Barton v. State

In the early morning hours of June 9,1979, appellant shot and killed George Glen Hargrave. He claimed that he acted in self-defense — that Hargrave was advancing on him with a knife following an argument that the two of them had had a few minutes earlier; but a jury in the Criminal Court of Baltimore rejected that defense and convicted appellant of second degree murder and use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence.

Because the court gave an erroneous instruction to the jury that was critical to the issue of self-defense, and declined to give a proper instruction that was…