ANDREW BRANCA: MURDER EXPOSED! Karmelo Trial Exposes VICIOUS TRUTH!

MURDER EXPOSED! Karmelo Trial Exposes VICIOUS TRUTH!

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Now that the first couple of days of the Karmelo Anthony murder trial are past us, and we’ve had a chance to at least see reporting on the opening arguments of the prosecution and…

— Andrew Branca Show (@TheBrancaShow) June 5, 2026

11:05  Let's talk about self-defense.  So you're not normally allowed to go around and stab people in the heart right you just walk around and stab people in the heart that's just murder unless you do it in justified self-defense which is what Carmelo Anthony is trying to argue here, because what other defense would he have ?  Not an alibi defense.  We know it was him at the scene.  He's not claiming accident, "I tripped and fell. I just happened to have a knife in my hand.  Sorry about that."  That's a legal defense.  That's a legitimate legal defense.  He's not claiming insanity.  He's not claiming, "Well, I thought I was stabbing a space alien.  I didn't realize it was a human being.  I was out of my mind."  That's not happening.  The only legal defense here possible to be argued is self-defense so what's required for self-defense first of all you have to keep in mind that self-defense is what we would call a defensive confession and avoidance.  You're not saying it wasn't you.  You're saying the opposite of that. You're saying it was me.  In this case, I stabbed him but I did it in lawful self-defense. So you're confessing to the underlying conduct not necessarily to a crime, but you're confessing to the underlying conduct, and then you're saying "but that shouldn't be a crime because the way it was done was legally justified."

Politically energized cases with the politically favored party is in trouble, doesn't have the law on their side, 2) doesn't have the facts on their side, . . . there's an expression in the law.  When the law's on your side, you pound the law.  Emphasis on the law.  When the facts are on your side, you emphasize the facts; you pound the facts.  And when neither the law nore the facts are on your side, you pound the table.  You just get loud.  And you make shit up!  You make shit up!  And that's what's happening all over the place. 

Innocence

You can’t start the fight.

That’s the first element—you can’t have been the initial aggressor, and then justify your use of force as self-defense. Pretty simple, huh?  What could be more obvious than that, right?  You got this.

Often, however, whether you, in fact, started the confrontation can easily be a fact in dispute. Naturally, you’ll say the other guy was the initial aggressor. But that other guy—or his buddies—could say that you were. That kind of uncertainty is the “messy” part of this “simple” element.

Bottom line, if a prosecutor reviews your case and sees evidence that suggests you might have started the fight, you’ve just made yourself way more likely to be brought to trial on criminal charges, because now you look like a vulnerable target for conviction.

But starting (or appearing as if you started) the fight isn’t the only thing you must avoid, there’s also the second element:

Imminence

The law allows you to defend yourself from an attack that’s either happening or about to happen very soon, meaning within seconds. It’s not intended to justify vengeance for some past act of violence, nor to “stop” a speculative future attack that you have time to avoid by other means.

You can think of the element of imminence as a window that opens and closes. Before the window of imminence is open—before the threat is actually occurring or imminently about to occur—you can’t use defensive force. After the window of imminence has closed —after the threat is over—you again cannot use defensive force.

It’s only while that window of imminence is open that you can lawfully use defensive force.

Imminence has to do with when you can use defensive force, but what about how much defensive force you can use?  That has to do with the third element:

Proportionality

The law puts any use of force into one of two buckets: the non-deadly force bucket, or the deadly force bucket.

What qualifies as deadly force? Legally, deadly force is more broadly defined than only force that kills.  Force that can cause death is part of the definition, but deadly force also includes force that causes serious bodily injury, like maiming injuries, as well as rape.

What qualifies as non-deadly force? Non-deadly force is essentially all lesser degrees of force that cannot readily cause death or serious bodily injury.

If the threat you’re facing is non-deadly, then you’re only allowed to use non-deadly force in response. If the force you’re facing is deadly in nature, then you’re entitled to use deadly force OR non-deadly force to defend yourself.

If you respond with deadly force to an attacker using only non-deadly force, you’re using disproportional force, you’ve “lost the element of proportionality,” and you are not acting lawfully.

It’s essential to make sure you limit yourself to only the degree of defensive force that’s proportional to the threat you’re defending against.

But what about running rather than fighting?  Does the law require you to resort to flight before you can resort to fight? That brings us to the fourth element of self-defense law:

Avoidance

Could you have safely avoided the fight? That’s the question the fourth element addresses.

A minority of about 13 states impose a legal duty to run away, when you can do so safely, rather than fight.  These are called “duty-to-retreat” states.

The large majority of states do not impose such a legal duty to retreat, even if you could have done so with complete safety.  These are the “stand-your-ground” states.

In the minority 13 states that do impose a legal duty to retreat, however, failing to run when you safely could have is not lawful, loses you the required element of avoidance, and therefore loses you self-defense.

Even the duty-to-retreat states only impose that legal duty when retreat is possible with complete safety. That begs the question, however—was a completely safe avenue of retreat actually available under the circumstances facing that specific defender?

To put it another way, would a reasonable defender under attack have been aware that a safe avenue of retreat was available?  This leads us to the last of the five elements of self-defense law:

Reasonableness

I like to call this the “umbrella” element because it overlays the other four.

Everything that you perceive, decide, and do in defense of yourself or others must be reasonable and prudent, given the circumstances you faced, the information you knew, and your abilities (or disabilities).

Mistakes in self-defense are allowed, and a mistaken use of defensive force can still qualify as lawful self-defense. The bad guy’s “gun” turned out to be a toy? That’s not a problem for your defensive use of force against the apparent gun if perceiving it as a real gun was a reasonable belief under the circumstances.

Bottom line: We’re not required to make perfect decisions in self-defense, just reasonable ones.

What’s reasonable to one person may not be reasonable to another, however. This element of reasonableness is partly a reflection of the particular defender under the specific circumstances.  The reasonable perception of, and defensive options for, a defender who is young, healthy, and fit may well differ from the reasonable perceptions and defensive options of an elderly, ill, or disabled defender.