## Facts

- Andrew G. Janes, age 17, lived for years in a household marked by severe, recurring abuse by his mother’s partner, Walter Jaloveckas, directed at multiple family members.
- Experts described Janes’s experience as long-term terror and diagnosed battered child syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder.
- On the night before the killing, Jaloveckas became angry, yelled at Janes’s mother, and later entered Janes’s room; Janes could not recall the exchange, while his mother reported a threatening tone.
- The next morning, Janes showed a friend a loaded shotgun and said he planned to shoot Jaloveckas; the friend stated Janes had made similar threats before.
- After attending school briefly and using marijuana, Janes returned home.
- When Jaloveckas arrived home from work that afternoon, Janes shot him twice in the head with a shotgun, killing him.
- Police responding to the scene were fired upon by Janes.
- At trial, the court admitted expert testimony on battered child syndrome and PTSD, but refused to instruct the jury on self-defense, citing insufficient evidence of Janes’s belief in imminent danger at the time of the shooting, including the time gap from the prior evening.

## Issues

1. Whether expert testimony on battered child syndrome is generally admissible to assist the jury in evaluating a claim of self-defense.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to require a self-defense instruction under Washington law, including the requirement of a reasonable apprehension of imminent danger of great bodily harm.

## Decision

- The Washington Supreme Court held that battered child syndrome is sufficiently accepted in the relevant scientific community to permit expert testimony, in appropriate cases, to assist the jury on self-defense.
- The court held that such evidence may inform the jury’s application of Washington’s reasonableness standard but does not change the legal elements of self-defense or remove the imminence requirement.
- Because the appellate record was inadequate to determine whether Janes produced “some evidence” of a reasonable apprehension of imminent danger at the time of the killing, the court remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.

## Legal Principles

- Expert testimony on a scientific theory is admissible under ER 702 when the theory is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community; the general-acceptance determination is reviewed de novo.
- Battered child syndrome evidence may be admitted to explain the psychological and physiological effects of prolonged abuse and to assist the jury in evaluating the defendant’s perception of danger in a self-defense claim.
- Self-defense under RCW 9A.16.050 is based on necessity and applies only while exigent circumstances create a need to defend; it does not justify retaliation or revenge.
- A defendant is entitled to a self-defense instruction upon producing “some evidence” of a reasonable apprehension of imminent danger of great bodily harm; the evidence need not independently create reasonable doubt.
- Reasonableness in self-defense is assessed from the standpoint of a reasonably prudent person knowing all the defendant knows and seeing all the defendant sees, incorporating both subjective and objective components.

## Conclusion

The court recognized battered child syndrome expert testimony as admissible to help juries assess self-defense claims in abuse contexts, but remanded for further proceedings because the record did not allow a final determination of whether the evidence required a self-defense instruction on imminence and reasonable apprehension.


State v. Janes, 121 Wn. 2d 220 (Wash. 1993)