On May 6, 2025, a unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court decided the Mercer County case of State v. John Bragg. The principal issue under N.J.S.A. 2C:3-4 concerned self-defense and whether the jury was properly instructed on the “castle doctrine.”
Chief Justice Rabner wrote for the Court in relevant part: Both sides to the violent fight in this case testified that they acted in self-defense. Defendant admitted he attacked Fletcher and Anderson with a knife but claimed he acted in response to their violent attacks against him. He testified that he had “no choice but to defend himself.”
The State suggested defendant was obliged to retreat rather than use deadly force. It raised the issue in its cross-examination of defendant and stressed the theme in closing argument. The prosecutor asked the defendant many times about whether he ran out of the apartment rather than continue to fight. And counsel directly asked the jury, “why would he not just run out of the apartment?”
The trial court, as noted above, instructed the jury on the duty to retreat in part as follows: “If you find that the defendant knew he could avoid the necessity of using deadly force by retreating, provided that the defendant knew he could do so with complete safety, then the defense is not available to him.” But the jury was not told about the exception to the duty to retreat. Whether the exception applied depended on two issues: Was defendant in his dwelling? And was he the initial aggressor? See N.J.S.A. 2C:3-4(b)(2)(b)(i).
As discussed earlier, “dwelling” is broadly defined by statute. It includes “any building or structure which is for the time being the actor’s home or place of lodging.” N.J.S.A. 2C:3-11(c) (emphases added). The text of the statute draws from the Model Penal Code, which also comments on the expansive meaning of the term “dwelling.” See MPC § 3.11 cmt. 3.
Evidence in the record supported the defendant’s claim that the apartment was his dwelling. He testified that he had an informal sublease with the apartment’s tenant. And other witnesses supported his claim that he lived in the apartment. Anderson stated that he knew the defendant was staying there. Both Anderson and Fletcher testified defendant had a key to the apartment. Plus, the police officers who responded confirmed there was an air mattress, clothing, cookware, and toiletries in the apartment. To counter defendant’s claim, the State pointed to the apartment’s sparse furnishings and mail addressed to a third party inside the unit.
There was also disputed testimony about who the initial aggressor was. Each side accused the other of starting the fight, and each had injuries to support their claim.
Both disputed factual issues were for the jury to decide. But the jury was not asked to resolve them. Nor did the jury receive any guidance about the significance of either issue or the overall exception to the duty to retreat. Without that information, the jury was clearly capable of finding that defendant was required to retreat rather than use deadly force. Yet a proper instruction was just as capable of leading jurors to conclude the defendant had no such obligation and could stand his ground and defend himself if he was attacked.
In addition, we cannot look to other counts of conviction to determine whether the jury concluded defendant was the aggressor. Self-defense did not apply to the kidnapping counts the Appellate Division alluded to. They required the jury to assess, among other things, whether the defendant unlawfully confined a victim. See N.J.S.A. 2C:13-1(b). That question does not ask whether the defendant was the aggressor. Defendant’s convictions for endangering and harassment likewise do not establish whether he was the aggressor for purposes of attempted murder, aggravated assault, or weapons offenses.
Even if we could look to other counts, we could not assume the jury’s verdict would necessarily have been consistent. See State v. Banko (2004) (noting that courts “must accept arguably inconsistent verdicts, and decline to speculate on” how jurors reach a verdict); State v. Goodwin (2016) (same).
Under the circumstances, we find that the failure to instruct the jury on the exception to the duty to retreat sufficiently raises “a reasonable doubt as to whether the error led the jury to a result it otherwise might not have reached.”
The State’s reference to “sparse furnishings” would have also signaled to jurors that the defendant was indigent. That would unduly prejudice him in the eyes of many jurors. Defense counsel would then have to weigh the upside of requesting a limiting instruction with the downside of that instruction potentially compounding the undue prejudice by drawing the jury’s attention to his indigence and distracting from other issues.
