Supreme Court of Indiana Issues Landmark Ruling on Self-Defense

The Supreme Court of Indiana has issued a fascinating opinion on self-defense in Turner v. State, 2025 WL 782331 (Ind. 2025), framing the case as follows: “This is a case about a good guy with a gun shooting a bad guy with a gun when the only choices were to shoot or be shot.”

Here were the critical facts of the case:

Antonio Turner was one of three students studying organic chemistry at a classmate’s home, tucked away in a quiet neighborhood just outside of Indianapolis. While they were studying, the classmate’s jealous love interest, Dequan Briscoe, repeatedly called her. And when he learned Turner was at her home, Briscoe twice threatened to “pull up” on Turner—to attack him—which Turner heard over the speakerphone. Shortly after hearing the threat, Turner walked outside to his car, and moments later, he sensed that the unfamiliar car screeching towards him down the sleepy street was an ambush. Since he didn’t have time to reach the house and had nowhere to hide, he turned while running and fired four shots into the car, wounding Briscoe. Turner fired based on his intuition—he didn’t recognize the car, couldn’t see through its darkly tinted windows, and wouldn’t have recognized Briscoe if he saw him. But that intuition proved prescient. It turns out Briscoe was aiming a handgun to shoot Turner just before Turner began firing.

Because Turner shot Briscoe before Briscoe shot Turner, Turner is the defendant rather than the victim in this case; the State charged Turner with battery by means of a deadly weapon, a Level 5 felony. And following a bench trial, the magistrate judge convicted him. Yet the judge agreed with Turner that, in hindsight, it was necessary for Turner to fire at Briscoe to avoid being shot. But the judge rejected Turner’s self-defense justification because, without the benefit of hindsight, it was objectively unreasonable for Turner to fire at a car into which he couldn’t see. Turner made the best choice, the judge explained, and it was unfortunate that his only choices were a felony or funeral. But that paradox followed from the objective reasonableness standard governing Indiana’s self-defense law, and the law gave the judge no choice but to convict, he believed.

According to the court, the case involved an issue of first impression under Indiana law relating to when hindsight can help a defendant who claims self-defense. The court began by addressing settled law, noting that a hindsight analysis doesn’t harm a defendant who claims self-defense when it belies the defendant’s belief that he needed to protect himself:

[U]nder the self-defense statute, a person is justified in using force to defend against someone pointing an unloaded gun if the person in fear reasonably believes the gun is loaded. A cashier confronting an armed robber reasonably fears the gun is loaded. An actor filming a scripted shooting scene doesn’t. Thus, an actor mistakenly shooting in self-defense wouldn’t be justified, but a cashier shooting in self-defense would. That is so even though hindsight reveals the robber’s gun was unloaded, because the cashier’s belief was reasonable under the circumstances despite being mistaken.

This then took the court to the question of first impression: “Another question, though—and this is a matter of first impression in Indiana—is whether the factfinder should ignore hindsight when it confirms rather than belies the defendant’s belief.” The court then answered this question as follows:

We use hindsight to confirm the necessity of using defensive force, but not to second-guess the reasonableness of any mistake.

In other words, a defendant can claim self-defense based upon (1) an honest and reasonable fear of imminent serious bodily harm; or (2) responding to an actual imminent threat of serious bodily harm. Because the second part of this test doesn’t require a reasonable or honest belief and instead focuses upon necessity, hindsight can help the defendant by showing he faced an actual imminent threat.

Applying this test to the case at hand, the court concluded that Turner acted in self-defense:

Given the trial court’s factual conclusions, to which we defer, Turner’s actions were justified here. After considering all the evidence and weighing the witnesses’ credibility, the trial court concluded that Turner was telling the truth, and his conduct was necessary to protect himself. Turner’s choices, in the judge’s view, were either to shoot or be shot, because Briscoe was lying when he testified, and he had drawn his gun to shoot Turner just before Turner shot him first.

The judge assured Turner that he navigated the horns of a dilemma as best Turner could, recognizing: “if your choice was between being a convicted felon and being harmed, you probably made the right choice.”…But as we explained in the previous section, Indiana law does not force that dilemma. Instead, based on the judge’s factual determinations, Turner’s shooting was justified under Indiana law because (1) he was protecting himself from a threat of serious bodily harm; (2) the threat was imminent; (3) the threat required force for protection; and (4) the force Turner used was proportional to the threat—he shot at Briscoe to avoid being shot and then stopped shooting when Briscoe drove off. Turner’s use of force was justified not because his belief that he was about to be shot was reasonable but because that belief was correct, and force really was necessary to protect himself.

-CM