Nov. 22 (UPI) -- A man convicted of murder will get a new trial after the Iowa Supreme Court ruled on Friday that a change to a "stand your ground" law does not protect those involved in criminal activity.
The 2018 murder conviction of Miguel Baltazar for the 2017 shooting of Jeffrey Mercado in Des Moines was reversed and remanded for a new trial. In an 11-page ruling, the court said the jury should have been better instructed in the language of Chapter 704 of the Iowa law, enacted a month earlier, which includes a revision to justification of self-defense. In his trial, Baltazar relied on self-defense as a motive for the shooting of Mercado.