David, J.
. . . After the evidence was presented, and over the State’s objection, the trial court agreed to give the jury a pattern instruction regarding the defense of another. Washington tendered the following instruction, which largely paralleled the instruction eventually given.
Defendant’s Tendered Instruction No. 2:
Use of force to defend another person is a legal defense.
A person is justified in using reasonable force against another person to protect a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force.
No person in this State shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting a third person by reasonable means necessary.
The State has the burden of disproving this defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
(App. at 101, 131; Tr. 239–40.) But Washington also tendered two additional instructions, both of which were refused by the trial court.
Defendant’s Tendered Instruction No. 3:
A man has a right to act upon appearance of actual and immediate danger if he sincerely believes such apparent danger exists. The danger need not be actual. It need be only apparent to a reasonable person under the circumstances. He will not be accountable for an error in judgment as to the need to use force or the amount of force necessary, provided he acted honestly. The law protects persons who feel compelled to act at such times even though in retrospect it is proved they have erred. The danger need not be actual but the belief must be in good faith and the reaction must be reasonable.
Defendant’s Tendered Instruction No. 4:
With regard to the defense of another, the existence of the danger, the necessity or apparent necessity of force, as well as the amount of force required to resist the attack can only be determined from the standpoint of the Accused at the time and under the then existing circumstances.
Ordinarily, one exercising the right to defense of another is required to act upon the instant and without time to deliberate and investigate, and under such circumstances a danger which exists only in appearance is as real and imminent to him as if it were actual.
A defender [sic] will not be accountable for an error in judgment as to the need to use force or amount of force necessary.
(App. at 102–03.) . . . The trial court found both instructions were cumulative and unnecessary in light of the instruction it gave.
Instruction No. 34:
It is an issue whether the Defendant acted in defense of another person.
A person may use reasonable force against another person to protect someone else from what the Defendant reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force.
No person in this State shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting a third person by reasonable means necessary.
The State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant did not act in defense of another person.
(App. at 131.) This instruction was based on the Indiana Pattern Jury Instruction for defense of another. See Ind. Pattern Jury Inst. 10.03A (Feb. 2013).
. . . .
In Littler v. State, 871 N.E.2d 276, 279 (Ind. 2007), we looked at other states’ self-defense statutes. Eighteen-year-old Neal Littler died from a gunshot wound suffered in a fight with his twin brother, Phillip. Id. at 276. We found helpful the words of the Alaska Supreme, where it recognized that self-defense comprises both a subjective and objective component:
[T]o employ self-defense a defendant must satisfy both an objective and subjective standard; he must have actually believed deadly force was necessary to protect himself, and his belief must be one that a reasonable person would have held under the circumstances.
. . . So again we emphasized that the phrase “reasonably believes” in the Indiana self-defense statute requires both a subjective belief that force was necessary to prevent serious bodily injury and that a reasonable person under the circumstances would have such an actual belief. Id.
While Littler was not a case focusing on jury instructions, it is helpful in our analysis of the components of a self-defense or defense of another instruction. It emphasizes that “reasonable belief” also includes what a reasonable person would believe if standing in the shoes of the defendant.
Similarly, in another case that did not necessarily look at jury instructions, we discussed the components of the self-defense statute. Hirsch v. State, 697 N.E.2d 37 (Ind. 1998). We highlighted the “standpoint of the defendant” language from French, and again emphasized that the language meant the jury should examine circumstances as they appeared to the defendant. But while the defendant’s own account is critically relevant, the standard is still the reasonableness of the belief of the defendant. We wrote:
Our decisions have long emphasized the central importance of the defendant’s testimony in a self-defense case: “The question of the existence of such danger, the necessity, as well as the amount of force necessary to employ to resist the attack can only be determined from the standpoint of the defendant at the time and under all the then existing circumstances.” French v. State, 273 Ind. 251, 254, 403 N.E.2d 821, 824 (1980) (quoting Martin v. State, 260 Ind. 490, 296 N.E.2d 793 (1973)). Focusing on the “standpoint of the defendant” means at least two things: (1) the trier of fact must consider the circumstances as they appeared to the defendant, rather than to the victim or anyone else; and (2) the defendant’s own account, although not required to be believed, is critically relevant testimony. As one early case put it:
[W]hoever relies upon appearances, and a reasonable determination upon such appearances, as a defence in a case of homicide, ought to be allowed to prove every fact and circumstance known to him, and connected with the deceased, which was fairly calculated to create an apprehension for his own safety. Any narrower rule than this would, we think, prove inadequate to full justice in all cases of homicide, and would in many cases, operate as a serious abridgement of the law of self-defence.
Boyle v. State, 97 Ind. 322, 326 (1884) (emphasis added).
Id. at 42, n.10. Indiana Pattern Jury Instruction 10.03A provides no less of an expression of that rule, and thus the instruction given in the present case by the trial court was a correct statement of the law.
. . . .
Washington’s tendered instruction no. 3 would have been superfluous because it contained language similar to the pattern jury instruction that was tendered. Therefore it was properly refused.
And Washington’s tendered instruction no. 4 focused solely on his perception of the danger he faced and thus did not constitute a correct statement of the law because it did not include anything about the reasonableness of his perception and belief as to the danger. It was therefore also properly refused.
Dickson, C.J., Rucker, Massa, and Rush, JJ., concur.