## Facts

- Camp Harmony employees in Somerset County, New Jersey, gathered at the camp nursery on July 31, 1960, drank heavily, watched television, and engaged in roughhousing that became a fight.
- During the affray, Louis Walker and Roland Houle attacked William J. Edwards; Edwards suffered injuries, including an arm laceration.
- John Chiarello, awakened elsewhere on the premises, armed himself with a rifle and came to the scene.
- Chiarello testified he saw Walker and Houle kicking and choking Edwards while Edwards was on the ground, and he shouted for them to stop.
- Chiarello fired two shots, again told them to stop, and then fired two more shots when they continued; Walker and Houle were struck and seriously wounded but survived.
- Other evidence about events before Chiarello arrived could support a finding that deadly force was not actually necessary to protect Edwards and that Edwards himself might not have been justified in using deadly force under the circumstances as known to Edwards.
- Chiarello was convicted in county court of atrocious assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for the shootings.
- At trial, the jury was instructed that Chiarello’s justification depended on whether Edwards would have been legally justified in using the same force based on circumstances known to Edwards.

## Issues

1. Whether justification in defense of others depends on the person defended’s actual legal right to use such force (the “alter ego” rule) or on the defendant’s reasonable belief of necessity based on appearances to the defendant.
2. Whether the trial court’s instruction requiring the jury to assess justification from Edwards’s standpoint was prejudicial error requiring a new trial.

## Decision

- The Appellate Division reversed the convictions and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held the trial court’s “alter ego” instruction was prejudicially erroneous.
- The jury should have been instructed to evaluate justification based on Chiarello’s own reasonable belief, formed from what he knew and perceived at the time, about the necessity of force to protect Edwards.

## Legal Principles

- In defense of others, criminal justification turns on whether the defendant, in good faith, reasonably believed force was necessary to protect another from death or serious bodily harm.
- A reasonable but mistaken belief about the necessity of defending another can support justification; liability should not be imposed solely because later facts show the force was not actually necessary.
- An instruction that makes the intervenor’s justification depend on the defended person’s actual entitlement to use force, measured by that person’s knowledge, misstates the governing standard and can deny fair consideration of the defense.

## Conclusion

The court ordered a new trial because the jury was improperly told to judge defense-of-others by the defended person’s legal position rather than by whether the defendant reasonably believed deadly force was necessary based on the situation as it appeared to him.


State v. Chiarello, 69 N.J. Super. 479, 174 A.2d 506 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1961)