case involved the since-concluded murder trial of Harold Arthur Fish, a retired Tolleson teacher who claimed self defense in the fatal shooting of another man during a 2004 confrontation on a hiking trail north of Payson. He was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Grant Kuenzli and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The Maricopa County case stems from a 2005 shooting in which Marcos Carrasco Mendez was charged with aggravated assault and unlawful discharge of a firearm. Another man was shot after two fistfights between him and Mendez at and outside a party.
FYI
The case is State vs. Garcia, 2 CA-SA 2006-0040.
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