The State - News from Sept. 11, 1987

A Stanislaus County murder conviction has been overturned on grounds that the judge failed to give jurors an instruction on self-defense. The jury found Reuben Duane Scott guilty of second-degree murder in the March 9, 1985, shooting death of Julio Morales. Scott was also found guilty of the attempted murder of Michael Tackett and assault with a deadly weapon on Andrew Lombrana during a dispute at a convenience store. “The murder conviction . . . must be reversed for failure to instruct the jury on an unreasonable but good faith belief in the necessity to defend,” the state’s 5th District Court of Appeal ruled in a decision filed in Fresno. The justices also reversed the attempted murder conviction because Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Hugh Rose III failed to instruct the jury that attempted voluntary manslaughter is an included offense in an attempted murder case.