Unanimous decision overturns conviction in self-defense killing

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the murder conviction of a man who said he fatally shot a rival in self-defense.

The court, in a unanimous decision Thursday, ruled that the trial court wrongly advised the jury that using lethal force to defend oneself is only permissible if you cannot run away or escape the threat.

The decision came in a murder case from the Southern Oregon town of Merlin.

Leonard Sandoval, now 56, used a hunting rifle to shoot Jack Whitcraft, 47, on Sept. 27, 2001, after the men had stopped their vehicles on a rural road.

Sandoval and Whitcraft had a history of confrontations. Whitcraft was involved with Sandoval's former wife, Mary Carlson, who had sought a restraining order to keep Sandoval away.

The shot that killed Whitcraft crashed through the rear window of his pickup truck and into the back of his skull. After he was shot, Whitcraft fell out of his truck, his cocked pistol under him.

During the 2002 trial, defense attorney Steven Johnson emphasized that the two men hated each other, that Whitcraft was the one to stop along the road and that Whitcraft's truck rolled backward into Sandoval's vehicle before the shooting. He said Sandoval saw Whitcraft's gun and had a justifiable fear for his own life.

The Josephine County prosecutor said Sandoval intended to kill Whitcraft, and near the end of the trial, asked Circuit Judge Gerald C. Neufeld to give the following instruction to the jury:

“The danger justifying the use of deadly force must be absolute, imminent and unavoidable, and a necessity of taking human life must be actual, present, urgent and absolutely or apparently absolutely necessary. There must be no reasonable opportunity to escape to avoid the affray and there must be no other means of avoiding or declining the combat.”

The defense objected to the instruction, but Neufeld read it to the jury, which needed just 90 minutes to convict Sandoval.

Sandoval, who was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 25 years, appealed the jury instruction. The attorney general's office, representing the Josephine County district attorney, argued that the 1982 ruling in State v. George allows the instruction. In that case, the accused person had asked a judge to tell the jury that there was no escape-or-retreat clause in the self-defense law. The judge refused, and the Supreme Court ruling upheld the judge.

In Sandoval's case, the state Court of Appeals agreed with the reliance on the George case. But in Thursday's decision, the Supreme Court did not.

With its ruling, the Supreme Court threw out Sandoval's conviction and sent the case back to Josephine County. Lisa Turner, a deputy district attorney, said the office plans to retry Sandoval.