Evans v. United States
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
277 F.2d 354 (1960)
The United States (plaintiff) charged Evans (defendant) with murder after eyewitnesses testified she stabbed the victim during a fight, though no one could say who started it. The victim was drunk, and Evans testified he had violently grabbed her and tried to sexually assault her. No other motive for the stabbing was ever offered. Evans tried to introduce testimony from the victim's own wife that he often drank and became belligerent, to bolster her self-defense claim, but the trial judge excluded it. The jury convicted Evans, and she appealed.
Whether evidence of a homicide victim's violent character is admissible to support the defendant's claim of self-defense, even where the defendant had no prior personal knowledge of that character.