The State of Washington v. Ryan J. O'Hara

Summary

The Washington Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the preservation rule: Ryan O'Hara's unpreserved complaint that his self-defense instruction defined 'malice' using only the first sentence of RCW 9A.04.110(12) is neither an error of constitutional magnitude nor manifest error, so it could not be raised for the first time on appeal under RAP 2.5(a). Along the way the court expressly abandoned LeFaber's per se rule treating any self-defense instruction error as constitutional and presumed prejudicial, replacing it with case-by-case analysis under the two-part manifest constitutional error test (truly of constitutional dimension, then actual prejudice shown by practical and identifiable consequences apparent on the record). Because the jury was instructed on every element, the State still bore the burden of disproving self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt, and instruction 4 allowed malice to be inferred from circumstances, the omission relieved nothing and was not reasonably obvious to the trial court. Justice Sanders dissented, agreeing that case-by-case review governs but finding this incomplete definition a manifest constitutional error on these facts and would have affirmed the Court of Appeals; Justice Madsen concurred in the result only.