In State v. Sanders, the defendant appealed his convictions of murder, unlawful possession of a weapon, and endangering an injured victim. The novel issue presented in the appeal was whether a claim of self-defense applied to a charge of endangering, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-1.2(a). Here, the victim swung at the defendant, who dodged the punch and stabbed the victim once in the chest with a knife. The New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed the trial court’s refusal to give a self-defense instruction for the endangering charge. The Appellate Division reviewed the legislative history supplemented by contemporaneous newspaper articles and ruled that the legislative history did not support an interpretation of the endangering statute that allowed self-protection as a defense to liability.
