The state’s high court, in a 4–2 decision, found that a person who is being attacked or threatened must retreat if ’reasonably possible’
The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in a split decision that a person who is being attacked or threatened must retreat if “reasonably possible” instead of brandishing a weapon.
The court upheld two second-degree convictions of assault with a deadly weapon against a man who was armed with a machete who alleged that he was threated by another man with a knife at a light rail station in Minneapolis in 2021.
A 4–2 decision, issued Wednesday by the state’s high court, said that Minnesota law stipulates that there is a “duty to retreat” when reasonably possible before using deadly force. That applies when the person faces bodily harm, the judges ruled.
In its decision Wednesday, the state court wrote that the “duty to retreat when reasonably possible—a judicially created element of self-defense—applies to persons who claim they were acting in self-defense when they committed the felony offense of second-degree assault-fear with a device designed as a weapon and capable of producing death or great bodily harm.”
The plaintiff in the case, Earley Romero Blevins, brandished a machete after a man with a knife allegedly threated him at a rail station in Minnesota. The man approached Blevins as he was arguing with a woman, according to Blevins, who said that the man armed with the knife told him to come to a shelter at the station so he “could slice” his throat.
Blevins had argued that he feared for his life and was acting in self-defense when he produced the machete, according to the ruling. The justices, however, said that after they reviewed video footage of the incident, they found that he had ample opportunity to leave the situation.
Blevins further said that he was trying to fend off three people, including the woman he was arguing with and the man who threatened him with a knife as well as another man. Blevins said that he waved his macheted at the three until they left. No one was injured in the incident.
“When viewed in a light most favorable to the verdict, the direct evidence from the security videos presented at trial disproves beyond a reasonable doubt Blevins’s claim that it was not reasonably possible for him to retreat,” Chutich wrote.
In a dissent, Justice Paul Thissen suggested that the majority’s opinion on self-defense in Minnesota is tantamount to overreach and unrealistic.
“The court holds that a person under attack must always find and exercise a reasonable opportunity to retreat before threatening force with certain weapons (but apparently not others) to deter the attacker,” his dissent said. “Not only is the court’s decision divorced from the statutory text and unprecedented in the United States; it also flies in the face of human nature.”
The state Supreme Court’s majority ruling, he wrote, has taken the “law of self-defense into uncharted waters,” adding that it is “not only unprecedented in this state” but has “never been adopted anywhere” else in the United States.
“Until now, the collective wisdom of judges nationwide over hundreds of years has never imposed a duty to retreat before making threats to deter an aggressor,” Thissen added.
At least 28 states and Puerto Rico have laws that say there is no duty to retreat from an attacker in any location in which a person is lawfully present, according to an analysis from the National Conference of State Legislatures. At least ten of those states go a step further and allow a person to stand their ground, it found.
In the dissent, Thissen wrote that he would instead have juries determine whether a person used reasonable force in an incident or not, saying that with Wednesday’s order, only judges can make such a decision.
“When one considers the duty to retreat as encouraging people to deescalate dangerous situations, requiring retreat before using force (certainly lethal force) to harm someone is justified,” his dissent said. “Whether it is reasonable to require in all circumstances that a person retreat if reasonably possible before using the threat of force to deescalate the situation or create better opportunities to escape is a much different question best left to the jury.”
