State v. Martinez, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2025). This appeal arose out of an inconsistent verdict by a jury that considered charges of murder, passion/provocation manslaughter, weapons charges, and other crimes not the subject of this published opinion by Judge Jacobs (other counts were addressed in the longer, unpublished version of this opinion). The jury had been charged as follows regarding self-defense:

“The State has the burden to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt the defense of self-defense. If the State carries its burden, then you must allow the defense [sic]. If the defense [sic] does not [] satisfy this burden, then you must find the defendant not guilty of murder and passion provocation manslaughter and go on to consider whether defendant should be convicted of the crimes of aggravated or reckless manslaughter” (brackets added by Judge Jacobs).

The jury found self-defense as to the murder charge but not as to the passion/provocation manslaughter charge, resulting in a guilty verdict on the latter charge. Judge Jacobs noted that “[w]here there is sufficient evidence to support a particular verdict, it is preserved, even if inconsistent with verdicts on other counts in a given indictment. Here, however, the inconsistency is untenable because reconciliation would violate a countervailing precept in our jurisprudence that ‘[s]elf-defense is a complete defense to homicide.’ State v. Macchia, 253 N.J. 232, 252 (2023).”

The panel then discussed the law of self-defense and concluded by holding that the jury charge “misstates the law. Instead, the jury charge should have instructed that if the jury were to find the State failed to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt as to any of the homicide offenses, then the jury should so designate and, accordingly, find defendant not guilty of all homicide offenses. The jury would then move on to consider the remaining charges, with the exception of the weapons offenses, since those counts are inextricably linked to each other and the homicide offenses.”

In other words, as Judge Jacobs reiterated, “when self-defense is established as to one category of homicide, it applies to all other categories of homicide charged or otherwise permitted for consideration as lesser-included offenses.” The panel thus reversed the conviction for passion/provocation manslaughter.