State v. Hutchinson

By his own admission, Darrin Hutchinson killed two Island County Deputy Sheriffs in the county jail. He contended at trial that he shot the deputies in self-defense. Nevertheless, the jury convicted him of aggravated first degree murder. Washington’s Supreme *729Court, in State v. LeFaber, recently determined that the self-defense jury instruction given to Hutchinson’s jury was erroneous.1 That instruction did not require the jury to consider whether Hutchinson reasonably believed himself to be in imminent danger of great personal injury; it instead allowed the jury to reject self-defense upon…