California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Carpio, B261698 (Cal. App. 2016):
It is not reasonably likely that the jury read CALJIC No. 5.31 to preclude its consideration of voluntary manslaughter on the ground of imperfect self-defense. CALJIC No. 5.31 by its terms addresses how to assess whether a defendant acted in perfect self-defense (not imperfect self-defense) (People v. Wittig (1984) 158 Cal.App.3d 124, 137), and is a correct statement of the law in that regard (People v. Rush (1960) 180 Cal.App.2d 885, 889-890). What is more, the trial court gave CALJIC No. 5.31 in the cluster of instructions regarding perfect self-defense (and before making any mention of imperfect self-defense), and CALJIC No. 5.31 refers to what a defendant "believes and a reasonable person in the same or similar circumstances would believe," which parallels the elements of perfect self-defense set forth in CALCRIM No. 505. Although we agree
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