On June 28, Gov. Tom Corbett signed into law Pennsylvania’s first legislative reform to the law of self-defense since 18 Pa. C.S.A. § 505 was enacted in 1972. House Bill 20 of the 2011 session, which became effective Aug. 27, modified 18 Pa. C.S.A. § 505, which, for more than 35 years, was the codification of common-law self-defense.
Under the 1972 version of § 505, in order to secure a self-defense jury instruction the facts had to establish that the slayer was the non-aggressor; possessed a reasonable fear of imminent death; and did not violate a duty to retreat. The new law renounces a mere codification of the common-law defense and substantively changes the self-defense landscape in four major ways.
