State v. Thomas

This case presents issues involving the duty to retreat between cohabitants and jury instructions in trials in which the criminal defendant asserts the battered woman syndrome as support for the defense of self-defense.

I

We first consider whether there is a duty to retreat when one is attacked in one’s own home by a cohabitant with an equal right to be in the home.

In Ohio, the affirmative defense of self-defense has three elements: (1) the defendant was not at fault in creating the violent situation, (2) the defendant had a bona fide belief that she was in imminent danger of death or great…