Justices Skeptical of Attempt to Limit Self-Defense Claims : The law: Several challenge attorney general’s contention that lawmakers and voters abolished certain doctrines when they changed requirements for proving murder. Case involves a youth who killed out of honest but unreasonable fear.

The California Supreme Court seemed skeptical Monday of an attempt to prevent defendants from escaping murder convictions when they kill out of an honest but mistaken conviction that their lives are in danger.

The so-called “imperfect self-defense” doctrine is a powerful tool for defense attorneys. Used typically by battered wives, the defense helped produce hung juries in the recent murder trial of Lyle and Erik Menendez.

Several justices indicated during oral arguments Tuesday that they did not accept the California attorney general’s contention that the state Legislature and voters intended to abolish such defenses when they changed the requirements for proving murder in the early 1980s.

“I cannot imagine something more in mitigation (in a killing) than the belief that my life is in danger,” said Justice Ronald M. George, “even if the belief turns out to be somewhat unreasonable.”

Murder defendants may be convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter if they can show they believed they were in imminent harm, as unreasonable as their fear might have been.

Without the defense, judges would be required to instruct juries to convict defendants of murder unless the killing occurred in clear self-defense or the heat of passion.

In the Menendez case, which is expected to be retried, defense lawyers claimed that the brothers killed their parents because they feared for their lives after years of physical and emotional abuse.

Justice Joyce L. Kennard cited a legislative committee report that said such defenses were not being abolished when the Legislature narrowed the legal requirements for proving murder in 1981. She also noted that a majority of states have found such defenses proper.

In the Orange County case before the court, a 16-year-old Dana Point boy shot and killed a reputed member of a skinhead gang who had threatened and harassed him for about a year.

The defendant, identified as Christian S., shot and killed Robert Elliott after Elliott chased him on the beach, threatening “to get” him for smashing his truck window. Although Elliott was not armed, he refused to retreat after Christian, trembling, pointed a gun at him. Witnesses testified that Christian had been terrified of Elliott.

A judge convicted the boy of second-degree murder, but a Court of Appeal in Santa Ana reduced the conviction to manslaughter. The court held that Christian S. had an “honest but unreasonable fear of immediate harm.”

Justice Marvin R. Baxter noted that eliminating the legal doctrine of imperfect self-defense could actually hinder prosecutors. Taking the hypothetical case of a woman who repels an attempted rape by killing an unarmed assailant, Baxter said a jury might acquit her if the only other option is murder.

But Deputy Atty. Gen. Garrett Beaumont argued that the hypothetical defendant could still claim self-defense. He said defendants who claim they killed out of an unreasonable fear for their lives may actually be more dangerous than contract killers.

Santa Monica attorney Stephen Gilbert, representing Christian S., contended the case was “a victims’ rights case.” After the arguments, he said in a brief interview that he was “cautiously optimistic” that the court will rule in favor of his client.

The court will issue an opinion in the case within 90 days.