CA · jury_instructions
CALCRIM No. 3476
Right to Defend Real or Personal Property
The owner [or possessor] of (real/ [or] personal) property may use
reasonable force to protect that property from imminent harm. [A
person may also use reasonable force to protect the property of a (family
member/guest/master/servant/ward) from immediate harm.]
Reasonable force means the amount of force that a reasonable person in
the same situation would believe is necessary to protect the property
from imminent harm.
When deciding whether the defendant used reasonable force, consider all
the circumstances as they were known to and appeared to the defendant
and consider what a reasonable person in a similar situation with similar
knowledge would have believed. If the defendant’s beliefs were
reasonable, the danger does not need to have actually existed.
The People have the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that
the defendant used more force than was reasonable to protect property
from imminent harm. If the People have not met this burden, you must
find the defendant not guilty of <insert crime>.
New January 2006; Revised April 2008
Provenance
- Source
- courts.ca.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-08-20
- Edition
- calcrim-2019
- Content hash
ae2957ced7f125965c2425e06ff4a91025671520011e063d8879d40ce7812490
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